LYSISTRATA

Translated from the Greek of

ARISTOPHANES

Illustrations by Norman Lindsay

FOREWORD

Lysistrata is the greatest work by Aristophanes. This blank and
rash statement is made that it may be rejected. But first let it be
understood that I do not mean it is a better written work than the Birds
or the Frogs, or that (to descend to the scale of values that will
be naturally imputed to me) it has any more appeal to the collectors of
“curious literature” than the Ecclesiazusae or the Thesmophoriazusae.
On the mere grounds of taste I can see an at least equally good case made
out for the Birds. That brightly plumaged fantasy has an aerial wit
and colour all its own. But there are certain works in which a man finds
himself at an angle of vision where there is an especially felicitous
union of the aesthetic and emotional elements which constitute the basic
qualities of his uniqueness. We recognize these works as being welded into
a strange unity, as having a homogeneous texture of ecstasy over them that
surpasses any aesthetic surface of harmonic colour, though that harmony
also is understood by the deeper welling of imagery from the core of
creative exaltation. And I think that this occurs in Lysistrata.
The intellectual and spiritual tendrils of the poem are more truly
interwoven, the operation of their centres more nearly unified; and so the
work goes deeper into life. It is his greatest play because of this,
because it holds an intimate perfume of femininity and gives the finest
sense of the charm of a cluster of girls, the sweet sense of their
chatter, and the contact of their bodies, that is to be found before
Shakespeare, because that mocking gaiety we call Aristophanies reaches
here its most positive acclamation of life, vitalizing sex with a deep
delight, a rare happiness of the spirit.

Indeed it is precisely for these reasons that it is not considered
Aristophanes’ greatest play.

To take a case which is sufficiently near to the point in question, to
make clear what I mean: the supremacy of Antony and Cleopatra in
the Shakespearean aesthetic is yet jealously disputed, and it seems silly
to the academic to put it up against a work like Hamlet. But it is
the comparatively more obvious achievement of Hamlet, its surface
intellectuality, which made it the favourite of actors and critics. It is
much more difficult to realize the complex and delicately passionate edge
of the former play’s rhythm, its tides of hugely wandering emotion, the
restless, proud, gay, and agonized reaction from life, of the blood, of
the mind, of the heart, which is its unity, than to follow the relatively
straightforward definition of Hamlet’s nerves. Not that anything
derogatory to Hamlet or the Birds is intended; but the value
of such works is not enhanced by forcing them into contrast with other
works which cover deeper and wider nexus of aesthetic and spiritual
material. It is the very subtlety of the vitality of such works as Antony
and Cleopatra and Lysistrata that makes it so easy to
undervalue them, to see only a phallic play and political pamphlet in one,
only a chronicle play in a grandiose method in the other. For we have to
be in a highly sensitized condition before we can get to that subtle point
where life and the image mix, and so really perceive the work at all;
whereas we can command the response to a lesser work which does not call
so finely on the full breadth and depth of our spiritual resources.

I amuse myself at times with the fancy that Homer, Sappho, and
Aristophanes are the inviolable Trinity of poetry, even to the extent of
being reducible to One. For the fiery and lucid directness of Sappho, if
her note of personal lyricism is abstracted, is seen to be an element of
Homer, as is the profoundly balanced humour of Aristophanes, at once
tenderly human and cruelly hard, as of a god to whom all sympathies and
tolerances are known, but who is invulnerable somewhere, who sees from a
point in space where the pressure of earth’s fear and pain, and so its
pity, is lifted. It is here that the Shakespearean and Homeric worlds
impinge and merge, not to be separated by any academic classifications.
They meet in this sensitivity equally involved and aloof, sympathetic and
arrogant, suffering and joyous; and in this relation we see Aristophanes
as the forerunner of Shakespeare, his only one. We see also that the whole
present aesthetic of earth is based in Homer. We live and grow in the
world of consciousness bequeathed to us by him; and if we grow beyond it
through deeper Shakespearean ardours, it is because those beyond are
rooted in the broad basis of the Homeric imagination. To shift that basis
is to find the marshes of primitive night and fear alone beneath the feet:
Christianity.

And here we return to the question of the immorality of Lysistrata.
First we may inquire: is it possible for a man whose work has so
tremendous a significance in the spiritual development of mankind–and I
do not think anyone nowadays doubts that a work of art is the sole
stabilizing force that exists for life–is it possible for a man who
stands so grandly at head of an immense stream of liberating effort to
write an immoral work? Surely the only enduring moral virtue which can be
claimed is for that which moves to more power, beauty and delight in the
future? The plea that the question of changing customs arises is not
valid, for customs ratified by Aristophanes, by Rabelais, by Shakespeare,
have no right to change. If they have changed, let us try immediately to
return from our disgraceful refinements to the nobler and more rarefied
heights of lyric laughter, tragic intensity, and wit, for we cannot have
the first two without the last. And anyhow, how can a social custom claim
precedence over the undying material of the senses and the emotions of
man, over the very generating forces of life?

How could the humanistic emotions, such as pity, justice, sympathy, exist
save as pacifistic quietings of the desire to slay, to hurt, to torment.
Where the desire to hurt is gone pity ceases to be a significant, a
central emotion. It must of course continue to exist, but it is displaced
in the spiritual hierarchy; and all that moves courageously, desirously,
and vitally into the action of life takes on a deeper and subtler
intention. Lust, then, which on the lower plane was something to be very
frightened of, becomes a symbol of the highest spirituality. It is right
for Paul to be terrified of sex and so to hate it, because he has so
freshly escaped a bestial condition of life that it threatens to plunge
him back if he listens to one whisper But it is also right for a
Shakespeare to suck every drop of desire from life, for he is building
into a higher condition, one self-willed, self- responsible, the
discipline of which comes from joy, not fear.

Sex, therefore, is an animal function, one admits, one insists; it may be
only that. But also in the bewildering and humorous and tragic duality of
all life’s energies, it is the bridge to every eternity which is not
merely a spectral condition of earth disembowelled of its lusts. For sex
holds the substance of the image. But we must remember with Heine that
Aristophanes is the God of this ironic earth, and that all argument is
apparently vitiated from the start by the simple fact that Wagner and a
rooster are given an analogous method of making love. And therefore it
seems impeccable logic to say that all that is most unlike the rooster is
the most spiritual part of love. All will agree on that, schisms only
arise when one tries to decide what does go farthest from the bird’s
automatic mechanism. Certainly not a Dante-Beatrice affair which is only
the negation of the rooster in terms of the swooning bombast of
adolescence, the first onslaught of a force which the sufferer cannot
control or inhabit with all the potentialities of his body and soul. But
the rooster is troubled by no dreams of a divine orgy, no carnival-loves
like Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, no heroic and shining lust
gathering and swinging into a merry embrace like the third act of Siegfried.
It is desire in this sense that goes farthest from the animal.

Consciously, no one can achieve the act of love on earth as a completed
thing of grace, with whatever delirium of delight, with whatever ingenious
preciosity, we go through its process. Only as an image of beauty mated in
some strange hermaphroditic ecstasy is that possible. I mean only as a
dream projected into a hypothetical, a real heaven. But on earth we cannot
complete the cycle in consciousness that would give us the freedom of an
image in which two identities mysteriously realize their separate unities
by the absorption of a third thing, the constructive rhythm of a work of
art. It is thus that Tristan and Isolde become wholly distinct
individuals, yet wholly submerged in the unity that is Wagner; and so
reconcile life’s duality by balancing its opposing laughters in a definite
form–thereby sending out into life a profounder duality than existed
before. A Platonic equipoise, Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence–the only
real philosophic problem, therefore one of which these two philosophers
alone are aware.

But though Wagner with Mathilde Wesendonck in his arms was Tristan in the
arms of Isolde, he did not find a melody instead of a kiss on his lips; he
did not find a progression of harmonies melting through the contours of a
warm beauty with a blur of desperate ecstasies, semitones of desire, he
found only the anxious happiness of any other lover. Nevertheless, he was
gathering the substance of the second act of Tristan und Isolde.
And it is this that Plato means when he says that fornication is something
immortal in mortality. He does not mean that the act itself is a godlike
thing, a claim which any bedroom mirror would quickly deride. He means
that it is a symbol, an essential condition, and a part of something that
goes deeper into life than any geometry of earth’s absurd, passionate,
futile, and very necessary antics would suggest.

It is a universal fallacy that because works like the comedies of
Aristophanes discuss certain social or ethical problems, they are inspired
by them. Aristophanes wrote to express his vision on life, his delight in
life itself seen behind the warping screen of contemporary event; and for
his purposes anything from Euripides to Cleon served as ground work. Not
that he would think in those terms, naturally: but the rationalizing
process that goes on in consciousness during the creation of a work of
art, for all its appearance of directing matters, is the merest
weathercock in the wind of the subconscious intention. As an example of
how utterly it is possible to misunderstand the springs of inspiration in
a poem, we may take the following remark of B. B. Rogers: It is much to
be regretted that the phallus element should be so conspicuous in this
play…. (This) coarseness, so repulsive to ourselves, was introduced, it
is impossible to doubt, for the express purpose of counter-balancing the
extreme earnestness and gravity of the play. It seems so logical, so
irrefutable; and so completely misinterprets every creative force of
Aristophanes’ Psyche that it certainly deserves a little admiration. It is
in the best academic tradition, and everyone respects a man for writing so
mendaciously. The effort of these castrators is always to show that the
parts considered offensive are not the natural expression of the poet,
that they are dictated externally. They argue that Shakespeare’s
coarseness is the result of the age and not personal predilection,
completely ignoring the work of men like Sir Philip Sidney and Spenser,
indeed practically all the pre-Shakespearean writers, in whom none of this
so-called grossness exists. Shakespeare wrote sculduddery because he liked
it, and for no other reason; his sensuality is the measure of his
vitality. These liars pretend similarly that because Rabelais had a
humanistic reason for much of his work–the destructior Mediaevalism, and
the Church, which purpose they construe of course as an effort to purify,
etc.–therefore he only put the lewdery to make the rest palatable, when
it should be obvious even to an academic how he glories in his wild
humour.

What the academic cannot understand is that in such works, while attacking
certain conditions, the creative power of the vigorous spirits is so great
that it overflows and saturates the intellectual conception with their own
passionate sense of life. It is for this reason that these works have an
eternal significance. If Rabelais were merely a social reformer, then the
value of his work would not have outlived his generation. If Lysistrata
were but a wise political tract, it would have merely an historical
interest, and it would have ceased spiritually at 404 B.C.

