The Athenian Women

by Alessandro Barbero

  Polemon and Thrasyllus, like the others, had tears in their eyes.

  “Well?” Polemon prodded him.

  “All right, okay, agreed, this Aristophanes of yours isn’t so bad after all,” Thrasyllus admitted.

  But in a comedy, the emotions should never float too high, you must immediately deflate them with irony: this isn’t a tragedy, after all! The chorus, kicking up its legs, started singing a ribald song, mocking the audience. No one in particular, in fact, the chorus began with the specific promise that that was not their intention:

  Never fear, men,

  we’re not here to say anything bad

  about anyone.

  Quite the contrary,

  only peace and goodness.

  We all have already had our fill

  of trouble and everything that goes with it.

  After this reassuring declaration, the chorus went on to invite everyone to lunch: the table has already been set, bring the children, and then if anyone needs a loan until the day that peace is ushered in, be our guests: our purses are bursting with coins! Come one, come all, we await you, make yourselves at home, the chorus members continued, sweetly: after all, you’ll find the door locked tight, they concluded with a mocking slap; then, all together, to the accompaniment of music, they turned around and flashed their asses at the spectators.

  While the audience exulted and the drums rumbled, the Old Man leaned out to scan the horizon.

  “Here they are, here they come now, the ambassadors from Sparta!” he began to cry. “What beards they have flying out behind them! But what is that mess they have wrapped around their thighs?”

  A Spartan appeared awkwardly on stage. Aside from tripping over the beard that hung down to his heels, he was trying to cover his knees with his cloak; but, as usual, underneath that cloak there was something big and bouncy, pushing up in a suspicious manner. The Old Man walked to greet him with solemn pomp.

  “Men of Sparta, first and foremost, greetings!”

  Then he saw, froze to the spot, leaned forward to get a better view, knocked on it with his knuckles, and stood up with a leer.

  “And, second of all, would you care to explain to me just what’s happening to you?”

  The Spartan angrily stamped his foot on the ground.

  “Vatt need is dere for explanations? You kan zee for yourselves vott’s happening to us!”

  The Old Man, from below, yanked his cloak away without warning, unveiling the expected colossal phallus.

  “By all that’s holy! How hard the damned thing has gotten, that’s just awful! Tell me, does it ache?”

  The Spartan threw his arms wide.

  “You have no idea. Vott are ve vasting time for? It’s klear that we need peace, and nothing more!”

  The Old Man shook his head with an air of importance; but from the opposite direction another man heavily bundled came stumbling along.

  “Ah, I see that our envoys are here, as well!” the Old Man said cheerfully. But immediately his expression clouded over: it was clear that the Athenian ambassador was likewise concealing something shameful beneath his cloak. But what is this, muttered the Old Man, an epidemic?

  “Who can tell me where Lysistrata is?” asked the new arrival, out of breath. “The thing is that here all the men are in this pitable state!” He made an eloquent gesture, and then, unexpectedly, burst into tears. The Old Man scratched his head. The Spartan came forward, interested. The Athenian was sobbing helplessly, and then he threw himself facedown on the ground and started to pound his fists.

  “This disease matches the other one,” the Old Man solemnly declared, posing as a physician and leaning forward to palpate. “So, tell me, does the crisis come at dawn?”

  The Athenian rose to his knees, blew his nose into his hand, then sadly nodded.

  The members of the chorus had drawn close, and now they made their comments in loud voices. One of them suggested that given the lack of women, there were plenty of men in the city who liked to take it up the ass; and they started reeling off names, to the audience’s delight. Another one recalled the scandal of four years earlier, when on a single night, throughout the city, unnamed vandals had shattered the nose and the phallus of the statue of the god Hermes that stood guard by the gates. The vandals had never been caught. Urbanely, the chorus member suggested to the two ambassadors that it might be better to cover themselves, lest one of the hooligans responsible turn out to be there at the theater. A few laughed, but most of the audience was uneasy at any mention of that occurrence; the discovery that anyone might be capable of such an unholy act, and have so little fear of the god’s vengeance, had sent a chill through the city. Aristophanes, hidden in the house, took note: this was not yet a topic to joke about.

