Philip, who had been heard earlier singing and yelling drunkenly in the main hall, bursts into the cozy scene & embarrasses Alexander with his nakedness and verbal abuse of Olympias. Olympias responds with mockery of Philip's other lovers, his period as a hostage in Thebes, and the insinuation that Alexander is in fact not Philip's biological son. Phililp throws Alexander from the room, where he is comforted by a guard. Alexander claims he will murder his father when he's old enough, but the guard warns that it would be a sin, and tells Alexander that being abused will toughen him up for the aristocratic male rites of passage of murdering a wild boar and murdering a man. The guard also tells Alexander the tale of Heracles killing snakes as a baby, starting a lifelong fascination with Heracles in Alexander.