But Panurge is as fantastic and fascinating a character now as he was 300
years ago, Lysistrata and her girls as freshly bodied as any girl kissed
to-day. Therefore the serious part of the play is that which deals with
them, the frivolous part that in which Rogers detects gravity and
earnestness.

Aristophanes is the lord of all who take life as a gay adventure, who defy
all efforts to turn life into a social, economic, or moral abstraction. Is
it therefore just that the critics who, by some dark instinct, unerringly
pick out the exact opposite of any creator’s real virtues as his chief
characteristics, should praise him as an idealistic reformer? An “ideal”
state of society was the last thing Aristophanes desired. He wished,
certainly, to eliminate inhumanities and baseness; but only that there
might be free play for laughter, for individual happiness.

Consequently the critics lay the emphasis on the effort to cleanse
society, not the method of laughter. Aristophanes wished to destroy Cleon
because that demagogue failed to realize the poet’s conception of
dignified government and tended to upset the stability of Hellas. But it
was the stability of life, the vindication of all individual freedoms, in
which he was ultimately interested.

JACK LINDSAY.

LYSISTRATA

The Persons of the drama.

LYSISTRATA stands alone with the Propylaea at her back.

LYSISTRATA

If they were trysting for a Bacchanal,
A feast of Pan or Colias or
Genetyllis,
The tambourines would block the rowdy streets,
But
now there’s not a woman to be seen
Except–ah, yes–this neighbour of
mine yonder.

Enter CALONICE.

Good day Calonice.

CALONICE

Good day Lysistrata.
But what has vexed you so? Tell me, child.
What are these black looks for? It doesn’t suit you
To knit your
eyebrows up glumly like that.

LYSISTRATA

Calonice, it’s more than I can bear,
I am hot all over with blushes
for our sex.
Men say we’re slippery rogues–

CALONICE

And aren’t they right?

LYSISTRATA

Yet summoned on the most tremendous business
For deliberation, still
they snuggle in bed.

CALONICE

My dear, they’ll come. It’s hard for women, you know,
To get away.
There’s so much to do;
Husbands to be patted and put in good tempers:
Servants to be poked out: children washed
Or soothed with lullays or
fed with mouthfuls of pap.

LYSISTRATA

But I tell you, here’s a far more weighty object.

CALONICE

What is it all about, dear Lysistrata,
That you’ve called the women
hither in a troop?
What kind of an object is it?

LYSISTRATA

A tremendous thing!

CALONICE

And long?

LYSISTRATA

Indeed, it may be very lengthy.

CALONICE

Then why aren’t they here?

LYSISTRATA

No man’s connected with it;
If that was the case, they’d soon come
fluttering along.
No, no. It concerns an object I’ve felt over
And turned this way and that for sleepless nights.

CALONICE

It must be fine to stand such long attention.

LYSISTRATA

So fine it comes to this–Greece saved by Woman!

CALONICE

By Woman? Wretched thing, I’m sorry for it.

LYSISTRATA

Our country’s fate is henceforth in our hands:
To destroy the
Peloponnesians root and branch–

CALONICE

What could be nobler!

LYSISTRATA

Wipe out the Boeotians–

CALONICE

Not utterly. Have mercy on the eels!
[Footnote: The Boeotian eels
were highly esteemed delicacies in Athens.]

LYSISTRATA

But with regard to Athens, note I’m careful
Not to say any of these
nasty things;
Still, thought is free…. But if the women join us
From Peloponnesus and Boeotia, then
Hand in hand we’ll rescue Greece.

CALONICE

How could we do
Such a big wise deed? We women who dwell
Quietly
adorning ourselves in a back-room
With gowns of lucid gold and gawdy
toilets
Of stately silk and dainty little slippers….

LYSISTRATA

These are the very armaments of the rescue.
These crocus-gowns, this
outlay of the best myrrh,
Slippers, cosmetics dusting beauty, and
robes
With rippling creases of light.

CALONICE

Yes, but how?

LYSISTRATA

No man will lift a lance against another–

CALONICE

I’ll run to have my tunic dyed crocus.

LYSISTRATA

Or take a shield–

CALONICE

I’ll get a stately gown.

LYSISTRATA

Or unscabbard a sword–

CALONICE

Let me buy a pair of slipper.

LYSISTRATA

Now, tell me, are the women right to lag?

CALONICE

They should have turned birds, they should have grown
wings and
flown.

LYSISTRATA

My friend, you’ll see that they are true Athenians:
Always too late.
Why, there’s not a woman
From the shoreward demes arrived, not one
from Salamis.

CALONICE

I know for certain they awoke at dawn,
And got their husbands up if
not their boat sails.

LYSISTRATA

And I’d have staked my life the Acharnian dames
Would be here first,
yet they haven’t come either!

CALONICE

Well anyhow there is Theagenes’ wife
We can expect–she consulted
Hecate.
But look, here are some at last, and more behind them.
See … where are they from?

CALONICE

From Anagyra they come.

LYSISTRATA

Yes, they generally manage to come first.

Enter MYRRHINE.

MYRRHINE

Are we late, Lysistrata? … What is that?
Nothing to say?

LYSISTRATA

I’ve not much to say for you,
Myrrhine, dawdling on so vast an
affair.

MYRRHINE

I couldn’t find my girdle in the dark.
But if the affair’s so
wonderful, tell us, what is it?

LYSISTRATA

No, let us stay a little longer till
The Peloponnesian girls and the
girls of Bocotia
Are here to listen.

MYRRHINE

That’s the best advice.
Ah, there comes Lampito.

Enter LAMPITO.

LYSISTRATA

Welcome Lampito!
Dear Spartan girl with a delightful face,
Washed with the rosy spring, how fresh you look
In the easy stride of
your sleek slenderness,
Why you could strangle a bull!

LAMPITO

I think I could.
It’s frae exercise and kicking high behint.

[Footnote: The translator has put the speech of the Spartan characters
in Scotch dialect which is related to English about as was the Spartan
dialect to the speech of Athens. The Spartans, in their character,
anticipated the shrewd, canny, uncouth Scotch highlander of modern
times.]

LYSISTRATA

What lovely breasts to own!

LAMPITO

Oo … your fingers
Assess them, ye tickler, wi’ such tender chucks
I feel as if I were an altar-victim.

LYSISTRATA

Who is this youngster?

LAMPITO

A Boeotian lady.

LYSISTRATA

There never was much undergrowth in Boeotia,
Such a smooth place, and
this girl takes after it.

CALONICE

Yes, I never saw a skin so primly kept.

LYSISTRATA

This girl?

LAMPITO

A sonsie open-looking jinker!
She’s a Corinthian.

LYSISTRATA

Yes, isn’t she
Very open, in some ways particularly.

LAMPITO

But who’s garred this Council o’ Women to meet here?

LYSISTRATA

I have.

LAMPITO

Propound then what you want o’ us.

MYRRHINE

What is the amazing news you have to tell?

LYSISTRATA

I’ll tell you, but first answer one small question.

MYRRHINE

As you like.

LYSISTRATA

Are you not sad your children’s fathers
Go endlessly off soldiering
afar
In this plodding war? I am willing to wager
There’s not one
here whose husband is at home.

CALONICE

Mine’s been in Thrace, keeping an eye on Eucrates
For five months
past.

MYRRHINE

And mine left me for Pylos
Seven months ago at least.

LAMPITO

And as for mine
No sooner has he slipped out frae the line
He
straps his shield and he’s snickt off again.

LYSISTRATA

And not the slightest glitter of a lover!
And since the Milesians
betrayed us, I’ve not seen
The image of a single upright man
To
be a marble consolation to us.
Now will you help me, if I find a
means
To stamp the war out.

MYRRHINE

By the two Goddesses, Yes!
I will though I’ve to pawn this very dress
And drink the barter-money the same day.

CALONICE

And I too though I’m split up like a turbot
And half is hackt off as
the price of peace.

LAMPITO

And I too! Why, to get a peep at the shy thing
I’d clamber up to the
tip-top o’ Taygetus.

LYSISTRATA

Then I’ll expose my mighty mystery.
O women, if we would compel the
men
To bow to Peace, we must refrain–

MYRRHINE

From what?
O tell us!

LYSISTRATA

Will you truly do it then?

MYRRHINE

We will, we will, if we must die for it.

LYSISTRATA

We must refrain from every depth of love….
Why do you turn your
backs? Where are you going?
Why do you bite your lips and shake your
heads?
Why are your faces blanched? Why do you weep?
Will you or
won’t you, or what do you mean?

MYRRHINE

No, I won’t do it. Let the war proceed.

CALONICE

No, I won’t do it. Let the war proceed.

LYSISTRATA

You too, dear turbot, you that said just now
You didn’t mind being
split right up in the least?

CALONICE

Anything else? O bid me walk in fire
But do not rob us of that
darling joy.
What else is like it, dearest Lysistrata?

LYSISTRATA

And you?

MYRRHINE

O please give me the fire instead.

LYSISTRATA

Lewd to the least drop in the tiniest vein,
Our sex is fitly food for
Tragic Poets,
Our whole life’s but a pile of kisses and babies.
But, hardy Spartan, if you join with me
All may be righted yet. O
help me, help me.

LAMPITO

It’s a sair, sair thing to ask of us, by the Twa,
A lass to sleep her
lane and never fill
Love’s lack except wi’ makeshifts…. But let it
be.
Peace maun be thought of first.

LYSISTRATA

My friend, my friend!
The only one amid this herd of weaklings.

CALONICE

But if–which heaven forbid–we should refrain
As you would have us,
how is Peace induced?

LYSISTRATA

By the two Goddesses, now can’t you see
All we have to do is idly sit
indoors
With smooth roses powdered on our cheeks,
Our bodies
burning naked through the folds
Of shining Amorgos’ silk, and meet
the men
With our dear Venus-plats plucked trim and neat.
Their
stirring love will rise up furiously,
They’ll beg our arms to open.
That’s our time!
We’ll disregard their knocking, beat them off–
And they will soon be rabid for a Peace.
I’m sure of it.

LAMPITO

          Just as
Menelaus, they say,
Seeing the bosom of his naked Helen
Flang
down the sword.

CALONICE

               But
we’ll be tearful fools
If our husbands take us at our word and leave
us.