  The two ambassadors hastened to cover themselves; then, once again securely bundled, they eyed each other uneasily. At last the Athenian spoke.

  “Well, greetings, o Spartans. It’s shameful what’s become of us.”

  The Spartan nodded.

  “My dear friend, it’s awful to let ourselves be zeen in zis kondition!”

  An embarrassed silence followed. Once again, the Athenian broke the silence.

  “Say, Spartans, here we need to state everything clearly. Why have you come?”

  “Ambassadors, for ze truce.”

  The Athenian threw his arms wide.

  “That’s a relief: same for us! Why don’t we summon Lysistrata, since she’s the one who can arrange it?”

  The Spartan didn’t understand, but he was in agreement all the same.

  “Yes, by the Dioskuri! Let us kall ziss Listerine!”

  But there was no need to summon her: Lysistrata had heard every word and came dancing out, crowned with myrtle. The chorus greeted her enthusiastically with shouts of admiration.

  “You’re the only real man!”

  “You’ll have to play all the roles in the assembly!”

  “The one who’s filled with awe-inspiring rage and the one who quivers with fear!”

  “The gentleman and the pauper!”

  “The one who holds you at arm’s length and the one who’s charming and affable!”

  “And the one who’s seen it all!”

  The chorus members mimed the characters, and the people laughed: it’s just like that, everyone who takes the floor in the assembly puts on all those same faces.

  “If I’m ever tempted to take the floor at the assembly, promise me you’ll hold me back,” Polemon murmured to Thrasyllus. Thrasyllus snickered.

  “Instead, I think I’ll send Glycera in my place! She already has such a sharp tongue that she can shut me up in a flash.”

  “Because the first of the Greeks have fallen prey to your enchantment, they entrust themselves to you and allow you to decide on their behalf!” the chorus concluded triumphantly, bowing to Lysistrata.

  The woman hardly seemed weighed down by the burden of such great responsibility. She had come out onstage wearing a mask that laughed wholeheartedly.

  “But it’s not an especially difficult task, once people have been slow-cooked till they’re ripe and no longer have the urge to persecute their fellow man. It won’t take me a moment. Where is the Truce?”

  While the musicians were huffing and puffing with all their might, a naked young woman walked on stage. The audience started enthusiastically stamping their feet. From the front rows, where they had the best view, they began sharpening their eyes, trying to recognize her. But that wasn’t easy, there were a great many prostitutes in the city, more than there are stars in the sky. At last someone recognized her.

  “Apphia!”

  The young woman bowed. The name sped from row to row.

  “Apphia, from Fox Dog’s brothel!”

  “I’d pledge a truce with her first thing.”

  “What truce!
Outright peace, for ten years!”

  Onstage, the actors were forced to wait for the excitement to die down, no one would be able to hear them otherwise. Apphia savored that moment of extreme popularity, waving her dainty hand. At last, Lysistrata walked over to her.

  “First go get the Spartans and bring them here, and not with a heavy hand and arrogant airs, the way those oafs of our men did it, but the way we do it, women that we are: like at home.”

  The young woman walked over to the Spartan, who with a last lingering shred of pride acted as if he was going to recoil: What, we the first to sue for peace? Never! But Lysistrata cut him short.

  “If he won’t give you his hand, grab him by his cock.”

  The Truce did as she was told, to the delight of the audience. The Spartan was dragged straight to center stage.

  “Now bring the Athenians here, and grab them by whatever they give you.”

  The Athenian hesitated, extended his hand, and then hastily withdrew it, instead extending his phallus. The people laughed. The young woman grabbed it and dragged him to the center as well.

