Aristophanes: The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

  [to FIRST POLICEMAN]

  Grab her and handcuff her hands behind her.

  LYSISTRATA: If he so much as touches me with his little finger,

  I swear by Artemis he’s heading for a breakdown.

  MAGISTRATE: [to FIRST POLICEMAN] Don’t tell me that you’re scared.

  Hey, you [to SECOND POLICEMAN], give him a hand.

  Seize her by the middle and tie her up so she won’t come undone.

  [FIRST OLD WOMAN advances from the gates.]

  FIRST OLD WOMAN: So help me, Pandrosus,611 I’ll batter the shit out of

  you

  if you dare touch her.

  MAGISTRATE: Batter the shit? You there, officer [to THIRD POLICEMAN],

  tie up the foulmouthed old crone.

  SECOND OLD WOMAN: [advancing] Raise a finger,

  so help me Hecate,612 and you’ll get a black eye.

  MAGISTRATE: What the hell! Is there an officer anywhere?

  [to FOURTH POLICEMAN]

  Hey, you, arrest that one and put her at least out of action.

  THIRD OLD WOMAN: [advancing] Take a step in her direction,

  and by Artemis, I’ll tear your hair out by the roots.

  MAGISTRATE: God help us, I’ve gone through our police. But men must never succumb to women. Fall in, men, we’ll charge them.

  LYSISTRATA: Holy Demeter and Persephone! You’ll find out very soon that we, too, have our troops: four battalions of fully armed fighting women at the ready.

  MAGISTRATE: Archer police, buckle their arms behind their backs.

  LYSISTRATA: Women of the reserve, sally forth:

  you market-gardeners-garlic-vendors-grain-dispensers-hacks.

  You bakers-lettuce-growers-barmaids, show your teeth.613

  Punch them, pound them, reel at them with horrid names,

  the nastier the better.

  [The SCYTHIAN ARCHER POLICE retreat as a horde of OLD WOMEN swarm out from the gates of the Acropolis.]

  MAGISTRATE: Good heavens! It’s insane! My archer police—look, they scatter!

  LYSISTRATA: Well, what did you expect? Did you imagine you were up against a pack of slaves or that we women had no guts?

  MAGISTRATE: They’ve got guts, all right, especially when it gets

  to filling them with booze.

  MEN’S LEADER: You’re a fine one to talk, magistrate:

  magistrate of the realm wasting effort and time

  heckling animals like these.

  Don’t you realize

  that we’ve just been hosed in our clothes

  and given a bath—without soap?

  WOMEN’S LEADER: You poor dope! You shouldn’t lift a hand against your neighbor and not expect to get a black eye yourself. I’d much rather, to tell the truth about myself, sit quietly at home like a sweet little lass, troubling no one and not disturbing a blade of grass. But if somebody ruffles me up and pillages my nest, they’ve got themselves a wasp.

  STROPHE614

  MEN’S CHORUS: O Zeus, how can we possibly deal with Gorgons like these? It’s beyond the pale. . . . But the time has come to analyze What has occurred, you with me and see If we can tell what they wanted to fulfill When they captured the citadel And the rocky perch of the Acropolis A most sacrosanct place.

  MEN’S LEADER: Question her closely, don’t believe her: examine every syllable. Not to be thorough in this sort of thing is totally deplorable.

  MAGISTRATE: First of all I’d really like you to tell us what on earth you hoped to achieve

  by barring and bolting the gates of the Acropolis against us?

  LYSISTRATA: To stop you from being able to remove

  money from the treasury to spend on war.

  MAGISTRATE: So you think it’s money that funds the war? LYSISTRATA: It certainly is. And that’s what fouls up everything else. It’s the reason Pisander615 and all the rest of them scrambling for office set everything astir. Well, let them stir up all the trouble they want to. They’re not getting a single drachma out of here.

  MAGISTRATE: So what do you intend to do?

  LYSISTRATA: You want to know? We’ll take charge of the funds for you.