LYSISTRATA

There’s only left then, in Pherecrates’ phrase,
To flay a skinned
dog–flay more our flayed desires.

CALONICE

Bah, proverbs will never warm a celibate.
But what avail will your
scheme be if the men
Drag us for all our kicking on to the couch?

LYSISTRATA

Cling to the doorposts.

CALONICE

               But
if they should force us?

LYSISTRATA

Yield then, but with a sluggish, cold indifference.
There is no joy
to them in sullen mating.
Besides we have other ways to madden them;
They cannot stand up long, and they’ve no delight
Unless we fit their
aim with merry succour.

CALONICE

Well if you must have it so, we’ll all agree.

LAMPITO

For us I ha’ no doubt. We can persuade
Our men to strike a fair an’
decent Peace,
But how will ye pitch out the battle-frenzy
O’ the
Athenian populace?

LYSISTRATA

I promise you
We’ll wither up that curse.

LAMPITO

I don’t believe it.
Not while they own ane trireme oared an’ rigged,
Or a’ those stacks an’ stacks an’ stacks O’ siller.

LYSISTRATA

I’ve thought the whole thing out till there’s no flaw.
We shall
surprise the Acropolis today:
That is the duty set the older dames.
While we sit here talking, they are to go
And under pretence of
sacrificing, seize it.

LAMPITO

Certie, that’s fine; all’s working for the best.

LYSISTRATA

Now quickly, Lampito, let us tie ourselves
To this high purpose as
tightly as the hemp of words
Can knot together.

LAMPITO

Set out the terms in detail
And we’ll a’ swear to them.

LYSISTRATA

Of course…. Well then
Where is our Scythianess? Why are you
staring?
First lay the shield, boss downward, on the floor
And
bring the victim’s inwards.

CAILONICE

But, Lysistrata,
What is this oath that we’re to swear?

LYSISTRATA

What oath!
In Aeschylus they take a slaughtered sheep
And swear
upon a buckler. Why not we?

CALONICE

O Lysistrata, Peace sworn on a buckler!

LYSISTRATA

What oath would suit us then?

CALONICE

Something burden bearing
Would be our best insignia…. A white
horse!
Let’s swear upon its entrails.

LYSISTRATA

A horse indeed!

CALONICE

Then what will symbolise us?

LYSISTRATA

This, as I tell you–
First set a great dark bowl upon the ground
And disembowel a skin of Thasian wine,
Then swear that we’ll not add
a drop of water.

LAMPITO
  Ah, what aith could clink pleasanter than that!

LYSISTRATA
  Bring me a bowl then and a skin of wine.

CALONICE
  My dears, see what a splendid bowl it is;
  I’d not say No if asked to sip it off.

LYSISTRATA
  Put down the bowl. Lay hands, all, on the
victim.
  Skiey Queen who givest the last word in
arguments,
  And thee, O Bowl, dear comrade, we beseech:
  Accept our oblation and be propitious to us.

CALONICE
  What healthy blood, la, how it gushes out!

LAMPITO
  An’ what a leesome fragrance through the air.

LYSISTRATA
  Now, dears, if you will let me, I’ll speak
first.

CALONICE
  Only if you draw the lot, by Aphrodite!

LYSISTRATA
  SO, grasp the brim, you, Lampito, and all.
  You, Calonice, repeat for the rest
  Each word
I say. Then you must all take oath
  And pledge your arms
to the same stern conditions–

LYSISTRATA
  To husband or lover I’ll not open arms

CALONICE

To husband or lover I’ll not open arms

LYSISTRATA

Though love and denial may enlarge his charms.

CALONICE

Though love and denial may enlarge his charms.
O, O, my knees
are failing me, Lysistrata!

LYSISTRATA

But still at home, ignoring him, I’ll stay,

CALONICE

But still at home, ignoring him, I’ll stay,

LYSISTRATA

Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day.

CALONICE

Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day.

LYSISTRATA

If then he seizes me by dint of force,

CALONICE

If then he seizes me by dint of force,

LYSISTRATA

I’ll give him reason for a long remorse.

CALONICE

I’ll give him reason for a long remorse.

LYSISTRATA

I’ll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,

CALONICE

I’ll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,

LYSISTRATA

Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.

CALONICE

Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.

LYSISTRATA

If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.

CALONICE

If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.

LYSISTRATA

If not, to nauseous water change this wine.

CALONICE
  If not, to nauseous water change this wine.

LYSISTRATA

Do you all swear to this?

MYRRHINE

We do, we do.

LYSISTRATA

Then I shall immolate the victim thus.
She drinks.

CALONICE

Here now, share fair, haven’t we made a pact?
Let’s all quaff down
that friendship in our turn.

LAMPITO

Hark, what caterwauling hubbub’s that?

LYSISTRATA

As I told you,
The women have appropriated the citadel.
So,
Lampito, dash off to your own land
And raise the rebels there. These
will serve as hostages,
While we ourselves take our places in the
ranks
And drive the bolts right home.

CALONICE

But won’t the men
March straight against us?

LYSISTRATA

And what if they do?
No threat shall creak our hinges wide, no torch
Shall light a fear in us; we will come out
To Peace alone.

CALONICE

That’s it, by Aphrodite!
As of old let us seem hard and obdurate.

LAMPITO and some go off; the others go up into the Acropolis.

Chorus of OLD MEN enter to attack the captured Acropolis.

Make room, Draces, move ahead; why your shoulder’s chafed, I see,
With lugging uphill these lopped branches of the olive-tree.
How
upside-down and wrong-way-round a long life sees things grow.
Ah,
Strymodorus, who’d have thought affairs could tangle so?

The women whom at home we fed,
Like witless fools, with fostering
bread,
Have impiously come to this–
They’ve stolen the
Acropolis,
With bolts and bars our orders flout
And shut us out.

Come, Philurgus, bustle thither; lay our faggots on the ground,
In
neat stacks beleaguering the insurgents all around;
And the vile
conspiratresses, plotters of such mischief dire,
Pile and burn them
all together in one vast and righteous pyre:
Fling with our own hands
Lycon’s wife to fry in the thickest fire.
By Demeter, they’ll get no
brag while I’ve a vein to beat!
Cleomenes himself was hurtled out in
sore defeat.
His stiff-backed Spartan pride was bent.
Out,
stripped of all his arms, he went:
A pigmy cloak that would not
stretch
To hide his rump (the draggled wretch),
Six sprouting
years of beard, the spilth
Of six years’ filth.

That was a siege! Our men were ranged in lines of seventeen deep
Before the gates, and never left their posts there, even to sleep.
Shall I not smite the rash presumption then of foes like these,
Detested both of all the gods and of Euripides–
Else, may the
Marathon-plain not boast my trophied victories!

Ah, now, there’s but a little space
To reach the place!
A deadly
climb it is, a tricky road
With all this bumping load:
A
pack-ass soon would tire….
How these logs bruise my shoulders!
further still
Jog up the hill,
And puff the fire inside,
Or
just as we reach the top we’ll find it’s died.
Ough, phew!
I
choke with the smoke.

Lord Heracles, how acrid-hot
Out of the pot
This mad-dog smoke
leaps, worrying me
And biting angrily….
‘Tis Lemnian fire that
smokes,
Or else it would not sting my eyelids thus….
Haste,
all of us;
Athene invokes our aid.
Laches, now or never the
assault must be made!
Ough, phew!
I choke with the smoke. ..

Thanked be the gods! The fire peeps up and crackles as it should.
Now
why not first slide off our backs these weary loads of wood
And dip a
vine-branch in the brazier till it glows, then straight
Hurl it at
the battering-ram against the stubborn gate?
If they refuse to draw
the bolts in immediate compliance,
We’ll set fire to the wood, and
smoke will strangle their defiance.

Phew, what a spluttering drench of smoke! Come, now from off my back….
Is there no Samos-general to help me to unpack?
Ah there, that’s
over! For the last time now it’s galled my shoulder.
Flare up thine
embers, brazier, and dutifully smoulder,
To kindle a brand, that I
the first may strike the citadel.
Aid me, Lady Victory, that a
triumph-trophy may tell
How we did anciently this insane audacity
quell!

Chorus of WOMEN.

What’s that rising yonder? That ruddy glare, that smoky skurry?
O is
it something in a blaze? Quick, quick, my comrades, hurry!
Nicodice,
helter-skelter!
Or poor Calyce’s in flames
And Cratylla’s
stifled in the welter.
O these dreadful old men
And their dark
laws of hate!
There, I’m all of a tremble lest I turn out to be too
late.
I could scarcely get near to the spring though I rose before
dawn,
What with tattling of tongues and rattling of pitchers in one
jostling din
With slaves pushing in!….

Still here at last the water’s drawn
And with it eagerly I run
To help those of my friends who stand
In danger of being burned
alive.
For I am told a dribbling band
Of greybeards hobble to
the field,
Great faggots in each palsied hand,
As if a hot bath
to prepare,
And threatening that out they’ll drive
These wicked
women or soon leave them charring into ashes
there.
O Goddess,
suffer not, I pray, this harsh deed to be done,
But show us Greece
and Athens with their warlike acts repealed!
For this alone, in this
thy hold,
Thou Goddess with the helm of gold,
We laid hands on
thy sanctuary,
Athene…. Then our ally be
And where they cast
their fires of slaughter
Direct our water!

STRATYLLIS (caught)

Let me go!

WOMEN

You villainous old men, what’s this you do?
No honest man, no pious
man, could do such things as you.

MEN

Ah ha, here’s something most original, I have no doubt:
A swarm of
women sentinels to man the walls without.

WOMEN

So then we scare you, do we? Do we seem a fearful host?
You only see
the smallest fraction mustered at this post.

MEN

Ho, Phaedrias, shall we put a stop to all these chattering tricks?
Suppose that now upon their backs we splintered these our sticks?

WOMEN

Let us lay down the pitchers, so our bodies will be free,
  In
case these lumping fellows try to cause some injury.

MEN

O hit them hard and hit again and hit until they run away,
And
perhaps they’ll learn, like Bupalus, not to have too much to say.

WOMEN

Come on, then–do it! I won’t budge, but like a dog I’ll bite
At
every little scrap of meat that dangles in my sight.

MEN

Be quiet, or I’ll bash you out of any years to come.

WOMEN

Now you just touch Stratyllis with the top-joint of your thumb.