  “Men of Sparta, come here close beside me, and you all on the other side, and listen to what I have to say,” Lysistrata began. “I am a woman, but I’m endowed with reason. Already on my own I’m able to figure out quite a lot, and listening to the conversations of my father and the other elders, I’ve learned a fair amount. Now that I’ve got you by the short hairs, it’s time for me to dress you down, every last one of you, and you deserve it. Here you are, all descended of the same blood, and you purify your altars scattering the same blood, at Olympia, at Thermopylae, at Delphi, and I could add more names to the list, if I wanted to drag this out: you, with all the barbarian enemies that surround us, make a war in which Greeks kill Greeks, a war to ruin our cities. And that was the first thing.”

  The Athenian and the Spartan only half listened to her: they never took their eyes off the Truce, who was wandering around coquettishly.

  “I’m the one who’s going to be ruined, the top’s come off of mine!” the Athenian declared, having picked up a word at random.

  “Spartans, now it’s time to talk to you,” Lysistrata went on undeterred. “Don’t you know that once Pericleidas, the Spartan, came to supplicate the Athenians, he clung to these very altars, all pale in his red uniform, imploring us to send an army? At the time you had all Messenia ranged against you, as well as the god shaking your foundations: the earthquake. We came to your aid with four thousand hoplites, we saved you, we saved Sparta. That’s what the Athenians did, and now you devastate the country that was your benefactor?”

  This time, the Athenian had listened, and closely indeed.

  “They’re in the wrong, by the gods, Lysistrata!” he protested, impertinently.

  The one who only half listened, this time, was the Spartan. The Truce had stopped in front of him and was turning round and round, smiling and waving her wrists heavy with bracelets.

  “Yes, yes, ve’re in der wrong,” the Spartan muttered distractedly. “But zis ass, vords kan’t describe how lovely it is!”

  Lysistrata let him admire and turned to the Athenian: the little man was too satisfied by half. There, they’re in the wrong, they even admit it!

  “You Athenians think you’re getting off the hook? Don’t you know that the Spartans, too, when you had been reduced to little more than slaves under the tyranny of Hippias, came here under arms, and don’t you remember how many friends of Hippias they killed? They alone fought at your side that day, they liberated you from the tyrant, it’s thanks to the Spartans that today your people wear the garments of citizens, not slaves!”

  But both of them had stopped listening entirely.

  “If I’ve ever seen a real voman, zis is she!” the Spartan declared, reaching his hands out toward the Truce.

  “And I’ve never seen a lovelier piece of pussy,” weighed in the Athenian, reaching his hands out as well.

  Lysistrata yanked the young woman brusquely aside and intervened.

  “But in that case, seeing that in the past you were such fast friends, why do you wage war against each other now, why don’t you stop this filthy business? Why don’t you call a truce? Who’s stopping you?”

  The Truce, who was beginning to be bored, flashed an inviting smile. But the two of them were incorrigible. They never once took their eyes off the young woman; but they started listing conditions. You have to hand over this, and you have to return that to our keeping. Lysistrata looked them up and down, out of patience; then, seeing that there was no end to it, she took the Truce by the hand and led her in front of them again.

  “Come on, no more fighting, there’s plenty for everyone!”

  The Athenian was the first to come to his senses.

  “Truth be told, I’ve got the urge to strip down and go work her vegetable patch for a while . . . ”

  “And I’m tempted to go and kollect some manure, by the Dioskuri!” the Spartan agreed. The audience laughed: everyone knows, the Spartans like to ass-fuck.

  “As soon as you call this truce, you can do exactly that,” Lysistrata said brusquely. “But if you’re in agreement, summon the assembly and come to terms with the allies.”

  “What allies, dear? We have throbbing hard-ons! What do you imagine? The allies are eager for just one thing themselves: they want to fuck.”

  “Zo do ours, by the Dioskuri!”

  “Well said, indeed!” Lysistrata concluded. “Now go and purify yourselves for entering the Acropolis, where the women invite you to supper; we will empty our provision baskets to do you honour. At table, you will exchange oaths and pledges; then each man will go home with his wife.”

