Lysistrata

by Aristophanes

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.

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.

MYRRHINE (playing with the child) You're as innocent as he's iniquitous. Let me kiss you, honey-petting, mother's darling.

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.

And drop her, when she's whirled around, Here to the ground Neatly impaled upon the stake That's ready upright for her sake.

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

A hell it is to live with you; to live without, a hell: How truly was that said.

But come, let us wi' the best speed we may Scribble a Peace.

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

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.

And what delightful fellows the Spartans are. When we are warm with wine, how wise we grow.

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.