MEN

What vengeance can you take if with my fists your face I beat?

WOMEN

I’ll rip you with my teeth and strew your entrails at your feet.

MEN

Now I appreciate Euripides’ strange subtlety:
Woman is the most
shameless beast of all the beasts that be.

WOMEN

Rhodippe, come, and let’s pick up our water-jars once more.

MEN

Ah cursed drab, what have you brought this water for?

WOMEN

What is your fire for then, you smelly corpse? Yourself to burn?

MEN

To build a pyre and make your comrades ready for the urn.

WOMEN

And I’ve the water to put out your fire immediately.

MEN

What, you put out my fire?

WOMEN

Yes, sirrah, as you soon will see.

MEN

I don’t know why I hesitate to roast you with this flame.

WOMEN

If you have any soap you’ll go off cleaner than you came.

MEN

Cleaner, you dirty slut?

WOMEN

A nuptial-bath in which to lie!

MEN

Did you hear that insolence?

WOMEN

I’m a free woman, I.

MEN

I’ll make you hold your tongue.

WOMEN

Henceforth you’ll serve in no more juries.

MEN

Burn off her hair for her.

WOMEN

Now forward, water, quench their furies!

MEN

O dear, O dear!

WOMEN

So … was it hot?

MEN

Hot! … Enough, O hold.

WOMEN

Watered, perhaps you’ll bloom again–why not?

MEN

Brrr, I’m wrinkled up from shivering with cold.

WOMEN

Next time you’ve fire you’ll warm yourself and leave us to our lot.

MAGISTRATE enters with attendant SCYTHIANS.

MAGISTRATE

Have the luxurious rites of the women glittered
Their libertine show,
their drumming tapped out crowds,
The Sabazian Mysteries summoned
their mob,
Adonis been wept to death on the terraces,
As I could
hear the last day in the Assembly?
For Demostratus–let bad luck
befoul him–
Was roaring, “We must sail for Sicily,”
While a
woman, throwing herself about in a dance
Lopsided with drink, was
shrilling out “Adonis,
Woe for Adonis.” Then Demostratus shouted,
“We must levy hoplites at Zacynthus,”
And there the woman, up to the
ears in wine,
Was screaming “Weep for Adonis” on the house-top,
The scoundrelly politician, that lunatic ox,
Bellowing bad advice
through tipsy shrieks:
Such are the follies wantoning in them.

MEN

O if you knew their full effrontery!
All of the insults they’ve done,
besides sousing us
With water from their pots to our public disgrace
For we stand here wringing our clothes like grown-up infants.

MAGISTRATE

By Poseidon, justly done! For in part with us
The blame must lie for
dissolute behaviour
And for the pampered appetites they learn.
Thus grows the seedling lust to blossoming:
We go into a shop and
say, “Here, goldsmith,
You remember the necklace that you wrought my
wife;
Well, the other night in fervour of a dance
Her clasp
broke open. Now I’m off for Salamis;
If you’ve the leisure, would you
go tonight
And stick a bolt-pin into her opened clasp.”
Another
goes to a cobbler; a soldierly fellow,
Always standing up erect, and
says to him,
“Cobbler, a sandal-strap of my wife’s pinches her,
Hurts her little toe in a place where she’s sensitive.
Come at noon
and see if you can stretch out wider
This thing that troubles her,
loosen its tightness.”
And so you view the result. Observe my case–
I, a magistrate, come here to draw
Money to buy oar-blades, and what
happens?
The women slam the door full in my face.
But standing
still’s no use. Bring me a crowbar,
And I’ll chastise this their
impertinence.
What do you gape at, wretch, with dazzled eyes?
Peering for a tavern, I suppose.
Come, force the gates with crowbars,
prise them apart!
I’ll prise away myself too…. (LYSISTRATA appears.)

LYSISTRATA

Stop this banging.
I’m coming of my own accord…. Why bars?
It
is not bars we need but common sense.

MAGISTRATE

Indeed, you slut! Where is the archer now?
Arrest this woman, tie her
hands behind.

LYSISTRATA

If he brushes me with a finger, by Artemis,
The public menial, he’ll
be sorry for it.

MAGISTRATE

Are you afraid? Grab her about the middle.
Two of you then, lay hands
on her and end it.

CALONICE

By Pandrosos I if your hand touches her
I’ll spread you out and
trample on your guts.

MAGISTRATE

My guts! Where is the other archer gone?
Bind that minx there who
talks so prettily.

MYRRHINE

By Phosphor, if your hand moves out her way
You’d better have a
surgeon somewhere handy.

MAGISTRATE

You too! Where is that archer? Take that woman.
I’ll put a stop to
these surprise-parties.

STRATYLLIS

By the Tauric Artemis, one inch nearer
My fingers, and it’s a bald
man that’ll be yelling.

MAGISTRATE

Tut tut, what’s here? Deserted by my archers….
But surely women
never can defeat us;
Close up your ranks, my Scythians. Forward at
them.

LYSISTRATA

By the Goddesses, you’ll find that here await you
Four companies of
most pugnacious women
Armed cap-a-pie from the topmost louring curl
To the lowest angry dimple.

MAGISTRATE

On, Scythians, bind them.

LYSISTRATA

On, gallant allies of our high design,
Vendors of
grain-eggs-pulse-and-vegetables,
Ye garlic-tavern-keepers of
bakeries,
Strike, batter, knock, hit, slap, and scratch our foes,
Be finely imprudent, say what you think of them….
Enough! retire
and do not rob the dead.

MAGISTRATE

How basely did my archer-force come off.

LYSISTRATA

Ah, ha, you thought it was a herd of slaves
You had to tackle, and
you didn’t guess
The thirst for glory ardent in our blood.

MAGISTRATE

By Apollo, I know well the thirst that heats you–
Especially when a
wine-skin’s close.

MEN

You waste your breath, dear magistrate, I fear, in answering back.
What’s the good of argument with such a rampageous pack?
Remember how
they washed us down (these very clothes I wore)
With water that
looked nasty and that smelt so even more.

WOMEN

What else to do, since you advanced too dangerously nigh.
If you
should do the same again, I’ll punch you in the eye.
Though I’m a
stay-at-home and most a quiet life enjoy,
Polite to all and every
(for I’m naturally coy),
Still if you wake a wasps’ nest then of
wasps you must beware.

MEN

How may this ferocity be tamed? It grows too great to bear.
Let us
question them and find if they’ll perchance declare
The reason why
they strangely dare
To seize on Cranaos’ citadel,
This eyrie
inaccessible,
This shrine above the precipice,
The Acropolis.
Probe them and find what they mean with this idle talk; listen,
but
watch they don’t try to deceive.
You’d be neglecting your duty most
certainly if now this mystery
unplumbed you leave.

MAGISTRATE

Women there! Tell what I ask you, directly….
Come, without
rambling, I wish you to state
What’s your rebellious intention in
barring up thus on our noses
our own temple-gate.

LYSISTRATA

To take first the treasury out of your management, and so stop the war
through the absence of gold.

MAGISTRATE

Is gold then the cause of the war?

LYSISTRATA

Yes, gold caused it and miseries more, too many to be told.
‘Twas for
money, and money alone, that Pisander with all of the army of
mob-agitators.
Raised up revolutions. But, as for the future, it
won’t be worth while
to set up to be traitors.
Not an obol
they’ll get as their loot, not an obol! while we have the
treasure-chest in our command.

MAGISTRATE

What then is that you propose?

LYSISTRATA

Just this–merely to take the exchequer henceforth in hand.

MAGISTRATE

The exchequer!

LYSISTRATA

Yes, why not? Of our capabilities you have had various clear evidences.
Firstly remember we have always administered soundly the budget of all
home-expenses.

MAGISTRATE

But this matter’s different.

LYSISTRATA

How is it different?

MAGISTRATE

Why, it deals chiefly with war-time supplies.

LYSISTRATA

But we abolish war straight by our policy.

MAGISTRATE

What will you do if emergencies arise?

LYSISTRATA

Face them our own way.

MAGISTRATE

What you will?

LYSISTRATA

Yes we will!

MAGISTRATE

Then there’s no help for it; we’re all destroyed.

LYSISTRATA

No, willy-nilly you must be safeguarded.

MAGISTRATE

What madness is this?

LYSISTRATA

Why, it seems you’re annoyed.
It must be done, that’s all.

MAGISTRATE

Such awful oppression never,
O never in the past yet I bore.

LYSISTRATA

You must be saved, sirrah–that’s all there is to it.

MAGISTRATE

If we don’t want to be saved?

LYSISTRATA

All the more.

MAGISTRATE

Why do you women come prying and meddling in matters of state touching
war-time and peace?

LYSISTRATA

That I will tell you.

MAGISTRATE

O tell me or quickly I’ll–

LYSISTRATA

Hearken awhile and from threatening cease.

MAGISTRATE

I cannot, I cannot; it’s growing too insolent.

WOMEN

Come on; you’ve far more than we have to dread.

MAGISTRATE

Stop from your croaking, old carrion-crow there….
Continue.

LYSISTRATA

Be calm then and I’ll go ahead.
All the long years when the hopeless
war dragged along we, unassuming,
forgotten in quiet,
Endured
without question, endured in our loneliness all your incessant
child’s antics and riot.
Our lips we kept tied, though aching with
silence, though well all the
while in our silence we knew
How
wretchedly everything still was progressing by listening dumbly the
day long to you.
For always at home you continued discussing the war
and its politics
loudly, and we
Sometimes would ask you, our
hearts deep with sorrowing though we spoke
lightly, though happy to
see,
“What’s to be inscribed on the side of the Treaty-stone
What, dear, was said in the Assembly today?”
“Mind your own
business,” he’d answer me growlingly
“hold your tongue, woman, or
else go away.”
And so I would hold it.

WOMEN

I’d not be silent for any man living on earth, no, not I!

MAGISTRATE

Not for a staff?

LYSISTRATA

Well, so I did nothing but sit in the house, feeling dreary, and sigh,
While ever arrived some fresh tale of decisions more foolish by far and
presaging disaster.
Then I would say to him, “O my dear husband, why
still do they rush on
destruction the faster?”
At which he would
look at me sideways, exclaiming, “Keep for your web
and your shuttle
your care,
Or for some hours hence your cheeks will be sore and hot;
leave this
alone, war is Man’s sole affair!”