  MAGISTRATE: You’ll take charge of the funds?

  LYSISTRATA: What’s so odd about that? Don’t we look after the household budget as it is?

  MAGISTRATE: It’s not the same.

  LYSISTRATA: Why not?

  MAGISTRATE: These funds are for the war.

  LYSISTRATA: But there shouldn’t be a war.

  MAGISTRATE: How else can we protect ourselves at home?

  LYSISTRATA: We’ll protect you.

  MAGISTRATE: You?

  LYSISTRATA: Indeed we shall.

  MAGISTRATE: What downright gall!

  LYSISTRATA: Yes, you’ll be protected even against your will.

  MAGISTRATE: This is too much.

  LYSISTRATA: It upsets you, does it? But it must be done.

  MAGISTRATE: By Demeter, you’re out of step!

  LYSISTRATA: My dear sir, you have to be saved.

  MAGISTRATE: But that’s exactly what I want to stop.

  LYSISTRATA: Which makes the issue all the more grave.

  MAGISTRATE: What is it that compels you to meddle with war and

  peace?

  LYSISTRATA: Let us explain.

  MAGISTRATE: Do just that, or else . . .

  LYSISTRATA: Then listen, but kindly restrain

  those fists of yours.

  MAGISTRATE: I can’t. I can’t keep my hands down. I’m so furious.

  FIRST OLD WOMAN: Then for you, it’ll make it all the worse.

  MAGISTRATE: You can croak that malediction on yourself, old crow.

  [to LYSISTRATA]

  And, you, start talking now.

  LYSISTRATA: Of course.

  Before today and long before then

  we women went along in meek silence with everything done

  by you men.

  We weren’t allowed to speak back,

  though you yourselves left a lot to be desired

  and we knew pretty well what was going on.

  Many a time at home we heard

  of some idiotic blunder you’d made

  in a major political issue,

  and we’d smother our anguish, put on a demure smile, and say:

  “Hubby, I wish you’d

  tell me how you got on in Parliament today.

  Any change in the notice stuck up

  on the pillar about the peace?”616 and Hubby would snap:

  “Stick to your job, Wife, and shut your gob.”

  So I did shut up.

  FIRST OLD WOMAN: I wouldn’t have.

  MAGISTRATE: Then you’d have got a walloping.

  LYSISTRATA: Exactly. So I didn’t say a thing—

  at least for a time.

  But it wasn’t long before you made an even sillier gaffe

  and we’d say: “I’d like to hear

  why you people are being so dim.”

  And he’d glare and snarl:

  “Stick to your embroidery, woman,

  or you’ll get a thick ear.

  ‘War is the business of men.’ ”617

  MAGISTRATE: I’d say that’s right on the ball.

  LYSISTRATA: How could it be right, you nit,

  when we weren’t allowed to speak at all

  even when you were making a mess of things?

  Then when we heard you proclaiming in the streets and lanes:

  “In the whole land there’s not a man,”618

  and someone else confirming this: “No, not one,”

  we decided there and then

  to take matters into our own hands

  and all of us together to rescue Greece.

  What was the point of waiting a moment more?

  Which means, it’s your turn now to listen to good advice

  and to keep your mouths shut as we had to,

  and if you do we’ll get you out of the mire.

  MAGISTRATE:
You’ll do what? I won’t stand for such brass.

  LYSISTRATA: Silence!

  MAGISTRATE: Silence, for you,

  a confounded woman with a veil on your head?

  I’d rather be dead.

  LYSISTRATA: All right, if you find my veil “not nice,”

  I’ll take it off and put it on your own head,

  then be quiet.

  FIRST OLD WOMAN: And here’s a sewing basket for you, too.

  LYSISTRATA: [merrily chanting and dancing]

  Hitch up your petticoat, do.

  Card the wool and chew

  These beans. They’re good for you.

  War is women’s work now.

  WOMAN’S LEADER: Ladies, we don’t need these pitchers anymore.