  “Let’s go right now!” the Athenian exclaimed.

  “Take us vere you like!”

  “But in a hurry!”

  While Lysistrata, the ambassadors, and the Truce disappeared into the Acropolis, Apphia blowing kisses to the audience, the chorus turned to look out at the spectators, and once again began mocking, just in case the audience had any thoughts of breaking into tears. The invitation to my house is still valid, there I’ll hand out gifts, I’ll give you whatever your heart desires: carpets and jewels! And plenty to eat for the poor: just hurry around with bags and sacks, the wheat is piled up, waiting for you . . . But I’ll be standing in front of the door shouting: “Private Property,” and “Beware of Dog!” the chorus concluded with a loud raspberry.

  18

  Don’t hurt me,” Charis said hastily, as she lay down on the cushions.

  Cratippus looked at her, from her frightened face to her small breasts, her belly button, her dark pubic hair, her skinny legs, her filthy feet. Nothing special, he decided. Still, he licked his lips.

  He took off his tunic, but kept his sandals on. It was cold in the room.

  He climbed on top of her, but that wasn’t comfortable.

  “Not like this,” he ordered. “Turn over.”

  Charis gulped and turned over onto her belly, without understanding.The young man grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her down.

  “With your feet on the floor. There, that’s right,” and he gave her a smack on the buttocks. Charis shut her eyes and clamped her lips tight.

  “Are you ready?”

  Charis didn’t answer. Cratippus smacked her again, harder.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Charis whispered. But as soon as he grabbed her, she started to struggle, trying to twist free.

  “Hold still! Horses don’t like carrying a man on their saddles either.”

  Cimon and Argyrus were taking another drink when they heard Charis moaning. The water was bubbling and steaming in the small copper pot; last year’s wine, already somewhat murky and full of lees, was hard to swallow; and equally murky thoughts swirled pointlessly through their muddled brains. Someone cast a spell on me, thoug
ht Cimon. There’s no other explanation, if someone like me can’t do it, it has to be because some filthy whore cast an evil eye on me. Men didn’t talk much about this sort of thing, it was women’s business, but everyone knew it could happen. So how would you get rid of it? You have to find the woman, beat her silly, the wretch, and force her to untie the knot. Otherwise, you’re stuck, bound and impotent, no matter how hard you try you can’t get free. Still, who could it be, wondered Cimon, and why? Maybe it’s some woman who’s fallen in love with me and doesn’t want me to be with anyone else, he mused; and that idea pleased him. He drained the rest of his cup, half-filled it again, and added boiling water. Argyrus winked, trying to get out some words; but he couldn’t, and only managed to spew an indistinct mumble. His head lolled lazily. He’s smashed, thought Cimon. Whereas Cimon, before resuming his drinking, had stuck two fingers down his throat and vomited into a basin; then he’d peed into it; and now he was ready to drink again, though he didn’t feel all that steady on his legs.

  “Why don’t you vomit, too?”

  “I’ll go in a minute,” Argyrus muttered; and he shut his eyes.

  In the next room, Charis was moaning in pain again; then they heard Cratippus’s irritated, impatient voice. Argyrus opened his eyes again.

  “He’s going at it in there, isn’t he?” he mumbled.

  Cimon nodded, grimly. Now that he’d figured out what was happening to him, there was no point even trying. Starting tomorrow I’m going to go searching for her, the witch, he told himself. But now, the only fun he could hope to have involved the cane.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Argyrus opened his eyes.

  “What do you say, shall we get the other one out too?”

  Argyrus nodded in agreement, and then, with some effort, he got to his feet. He yawned.

  They trudged to the storeroom, pulled back the bolt.

  Glycera was sitting in a corner, with her arms wrapped around her knees. She was trembling. From in there, she could clearly hear Charis’s laments. The two young men dragged her out the door.