MAGISTRATE

By Zeus, but a man of fine sense, he.

LYSISTRATA

How sensible?
You dotard, because he at no time had lent
His
intractable ears to absorb from our counsel one temperate word of
advice, kindly meant?
But when at the last in the streets we heard
shouted (everywhere ringing
the ominous cry)
“Is there no one to
help us, no saviour in Athens?” and, “No, there is
no one,” come back
in reply.
At once a convention of all wives through Hellas here for a
serious
purpose was held,
To determine how husbands might yet
back to wisdom despite their
reluctance in time be compelled.
Why then delay any longer? It’s settled. For the future you’ll take
up our old occupation.
Now in turn you’re to hold tongue, as we did,
and listen while we show
the way to recover the nation.

MAGISTRATE

You talk to us! Why, you’re mad. I’ll not stand it.

LYSISTRATA

Cease babbling, you fool; till I end, hold your tongue.

MAGISTRATE

If I should take orders from one who wears veils, may my
neck
straightaway be deservedly wrung.

LYSISTRATA

O if that keeps pestering you,
I’ve a veil here for your hair,
I’ll fit you out in everything
As is only fair.

CALONICE

Here’s a spindle that will do.

MYRRHINE

I’ll add a wool-basket too.

LYSISTRATA

Girdled now sit humbly at home,
Munching beans, while you card wool
and comb. For war from now on
is the Women’s affair.

WOMEN.

Come then, down pitchers, all,
And on, courageous of heart,
In
our comradely venture
Each taking her due part.

I could dance, dance, dance, and be fresher after,
I could dance away
numberless suns,
To no weariness let my knees bend.
Earth I
could brave with laughter,
Having such wonderful girls here to
friend.
O the daring, the gracious, the beautiful ones!
Their
courage unswerving and witty
Will rescue our city.

O sprung from the seed of most valiant-wombed grand-mothers,
scions
of savage and dangerous nettles!
Prepare for the battle, all. Gird up
your angers. Our way
the wind of sweet victory settles.

LYSISTRATA

O tender Eros and Lady of Cyprus, some flush of beauty I
pray you
devise
To flash on our bosoms and, O Aphrodite, rosily gleam on
our valorous thighs!
Joy will raise up its head through the legions
warring and
all of the far-serried ranks of mad-love
Bristle the
earth to the pillared horizon, pointing in vain to
the heavens above.
I think that perhaps then they’ll give us our title–
Peace-makers.

MAGISTRATE

          What do you
mean? Please explain.

LYSISTRATA

  First, we’ll not see you now flourishing arms about into the
    Marketing-place clang again.

WOMEN
  No, by the Paphian.

LYSISTRATA

Still I can conjure them as past were the herbs stand or crockery’s sold
Like Corybants jingling (poor sots) fully armoured, they noisily round
on their promenade strolled.

MAGISTRATE

And rightly; that’s discipline, they–

LYSISTRATA

But what’s sillier than to go on an errand of buying a fish
Carrying
along an immense. Gorgon-buckler instead the usual platter
or dish?
A phylarch I lately saw, mounted on horse-back, dressed for the part
with long ringlets and all,
Stow in his helmet the omelet bought
steaming from an old woman who
kept a food-stall.
Nearby a
soldier, a Thracian, was shaking wildly his spear like Tereus
in the
play,
To frighten a fig-girl while unseen the ruffian filched from
her
fruit-trays the ripest away.

MAGISTRATE

How, may I ask, will your rule re-establish order and justice in lands
so tormented?

LYSISTRATA

Nothing is easier.

MAGISTRATE

Out with it speedily–what is this plan that you boast you’ve invented?

LYSISTRATA

If, when yarn we are winding, It chances to tangle, then, as perchance you
may know, through the skein
This way and that still the spool we keep
passing till it is finally clear
all again:
So to untangle the
War and its errors, ambassadors out on all sides we will
send
This way and that, here, there and round about–soon you will find that
the
War has an end.

MAGISTRATE

So with these trivial tricks of the household, domestic analogies of
threads, skeins and spools,
You think that you’ll solve such a bitter
complexity, unwind such political
problems, you fools!

LYSISTRATA

Well, first as we wash dirty wool so’s to cleanse it, so with a pitiless
zeal we will scrub
Through the whole city for all greasy fellows;
burrs too, the parasites,
off we will rub.
That verminous plague
of insensate place-seekers soon between thumb and
forefinger we’ll
crack.
All who inside Athens’ walls have their dwelling into one
great common
basket we’ll pack.
Disenfranchised or citizens,
allies or aliens, pell-mell the lot of them
in we will squeeze.
Till they discover humanity’s meaning…. As for disjointed and far
colonies,
Them you must never from this time imagine as scattered
about just like
lost hanks of wool.
Each portion we’ll take and
wind in to this centre, inward to Athens
each loyalty pull,
Till
from the vast heap where all’s piled together at last can be woven
a
strong Cloak of State.

MAGISTRATE

How terrible is it to stand here and watch them carding and winding at
will with our fate,
Witless in war as they are.

LYSISTRATA

What of us then, who ever in vain for our children must weep
Borne
but to perish afar and in vain?

MAGISTRATE

Not that, O let that one memory sleep!

LYSISTRATA

Then while we should be companioned still merrily, happy as brides may,
the livelong night,
Kissing youth by, we are forced to lie single….
But leave for a moment
our pitiful plight,
It hurts even more to
behold the poor maidens helpless wrinkling in
staler virginity.

MAGISTRATE

Does not a man age?

LYSISTRATA

Not in the same way. Not as a woman grows withered, grows he.
He,
when returned from the war, though grey-headed, yet
if he wishes can
choose out a wife.
But she has no solace save peering for omens,
wretched and
lonely the rest of her life.

MAGISTRATE

But the old man will often select–

LYSISTRATA

O why not finish and die?
A bier is easy to buy,
A honey-cake
I’ll knead you with joy,
This garland will see you are decked.

CALONICE

I’ve a wreath for you too.

MYRRHINE

I also will fillet you.

LYSISTRATA

What more is lacking? Step aboard the boat.
See, Charon shouts ahoy.
You’re keeping him, he wants to shove afloat.

MAGISTRATE

Outrageous insults! Thus my place to flout!
Now to my
fellow-magistrates I’ll go
And what you’ve perpetrated on me show.

LYSISTRATA

Why are you blaming us for laying you out?
Assure yourself we’ll not
forget to make
The third day offering early for your sake.

MAGISTRATE retires, LYSISTRATA returns within.

OLD MEN.

All men who call your loins your own, awake at last, arise
And strip
to stand in readiness. For as it seems to me
Some more perilous
offensive in their heads they now devise.
I’m sure a Tyranny
Like that of Hippias
In this I detect….
They mean to put us
under
Themselves I suspect,
And that Laconians assembling
At Cleisthenes’ house have played
A trick-of-war and provoked them
Madly to raid
The Treasury, in which term I include
The Pay for
my food.

For is it not preposterous
They should talk this way to us
On a
subject such as battle!

And, women as they are, about bronze bucklers dare prattle–
Make
alliance with the Spartans–people I for one
Like very hungry wolves
would always most sincere shun….
Some dirty game is up their
sleeve,
I believe.
A Tyranny, no doubt… but they won’t catch
me, that know.
Henceforth on my guard I’ll go,
A sword with
myrtle-branches wreathed for ever in my hand,
And under arms in the
Public Place I’ll take my watchful stand,
Shoulder to shoulder with
Aristogeiton. Now my staff I’ll draw
And start at once by knocking
that shocking
Hag upon the jaw.

WOMEN.

Your own mother will not know you when you get back to the town.
But
first, my friends and allies, let us lay these garments down,
And all
ye fellow-citizens, hark to me while I tell
What will aid Athens
well.
Just as is right, for I
Have been a sharer
In all the
lavish splendour
Of the proud city.
I bore the holy vessels
At seven, then
I pounded barley
At the age of ten,
And clad
in yellow robes,
Soon after this,
I was Little Bear to
Brauronian Artemis;
Then neckletted with figs,
Grown tall and
pretty,
I was a Basket-bearer,
And so it’s obvious I should
Give you advice that I think good,
The very best I can.
It
should not prejudice my voice that I’m not born a man,
If I say
something advantageous to the present situation.
For I’m taxed too,
and as a toll provide men for the nation
While, miserable greybeards,
you,
It is true,
Contribute nothing of any importance whatever
to our needs;
But the treasure raised against the Medes
You’ve
squandered, and do nothing in return, save that you make
Our lives
and persons hazardous by some imbecile mistakes
What can you answer?
Now be careful, don’t arouse my spite,
Or with my slipper I’ll take
you napping,
faces slapping
Left and right.

MEN.

What villainies they contrive!
Come, let vengeance fall,
You
that below the waist are still alive,
Off with your tunics at my
call–
Naked, all.
For a man must strip to battle like a man.
No quaking, brave steps taking, careless what’s ahead, white shoed,
in the nude, onward bold,
All ye who garrisoned Leipsidrion of
old….
Let each one wag
As youthfully as he can,
And if he
has the cause at heart
Rise at least a span.

We must take a stand and keep to it,
For if we yield the smallest bit
To their importunity.
Then nowhere from their inroads will be left to
us immunity.
But they’ll be building ships and soon their navies will
attack us,
As Artemisia did, and seek to fight us and to sack us.
And if they mount, the Knights they’ll rob
Of a job,
For
everyone knows how talented they all are in the saddle,
Having long
practised how to straddle;
No matter how they’re jogged there up and
down, they’re never thrown.
Then think of Myron’s painting, and each
horse-backed Amazon
In combat hand-to-hand with men…. Come, on
these women fall,
And in pierced wood-collars let’s stick
quick
The necks of one and all.

WOMEN.

Don’t cross me or I’ll loose
The Beast that’s kennelled here….
And soon you will be howling for a truce,
Howling out with fear.
But my dear,
Strip also, that women may battle unhindered….
But you, you’ll be too sore to eat garlic more, or one black bean,
I
really mean, so great’s my spleen, to kick you black and blue
With
these my dangerous legs.
I’ll hatch the lot of you,
If my rage
you dash on,
The way the relentless Beetle
Hatched the Eagle’s
eggs.