  Let’s discard them and go and help our friends.

  ANTISTROPHE619

  WOMAN’S CHORUS:

  As for me I’ll dance with a passion that knows no ends.

  And an energy that never can tire my knees.

  Nothing is too much for me to endure

  When I’m with women with courage equal to these,

  Whose character, grace, and sheer pluck

  Is matched by both feeling and wit

  Patriotic and quick.

  WOMAN’S LEADER: Rise, you bristling mommies and grannies to the

  attack.

  Now’s not the moment to let down your guard or to slack.

  LYSISTRATA: If honey-hearted Eros and Aphrodite of Cyprus

  instill our loins and bosoms with desire,

  and infect our men with ramrod fits of cudgelitis,

  then I truly think that one day Hellas will call us

  Demobilizers of War.

  MAGISTRATE: How will you accomplish that?

  LYSISTRATA: Well, for a start,

  by putting a stop to oafs in full armor

  clonking around the agora.

  OLD WOMAN: Three cheers for Aphrodite of Paphos!620

  LYSISTRATA: At this very moment, armed to the teeth,

  in the vegetable stalls and pottery shops all over the market,

  they’re clanking around like dummies out of their minds.

  MAGISTRATE: Lord above! A man’s a man.

  LYSISTRATA: Which is laughable when you see a great hunk with

  a blazing Gorgon shield621 shopping for sardines.

  OLD WOMAN: That’s the truth. I once saw a gorgeous long-haired fellow riding a stallion,

  a cavalry captain,

  buying porridge from an old crone

  and stuffing it into his brass hat.

  Another time I saw a Thracian622

  brandishing his shield and spear like Tereus in a state623

  and making the fig lady faint

  while he gobbled down her ripest fruit.

  MAGISTRATE: But how will you women unravel the general muddle

  of the present international situation?

  LYSISTRATA: Dead easy.

  MAGISTRATE: Really? Explain.

  LYSISTRATA: [taking a ball of wool from the MAGISTRATE’s basket]

  It’s not unlike a skein of wool in a tangle.

  We hold it up like this

  and carefully sort out the strands

  this way and that way as we wind them onto a spindle.

  That’s how we’ll unravel this war if you’ll let us,

  sending out envoys this way and that way.

  MAGISTRATE: If you really imagine

  that a policy based on balls of wool and spindles can settle

  the present terrible crisis—you’re insane.

  LYSISTRATA: Oh, but I do! And if you

  had a speck of sense you’d handle

  the international situation

  as we handle our tangled yarn.

  MAGISTRATE: How exactly? I’m all ears.

  LYSISTRATA: Think of the State as a newly shorn fleece

  so the first thing to do is to give it a bath and wash out the muck.

  Then spread it out and paddle out the parasites with a stick,

  and you pick out the burrs.

  Next, you comb out the knots and snarls of those nasty little

  cliques

  that tangle up the Government:

  you pick them off one by one.

  Then you card out the wool into a basket of goodwill,

  unity, and civic content:

  And this includes everyone:

  resident aliens, friendly foreigners, and even

  those in debt to the treasury—mix them all in.

  Finally, bring together the bits and pieces of fleece

  lying around that are supposed to be part

  of Athens’ colonies, bring them all together and make a tight

  ball of wool, from which you weave for the People

  a splendid new coat.

  MAGISTRATE: Don’t you think it’s insufferable

  for you women to be playing around with distaffs and sticks

  and doing not a thing for the war?

  LYSISTRATA: Not a thing? You stupid old prick!

  We do more than our share—far more.

  We produce the sons, for a start,

  and off we send them to fight. . . .

  On top of that,

  when we are in our prime and ought to be enjoying life,

  we sleep alone because of the war.

  And I’m not just talking about

  us married ones. . . . It pains me even more

  to think of the young girls

  growing into lonely spinsters in their rooms.

  MAGISTRATE: Men grow old, too, don’t you know!

  LYSISTRATA: Hell’s bells! It’s not the same.

