Lysistrata

by Aristophanes

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.

We see also that the whole present aesthetic of earth is based in Homer.

Where the desire to hurt is gone pity ceases to be a significant, a central emotion.

It doesn't suit you To knit your eyebrows up glumly like that.

I am hot all over with blushes for our sex.

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:

LYSISTRATA So fine it comes to this--Greece saved by Woman! CALONICE By Woman? Wretched thing, I'm sorry for it.

LYSISTRATA Wipe out the Boeotians-- CALONICE Not utterly. Have mercy on the eels! [Footnote: The Boeotian eels were highly esteemed delicacies in Athens.]

But if the women join us From Peloponnesus and Boeotia, then Hand in hand we'll rescue Greece.

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.

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

Hecate.

I couldn't find my girdle in the dark.

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

LYSISTRATA We must refrain from every depth of love....

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

Our whole life's but a pile of kisses and babies.

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!

Bah, proverbs will never warm a celibate.

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.

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.

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

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

Did you hear that insolence? WOMEN I'm a free woman, I.

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.

If you've the leisure, would you go tonight And stick a bolt-pin into her opened clasp."

Artemis,

Bind that minx there who talks so prettily.

Tut tut, what's here? Deserted by my archers.... But surely women never can defeat us;

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

Remember how they washed us down (these very clothes I wore) With water that looked nasty and that smelt so even more.

Still if you wake a wasps' nest then of wasps you must beware.

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

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.

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.

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...

O sprung from the seed of most valiant-wombed grand-mothers, scions of savage and dangerous nettles!

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!

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.

It should not prejudice my voice that I'm not born a man,

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.