Scornfully aside I set
Every silly old-man threat
While
Lampito’s with me.
Or dear Ismenia, the noble Theban girl. Then let
decree
Be hotly piled upon decree; in vain will be your labours,
You futile rogue abominated by your suffering neighbour
To Hecate’s
feast I yesterday went.
Off I sent
To our neighbours in Boeotia,
asking as a gift to me
For them to pack immediately
That darling
dainty thing … a good fat eel [1] I meant of course;

[Footnote 1:Vide supra, p. 23.]

But they refused because some idiotic old decree’s in force.
O this
strange passion for decrees nothing on earth can check,
Till someone
puts a foot out tripping you,
and slipping you
Break your neck.

LYSISTRATA enters in dismay.

WOMEN

Dear Mistress of our martial enterprise,
Why do you come with sorrow
in your eyes?

LYSISTRATA

O ’tis our naughty femininity,
So weak in one spot, that hath
saddened me.

WOMEN

What’s this? Please speak.

LYSISTRATA

Poor women, O so weak!

WOMEN

What can it be? Surely your friends may know.

LYSISTRATA

Yea, I must speak it though it hurt me so.

WOMEN

Speak; can we help? Don’t stand there mute in need.

LYSISTRATA

I’ll blurt it out then–our women’s army’s mutinied.

WOMEN

O Zeus!

LYSISTRATA

What use is Zeus to our anatomy?
Here is the gaping calamity I meant:
I cannot shut their ravenous appetites
A moment more now. They are
all deserting.
The first I caught was sidling through the postern
Close by the Cave of Pan: the next hoisting herself
With rope and
pulley down: a third on the point
Of slipping past: while a fourth
malcontent, seated
For instant flight to visit Orsilochus
On
bird-back, I dragged off by the hair in time….
They are all
snatching excuses to sneak home.
Look, there goes one…. Hey, what’s
the hurry?

1ST WOMAN

I must get home. I’ve some Milesian wool
Packed wasting away, and
moths are pushing through it.

LYSISTRATA

Fine moths indeed, I know. Get back within.

1ST WOMAN

By the Goddesses, I’ll return instantly.
I only want to stretch it on
my bed.

LYSISTRATA

You shall stretch nothing and go nowhere either.

1ST WOMAN

Must I never use my wool then?

LYSISTRATA

If needs be.

2ND WOMAN

How unfortunate I am! O my poor flax!
It’s left at home unstript.

LYSISTRATA

So here’s another
That wishes to go home and strip her flax.
Inside again!

2ND WOMAN

No, by the Goddess of Light,
I’ll be back as soon as I have flayed it
properly.

LYSISTRATA

You’ll not flay anything. For if you begin
There’ll not be one here
but has a patch to be flayed.

3RD WOMAN

O holy Eilithyia, stay this birth
Till I have left the precincts of
the place!

LYSISTRATA

What nonsense is this?

3RD WOMAN

I’ll drop it any minute.

LYSISTRATA

Yesterday you weren’t with child.

3RD WOMAN

But I am today.
O let me find a midwife, Lysistrata.
O quickly!

LYSISTRATA

Now what story is this you tell?
What is this hard lump here?

3RD WOMAN

It’s a male child.

LYSISTRATA

By Aphrodite, it isn’t. Your belly’s hollow,
And it has the feel of
metal…. Well, I soon can see.
You hussy, it’s Athene’s sacred helm,
And you said you were with child.

3RD WOMAN

And so I am.

LYSISTRATA

Then why the helm?

3RD WOMAN

So if the throes should take me
Still in these grounds I could use it
like a dove
As a laying-nest in which to drop the child.

LYSISTRATA

More pretexts! You can’t hide your clear intent,
And anyway why not
wait till the tenth day
Meditating a brazen name for your brass brat?

WOMAN

And I can’t sleep a wink. My nerve is gone
Since I saw that
snake-sentinel of the shrine.

WOMAN

And all those dreadful owls with their weird hooting!
Though I’m
wearied out, I can’t close an eye.

LYSISTRATA

You wicked women, cease from juggling lies.
You want your men. But
what of them as well?
They toss as sleepless in the lonely night,
I’m sure of it. Hold out awhile, hold out,
But persevere a
teeny-weeny longer.
An oracle has promised Victory
If we don’t
wrangle. Would you hear the words?

WOMEN

Yes, yes, what is it?

LYSISTRATA

Silence then, you chatterboxes.
Here–
Whenas the swallows
flocking in one place from the hoopoes
Deny themselves love’s gambols
any more,
All woes shall then have ending and great Zeus the
Thunderer
Shall put above what was below before.

WOMEN

Will the men then always be kept under us?

LYSISTRATA
But if the swallows squabble among themselves and fly
away
Out of the temple, refusing to agree,
Then The Most Wanton
Birds in all the World
They shall be named for ever. That’s his
decree.

WOMAN

It’s obvious what it means.
LYSISTRATA

                     Now
by all the gods
We must let no agony deter from duty,
Back to
your quarters. For we are base indeed,
My friends, if we betray the
oracle.

She goes out.

OLD MEN.

I’d like to remind you of a fable they used to employ,
When I was a
little boy:
How once through fear of the marriage-bed a young man,
Melanion by name, to the wilderness ran,
And there on the hills he
dwelt.
For hares he wove a net
Which with his dog he set–
Most likely he’s there yet.
For he never came back home, so great was
the fear he felt.
I loathe the sex as much as he,
And therefore
I no less shall be
As chaste as was Melanion.

MAN

Grann’am, do you much mind men?

WOMAN

Onions you won’t need, to cry.

MAN

From my foot you shan’t escape.

WOMAN

What thick forests I espy.

MEN

So much Myronides’ fierce beard
And thundering black back were
feared,
That the foe fled when they were shown–
Brave he as
Phormion.

WOMEN.

Well, I’ll relate a rival fable just to show to you
A different point
of view:
There was a rough-hewn fellow, Timon, with a face
That
glowered as through a thorn-bush in a wild, bleak place.
He too
decided on flight,
This very Furies’ son,
All the world’s ways
to shun
And hide from everyone,
Spitting out curses on all
knavish men to left and right.
But though he reared this hate for
men,
He loved the women even then,
And never thought them
enemies.

WOMAN

O your jaw I’d like to break.

MAN

That I fear do you suppose?

WOMAN

Learn what kicks my legs can make.

MAN

Raise them up, and you’ll expose–

WOMAN

Nay, you’ll see there, I engage,
All is well kept despite my age,
And tended smooth enough to slip
From any adversary’s grip.

LYSISTRATA appears.

LYSISTRATA

Hollo there, hasten hither to me
Skip fast along.

WOMAN

What is this? Why the noise?

LYSISTRATA

A man, a man! I spy a frenzied man!
He carries Love upon him like a
staff.
O Lady of Cyprus, and Cythera, and Paphos,
I beseech you,
keep our minds and hands to the oath.

WOMAN

Where is he, whoever he is?

LYSISTRATA

By the Temple of Chloe.

WOMAN

Yes, now I see him, but who can he be?

LYSISTRATA

Look at him. Does anyone recognise his face?

MYRRHINE

I do. He is my husband, Cinesias.

LYSISTRATA

You know how to work. Play with him, lead him on,
Seduce him to the
cozening-point–kiss him, kiss him,
Then slip your mouth aside just
as he’s sure of it,
Ungirdle every caress his mouth feels at
Save that the oath upon the bowl has locked.

MYRRHINE

You can rely on me.

LYSISTRATA

I’ll stay here to help
In working up his ardor to its height
Of
vain magnificence…. The rest to their quarters.

Enter CINESIAS.

Who is this that stands within our lines?

CINESIAS

I.

LYSISTRATA

A man?

CINESIAS

Too much a man!

LYSISTRATA

Then be off at once.

CINESIAS

Who are you that thus eject me?

LYSISTRATA

Guard for the day.

CINESIAS

By all the gods, then call Myrrhine hither.

LYSISTRATA

So, call Myrrhine hither! Who are you?

CINESIAS

I am her husband Cinesias, son of Anthros.

LYSISTRATA

Welcome, dear friend! That glorious name of yours
Is quite familiar
in our ranks. Your wife
Continually has it in her mouth.
She
cannot touch an apple or an egg
But she must say, “This to Cinesias!”

CINESIAS

O is that true?

LYSISTRATA

By Aphrodite, it is.
If the conversation strikes on men, your wife
Cuts in with, “All are boobies by Cinesias.”

CINESIAS

Then call her here.

LYSISTRATA

And what am I to get?

CINESIAS

This, if you want it…. See, what I have here.
But not to take away.

LYSISTRATA

Then I’ll call her.

CINESIAS

Be quick, be quick. All grace is wiped from life
Since she went away.
O sad, sad am I
When there I enter on that loneliness,
And wine
is unvintaged of the sun’s flavour.
And food is tasteless. But I’ve
put on weight.

MYRRHINE (above)

I love him O so much! but he won’t have it.
Don’t call me down to
him.

CINESIAS

Sweet little Myrrhine!
What do you mean? Come here.

MYRRHINE

O no I won’t.
Why are you calling me? You don’t want me.

CINESIAS

Not want you! with this week-old strength of love.

MYRRHINE

Farewell.

CINESIAS

Don’t go, please don’t go, Myrrhine.
At least you’ll hear our child.
Call your mother, lad.

CHILD

Mummy … mummy … mummy!

CINESIAS

There now, don’t you feel pity for the child?
He’s not been fed or
washed now for six days.

MYRRHINE

I certainly pity him with so heartless a father.

CINESIAS

Come down, my sweetest, come for the child’s sake.

MYRRHINE

A trying life it is to be a mother!
I suppose I’d better go.             She
comes down.

CINESIAS

How much younger she looks,
How fresher and how prettier! Myrrhine,
Lift up your lovely face, your disdainful face;
And your ankle …
let your scorn step out its worst;
It only rubs me to more ardor
here.

MYRRHINE (playing with the child)

You’re as innocent as he’s iniquitous.
Let me kiss you,
honey-petting, mother’s darling.

CINESIAS

How wrong to follow other women’s counsel
And let loose all these
throbbing voids in yourself
As well as in me. Don’t you go
throb-throb?

MYRRHINE

Take away your hands.

CINESIAS

Everything in the house
Is being ruined.

MYRRHINE

I don’t care at all.

CINESIAS

The roosters are picking all your web to rags.
Do you mind that?

MYRRHINE

Not I.

CINESIAS

What time we’ve wasted
We might have drenched with Paphian laughter,
flung
On Aphrodite’s Mysteries. O come here.