  When a man comes home,

  even if he’s old and gray, he can find a girl to marry in no time,

  but a woman enjoys a very short-lived prime,

  and once that’s gone, she won’t be wed by anyone.

  She mopes at home

  full of thwarted dreams.

  MAGISTRATE: But any man still able to rise to the occasion . . .

  LYSISTRATA: [losing patience and deciding to have some fun]

  Why don’t you shut up and die?

  There’s a nice graveyard nearby

  And you’ll need a coffin it seems. I’ll bake you some funeral rolls.

  [taking off the wreath and plonking it on his head]

  You might as well have these frills.

  FIRST OLD WOMAN: And here are some ribbons from me.

  SECOND OLD WOMAN: And from me this wreath.

  LYSISTRATA: Ready? Got everything? Get on board.

  Charon is calling624

  And you’re keeping him waiting.

  MAGISTRATE: Good grief! Isn’t it scandalous to treat me like this?

  I’m going to the other magistrates at once

  to show myself and what I have endured.

  [MAGISTRATE leaves in high dudgeon with his SERVANTS. LYSISTRATA calls after him.]

  LYSISTRATA: And you’ll complain no doubt That you weren’t properly laid out. Don’t worry. We’ll be with you soon—The day after tomorrow to be exact—And we’ll complete the funeral at your tomb.

  [LYSISTRATA and the OLD WOMEN go into the Acropolis.]

  MEN’S LEADER: No free man, you fellows, should be slumbering now. Roll up your sleeves and confront this menace.

  STROPHE

  MEN’S CHORUS: I think there’s a whiff of something that certainly is The unmistakable stink of a tyrant near

  Like Hippias625 was and it reduces me to an abject fear

  That a group of men from Sparta is about to appear

  In the house of Cleisthenes626 and conjure there

  A plot to set these god-awful women astir,

  And make them seize the treasury and my jury pittance,

  My only remittance.

  MEN’S LEADER: Yes, it’s disgraceful the way they’re hectoring the citizens, these miserable women: frothing at the mouth and fussing about disarmament. Not only that, but holding
forth on the need to make peace with the men of Sparta, who can’t be trusted any more than a hungry wolf. If I may bring to you men’s attention this plot of theirs—what they are really after—is tyranny. . . . All right, that’s enough. They won’t tyrannize me. I’ll be on the watch and camouflage my sword in a bouquet of myrtles and go to market attired in full armor and pose next to the statue of Aristogiton627 like this . . . a good position for slamming this godforsaken old Gorgon right on the muzzle. WOMEN’S LEADER: Come along, dear girls, on the double and leave our wraps on the ground.

  [They take their jackets off. ]

  ANTISTROPHE

  WOMEN’S CHORUS: Citizens of Athens, we owe it to our town To begin by telling you something for your good;

  Which is only right, for she reared me in luxurious splendor.

  I was barely seven when I became an Arrephoros628

  And at ten a grinder for Demeter.629 Then later

  As a Bear, I shed my yellow dress for Artemis,

  And as a slip of a girl I carried a necklace

  Of dried figs in a hamper.

  WOMEN’S LEADER: As you’ve heard, I owe my city some advice;

  but don’t let my being a woman be a thing adverse,

  or my telling you how to make conditions better

  than they are at present. For that matter,

  I’m an essential part of our way of life:

  my donation to it is men, and it pisses me off

  that you frigging creeps contribute nothing—

  you’ve thrown away just about everything

  we won in the Persian Wars, and you pay no tax, to boot.

  Worse, your extravagance has reduced us all to naught.

  Got an answer to all this? No doubt you can grunt!

  But any more lip from you and I’ll clunk

  you with this very solid shoe.

  [She wrenches off a shoe and threatens MEN’S LEADER with it.]

  STROPHE

  MEN’S CHORUS: Wouldn’t you say that this is the height of hubris? And it seems to me it’s not going to get any better. It’s up to every fellow with balls to resist.