MYRRHINE

Not till a treaty finishes the war.

CINESIAS

If you must have it, then we’ll get it done.

MYRRHINE

Do it and I’ll come home. Till then I am bound.

CINESIAS

Well, can’t your oath perhaps be got around?

MYRRHINE

No … no … still I’ll not say that I don’t love you.

CINESIAS

You love me! Then dear girl, let me also love you.

MYRRHINE

You must be joking. The boy’s looking on.

CINESIAS

Here, Manes, take the child home!… There, he’s gone.
There’s
nothing in the way now. Come to the point.

MYRRHINE

Here in the open! In plain sight?

CINESIAS

In Pan’s cave.
A splendid place.

MYRRHINE

Where shall I dress my hair again
Before returning to the citadel?

CINESIAS

You can easily primp yourself in the Clepsydra.

MYRRHINE

But how can I break my oath?

CINESIAS

Leave that to me,
I’ll take all risk.

MYRRHINE

Well, I’ll make you comfortable.

CINESIAS

Don’t worry. I’d as soon lie on the grass.

MYRRHINE

No, by Apollo, in spite of all your faults
I won’t have you lying on
the nasty earth.
(From here MYRRHINE keeps on going off to fetch
things.)

CINESIAS

Ah, how she loves me.

MYRRHINE

Rest there on the bench,
While I arrange my clothes. O what a
nuisance,
I must find some cushions first.

CINESIAS

Why some cushions?
Please don’t get them!

MYRRHINE

What? The plain, hard wood?
Never, by Artemis! That would be too
vulgar.

CINESIAS

Open your arms!

MYRRHINE

No. Wait a second.

CINESIAS

O….
Then hurry back again.

MYRRHINE

Here the cushions are.
Lie down while I–O dear! But what a shame,
You need more pillows.

CINESIAS

I don’t want them, dear.

MYRRHINE

But I do.

CINESIAS

Thwarted affection mine,
They treat you just like Heracles at a feast
With cheats of dainties, O disappointing arms!

MYRRHINE

Raise up your head.

CINESIAS

There, that’s everything at last.

MYRRHINE

Yes, all.

CINESIAS

Then run to my arms, you golden girl.

MYRRHINE

I’m loosening my girdle now. But you’ve not forgotten?
You’re not
deceiving me about the Treaty?

CINESIAS

No, by my life, I’m not.

MYRRHINE

Why, you’ve no blanket.

CINESIAS

It’s not the silly blanket’s warmth but yours I want.

MYRRHINE

Never mind. You’ll soon have both. I’ll come straight back.

CINESIAS

The woman will choke me with her coverlets.

MYRRHINE

Get up a moment.

CINESIAS

I’m up high enough.

MYRRHINE

Would you like me to perfume you?

CINESIAS

By Apollo, no!

MYRRHINE

By Aphrodite, I’ll do it anyway.

CINESIAS

Lord Zeus, may she soon use up all the myrrh.

MYRRHINE

Stretch out your hand. Take it and rub it in.

CINESIAS

Hmm, it’s not as fragrant as might be; that is,
Not before it’s
smeared. It doesn’t smell of kisses.

MYRRHINE

How silly I am: I’ve brought you Rhodian scents.

CINESIAS

It’s good enough, leave it, love.

MYRRHINE

You must be jesting.

CINESIAS

Plague rack the man who first compounded scent!

MYRRHINE

Here, take this flask.

CINESIAS

I’ve a far better one.
Don’t tease me, come here, and get nothing
more.

MYRRHINE

I’m coming…. I’m just drawing off my shoes….
You’re sure you will
vote for Peace?

CINESIAS

I’ll think about it.
She runs off.
I’m dead: the woman’s
worn me all away.
She’s gone and left me with an anguished pulse.

MEN

Baulked in your amorous delight
How melancholy is your plight.
With sympathy your case I view;
For I am sure it’s hard on you.
What human being could sustain
This unforeseen domestic strain,
And not a single trace
Of willing women in the place!

CINESIAS

O Zeus, what throbbing suffering!

MEN

She did it all, the harlot, she
With her atrocious harlotry.

WOMEN

Nay, rather call her darling-sweet.

MEN

What, sweet? She’s a rude, wicked thing.

CINESIAS

A wicked thing, as I repeat.
O Zeus, O Zeus,
Canst Thou not
suddenly let loose
Some twirling hurricane to tear
Her flapping
up along the air
And drop her, when she’s whirled around,
Here
to the ground
Neatly impaled upon the stake
That’s ready upright
for her sake.
He goes out.

Enter SPARTAN HERALD.

The MAGISTRATE comes forward.

HERALD

What here gabs the Senate an’ the Prytanes?
I’ve fetcht despatches
for them.

MAGISTRATE

Are you a man
Or a monstrosity?

HERALD

My scrimp-brained lad,
I’m a herald, as ye see, who hae come frae
Sparta
Anent a Peace.

MAGISTRATE

Then why do you hide that lance
That sticks out under your arms?

HERALD.

I’ve brought no lance.

MAGISTRATE

Then why do you turn aside and hold your cloak
So far out from your
body? Is your groin swollen
With stress of travelling?

HERALD

By Castor, I’ll swear
The man is wud.

MAGISTRATE

Indeed, your cloak is wide,
My rascal fellow.

HERALD

But I tell ye No!
Enow o’ fleering!

MAGISTRATE

Well, what is it then?

HERALD

It’s my despatch cane.

MAGISTRATE

Of course–a Spartan cane!
But speak right out. I know all this too
well.
Are new privations springing up in Sparta?

HERALD

Och, hard as could be: in lofty lusty columns
Our allies stand
united. We maun get Pellene.

MAGISTRATE

Whence has this evil come? Is it from Pan?

HERALD

No. Lampito first ran asklent, then the others
Sprinted after her
example, and blocked, the hizzies,
Their wames unskaithed against our
every fleech.

MAGISTRATE

What did you do?

HERALD

We are broken, and bent double,
Limp like men carrying lanthorns in
great winds
About the city. They winna let us even
Wi’ lightest
neif skim their primsie pretties
Till we’ve concluded Peace-terms wi’
a’ Hellas.

MAGISTRATE

So the conspiracy is universal;
This proves it. Then return to
Sparta. Bid them
Send envoys with full powers to treat of Peace;
And I will urge the Senate here to choose
Plenipotentiary
ambassadors,
As argument adducing this connection.

HERALD

I’m off. Your wisdom none could contravert.
They retire.

MEN

There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed.
She calmly
goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.

WOMEN

And yet you are fool enough, it seems, to dare to war with me,
When
for your faithful ally you might win me easily.

MEN

Never could the hate I feel for womankind grow less.

WOMEN

Then have your will. But I’ll take pity on your nakedness.
For I can
see just how ridiculous you look, and so
Will help you with your
tunic if close up I now may go.

MEN

Well, that, by Zeus, is no scoundrel-deed, I frankly will admit.
I
only took them off myself in a scoundrel raging-fit.

WOMEN

Now you look sensible, and that you’re men no one could doubt.
If you
were but good friends again, I’d take the insect out
That hurts your
eye.

MEN

Is that what’s wrong? That nasty bitie thing.
Please squeeze it out,
and show me what it is that makes this sting.
It’s been paining me a
long while now.

WOMEN

Well I’ll agree to that,
Although you’re most unmannerly. O what a
giant gnat.
Here, look! It comes from marshy Tricorysus, I can tell.

MEN

O thank you. It was digging out a veritable well.
Now that it’s gone,
I can’t hold back my tears. See how they fall.

WOMEN

I’ll wipe them off, bad as you are, and kiss you after all.

MEN

I won’t be kissed.

WOMEN

O yes, you will. Your wishes do not matter.

MEN

O botheration take you all! How you cajole and flatter.
A hell it is
to live with you; to live without, a hell:
How truly was that said.
But come, these enmities let’s quell.
You stop from giving orders and
I’ll stop from doing wrong.
So let’s join ranks and seal our bargain
with a choric song.

CHORUS.

Athenians, it’s not our intention
To sow political dissension
By
giving any scandal mention;
But on the contrary to promote good
feeling in the state
By word and deed. We’ve had enough calamities of
late.
So let a man or woman but divulge
They need a trifle, say,
Two minas, three or four,
I’ve purses here that bulge.
There’s
only one condition made
(Indulge my whim in this I pray)–
When
Peace is signed once more,
On no account am I to be repaid.

And I’m making preparation
For a gay select collation
With some
youths of reputation.
I’ve managed to produce some soup and they’re
slaughtering for me
A sucking-pig: its flesh should taste as tender
as could be.
I shall expect you at my house today.
To the baths
make an early visit,
And bring your children along;
Don’t dawdle
on the way.
Ask no one; enter as if the place
Was all your
own–yours henceforth is it.
If nothing chances wrong,
The door
will then be shut bang in your face.

The SPARTAN AMBASSADORS approach.

CHORUS

Here come the Spartan envoys with long, worried beards.
Hail,
Spartans how do you fare?
Did anything new arise?

SPARTANS

No need for a clutter o’ words. Do ye see our condition?

CHORUS

The situation swells to greater tension.
Something will explode soon.

SPARTANS

It’s awfu’ truly.
But come, let us wi’ the best speed we may
Scribble a Peace.

CHORUS

I notice that our men
Like wrestlers poised for contest, hold their
clothes
Out from their bellies. An athlete’s malady!
Since
exercise alone can bring relief.

ATHENIANS

Can anyone tell us where Lysistrata is?
There is no need to describe
our men’s condition,
It shows up plainly enough.

CHORUS

It’s the same disease.
Do you feel a jerking throbbing in the
morning?

ATHENIANS

By Zeus, yes! In these straits, I’m racked all through.
Unless Peace
is soon declared, we shall be driven
In the void of women to try
Cleisthenes.

CHORUS

Be wise and cover those things with your tunics.
Who knows what kind
of person may perceive you?

ATHENIANS

By Zeus, you’re right.

SPARTANS

By the Twa Goddesses,
Indeed ye are. Let’s put our tunics on.

ATHENIANS

Hail O my fellow-sufferers, hail Spartans.

SPARTANS

O hinnie darling, what a waefu’ thing!
If they had seen us wi’ our
lunging waddies!

ATHENIANS

Tell us then, Spartans, what has brought you here?

SPARTANS

We come to treat o’ Peace.

ATHENIANS

Well spoken there!
And we the same. Let us callout Lysistrata
Since she alone can settle the Peace-terms.

SPARTANS

Callout Lysistratus too if ye don’t mind.

CHORUS

No indeed. She hears your voices and she comes.

Enter LYSISTRATA

Hail, Wonder of all women! Now you must be in turn
Hard, shifting,
clear, deceitful, noble, crafty, sweet, and stern.
The foremost men
of Hellas, smitten by your fascination,
Have brought their tangled
quarrels here for your sole arbitration.

LYSISTRATA

An easy task if the love’s raging home-sickness
Doesn’t start trying
out how well each other
Will serve instead of us. But I’ll know at
once
If they do. O where’s that girl, Reconciliation?
Bring
first before me the Spartan delegates,
And see you lift no rude or
violent hands–
None of the churlish ways our husbands used.
But
lead them courteously, as women should.
And if they grudge fingers,
guide them by other methods,
And introduce them with ready tact. The
Athenians
Draw by whatever offers you a grip.
Now, Spartans,
stay here facing me. Here you,
Athenians. Both hearken to my words.
I am a woman, but I’m not a fool.
And what of natural intelligence I
own
Has been filled out with the remembered precepts
My father
and the city-elders taught me.
First I reproach you both sides
equally
That when at Pylae and Olympia,
At Pytho and the many
other shrines
That I could name, you sprinkle from one cup
The
altars common to all Hellenes, yet
You wrack Hellenic cities, bloody
Hellas
With deaths of her own sons, while yonder clangs
The
gathering menace of barbarians.

ATHENIANS

We cannot hold it in much longer now.

LYSISTRATA

Now unto you, O Spartans, do I speak.
Do you forget how your own
countryman,
Pericleidas, once came hither suppliant
Before our
altars, pale in his purple robes,
Praying for an army when in
Messenia
Danger growled, and the Sea-god made earth quaver.
Then
with four thousand hoplites Cimon marched
And saved all Sparta. Yet
base ingrates now,
You are ravaging the soil of your preservers.

ATHENIANS

By Zeus, they do great wrong, Lysistrata.

SPARTANS

Great wrong, indeed. O! What a luscious wench!

LYSISTRATA

And now I turn to the Athenians.
Have you forgotten too how once the
Spartans
In days when you wore slavish tunics, came
And with
their spears broke a Thessalian host
And all the partisans of
Hippias?
They alone stood by your shoulder on that day.
They
freed you, so that for the slave’s short skirt
You should wear the
trailing cloak of liberty.

SPARTANS

I’ve never seen a nobler woman anywhere.

ATHENIANS

Nor I one with such prettily jointing hips.

LYSISTRATA

Now, brethren twined with mutual benefactions,
Can you still war, can
you suffer such disgrace?
Why not be friends? What is there to
prevent you?

SPARTANS

We’re agreed, gin that we get this tempting Mole.

LYSISTRATA

Which one?

SPARTANS

That ane we’ve wanted to get into,
O for sae lang…. Pylos, of
course.

ATHENIANS

By Poseidon,
Never!

LYSISTRATA

Give it up.

ATHENIANS

Then what will we do?
We need that ticklish place united to us–

LYSISTRATA

Ask for some other lurking-hole in return.

ATHENIANS

Then, ah, we’ll choose this snug thing here, Echinus,
Shall we call
the nestling spot? And this backside haven,
These desirable twin
promontories, the Maliac,
And then of course these Megarean Legs.

SPARTANS

Not that, O surely not that, never that.

LYSISTRATA

Agree! Now what are two legs more or less?

ATHENIANS

I want to strip at once and plough my land.

SPARTANS

And mine I want to fertilize at once.

LYSISTRATA

And so you can, when Peace is once declared.
If you mean it, get your
allies’ heads together
And come to some decision.

ATHENIANS

What allies?
There’s no distinction in our politics:
We’ve risen
as one man to this conclusion;
Every ally is jumping-mad to drive it
home.

SPARTANS

And ours the same, for sure.

ATHENIANS

The Carystians first!
I’ll bet on that.

LYSISTRATA

I agree with all of you.
Now off, and cleanse yourselves for the
Acropolis,
For we invite you all in to a supper
From our
commissariat baskets. There at table
You will pledge good behaviour
and uprightness;
Then each man’s wife is his to hustle home.

ATHENIANS

Come, as quickly as possible.

SPARTANS

As quick as ye like.
Lead on.

ATHENIANS

O Zeus, quick, quick, lead quickly on.
They hurry off.

CHORUS.

Broidered stuffs on high I’m heaping,
Fashionable cloaks and sweeping
Trains, not even gold gawds keeping.
Take them all, I pray you, take
them all (I do not care)
And deck your children–your daughter, if
the Basket she’s to bear.
Come, everyone of you, come in and take
Of this rich hoard a share.
Nought’s tied so skilfully
But you
its seal can break
And plunder all you spy inside.
I’ve laid out
all that I can spare,
And therefore you will see
Nothing unless
than I you’re sharper-eyed.
If lacking corn a man should be
While his slaves clamour hungrily
And his excessive progeny,
Then I’ve a handfull of grain at home which is always to be had,
And
to which in fact a more-than-life-size loaf I’d gladly add.

Then let the poor bring with them bag or sack
And take this store of
food.
Manes, my man, I’ll tell
To help them all to pack
Their wallets full. But O take care.
I had forgotten; don’t intrude,
Or terrified you’ll yell.
My dog is hungry too, and bites–beware!

Some LOUNGERS from the Market with torches approach
the
Banqueting hall. The PORTER bars their entrance.

1ST MARKET-LOUNGER

Open the door.

PORTER

Here move along.

1ST MARKET-LOUNGER

What’s this?
You’re sitting down. Shall I singe you with my torch?
That’s vulgar! O I couldn’t do it … yet
If it would gratify the
audience,
I’ll mortify myself.

2ND MARKET-LOUNGER

And I will too.
We’ll both be crude and vulgar, yes we will.

PORTER

Be off at once now or you’ll be wailing
Dirges for your hair. Get off
at once,
And see you don’t disturb the Spartan envoys
Just
coming out from the splendid feast they’ve had.

The banqueters begin to come out.

1ST ATHENIAN

I’ve never known such a pleasant banquet before,
And what delightful
fellows the Spartans are.
When we are warm with wine, how wise we
grow.

2ND ATHENIAN

That’s only fair, since sober we’re such fools:
This is the advice
I’d give the Athenians–
See our ambassadors are always drunk.
For when we visit Sparta sober, then
We’re on the alert for trickery
all the while
So that we miss half of the things they say,
And
misinterpret things that were never said,
And then report the muddle
back to Athens.
But now we’re charmed with each other. They might cap
With the Telamon-catch instead of the Cleitagora,
And we’d applaud
and praise them just the same;
We’re not too scrupulous in weighing
words.

PORTER

Why, here the rascals come again to plague me.
Won’t you move on, you
sorry loafers there!

MARKET-LOUNGER

Yes, by Zeus, they’re already coming out.

SPARTANS

Now hinnie dearest, please tak’ up your pipe
That I may try a spring
an’ sing my best
In honour o’ the Athenians an’ oursels.

ATHENIANS

Aye, take your pipe. By all the gods, there’s nothing
Could glad my
heart more than to watch you dance.

SPARTANS.

Mnemosyne,
Let thy fire storm these younkers,
O tongue wi’
stormy ecstasy
My Muse that knows
Our deeds and theirs, how when
at sea
Their navies swooped upon
The Medes at Artemision–
Gods for their courage, did they strike
Wrenching a triumph frae
their foes;
While at Thermopylae
Leonidas’ army stood:
wild-boars they were like
Wild-boars that wi’ fierce threat
Their terrible tusks whet;
The sweat ran streaming down each twisted
face,
Faen blossoming i’ strange petals o’ death
Panted frae
mortal breath,
The sweat drenched a’ their bodies i’ that place,
For the hurly-burly o’ Persians glittered more
Than the sands on the
shore.

Come, Hunting Girl, an’ hear my prayer–
You whose arrows whizz in
woodlands, come an’ bless
This Peace we swear.
Let us be fenced
wi’ age long amity,
O let this bond stick ever firm through thee
In friendly happiness.
Henceforth no guilefu’ perjury be seen!
O
hither, hither O
Thou wildwood queen.

LYSISTRATA

Earth is delighted now, peace is the voice of earth.
Spartans, sort
out your wives: Athenians, yours.
Let each catch hands with his wife
and dance his joy,
Dance out his thanks, be grateful in music,
And promise reformation with his heels.

ATHENIANS.

O Dancers, forward. Lead out the Graces,
Call Artemis out;
Then
her brother, the Dancer of Skies,
That gracious Apollo.
Invoke
with a shout
Dionysus out of whose eyes
Breaks fire on the
maenads that follow;
And Zeus with his flares of quick lightning, and
call,
Happy Hera, Queen of all,
And all the Daimons summon
hither to be
Witnesses of our revelry
And of the noble Peace we
have made,
Aphrodite our aid.

Io Paieon, Io, cry–
For victory, leap!
Attained by me, leap!
Euoi Euoi Euai Euai.

SPARTANS

Piper, gie us the music for a new sang.

SPARTANS.

Leaving again lovely lofty Taygetus
Hither O Spartan Muse, hither to
greet us,
And wi’ our choric voice to raise
To Amyclean Apollo
praise,
And Tyndareus’ gallant sons whose days
Alang Eurotas’
banks merrily pass,
An’ Athene o’ the House o’ Brass.

Now the dance begin;
Dance, making swirl your fringe o’ woolly skin,
While we join voices
To hymn dear Sparta that rejoices
I’ a
beautifu’ sang,
An’ loves to see
Dancers tangled beautifully;
For the girls i’ tumbled ranks
Alang Eurotas’ banks
Like wanton
fillies thrang,
Frolicking there

An’ like Bacchantes shaking the wild air
To comb a giddy laughter
through the hair,
Bacchantes that clench thyrsi as they sweep
To
the ecstatic leap.

An’ Helen, Child o’ Leda, come
Thou holy, nimble, gracefu’ Queen,
Lead thou the dance, gather thy joyous tresses up i’ bands
An’ play
like a fawn. To madden them, clap thy hands,
And sing praise to the
warrior goddess templed i’ our lands,
Her o’ the House o’ Brass.