The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

  MAGISTRATE. Here’s a fine exploit for my officers!

  LYSISTRATA. Ah, ha! so you thought you had only to do with a set of slave-women! you did not know the ardour that fills the bosom of free-born dames.

  MAGISTRATE. Ardour! yes, by Apollo, ardour enough — especially for the wine-cup!

  CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Sir, sir! what use of words? they are of no avail with wild beasts of this sort. Don’t you know how they have just washed us down — and with no very fragrant soap!

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. What would you have? You should never have laid rash hands on us. If you start afresh, I’ll knock your eyes out. My delight is to stay at home as coy as a young maid, without hurting anybody or moving any more than a milestone; but ‘ware the wasps, if you go stirring up the wasps’ nest!

  CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah! great gods! how get the better of these ferocious creatures? ’tis past all bearing! But come, let us try to find out the reason of the dreadful scourge. With what end in view have they seized the citadel of Cranaus, the sacred shrine that is raised upon the inaccessible rock of the Acropolis? Question them; be cautious and not too credulous. ’Twould be culpable negligence not to pierce the mystery, if we may.

  MAGISTRATE (addressing the women). I would ask you first why ye have barred our gates.

  LYSISTRATA. To seize the treasury; no more money, no more war.

  MAGISTRATE. Then money is the cause of the War?

  LYSISTRATA. And of all our troubles. ’Twas to find occasion to steal that Pisander and all the other agitators were for ever raising revolutions. Well and good! but they’ll never get another drachma here.

  MAGISTRATE. What do you propose to do then, pray?

  LYSISTRATA. You ask me that! Why, we propose to administer the treasury ourselves.

  MAGISTRATE. You do?

  LYSISTRATA. What is there in that to surprise you? Do we not administer the budget of household expenses?

  MAGISTRATE. But that is not the same thing.

  LYSISTRATA How so — not the same thing?

  MAGISTRATE. It is the treasury supplies the expenses of the War.

  LYSISTRATA. That’s our first principle — no War!

  MAGISTRATE. What! and the safety of the city?

  LYSISTRATA. We will provide for that.

  MAGISTRATE You?

  LYSISTRATA Yes, just we.

  MAGISTRATE. What a sorry business!

  LYSISTRATA. Yes, we’re going to save you, whether you will or no.

  MAGISTRATE. Oh! the impudence of the creatures!

  LYSISTRATA. You seem annoyed! but there, you’ve got to come to it.

  MAGISTRATE. But ’tis the very height of iniquity!

  LYSISTRATA. We’re going to save you, my man.

  MAGISTRATE. But if I don’t want to be saved?

  LYSISTRATA. Why, all the more reason!

  MAGISTRATE. But what a notion, to concern yourselves with questions of

  Peace and War!

  LYSISTRATA. We will explain our idea.

  MAGISTRATE. Out with it then; quick, or … (threatening her).

  LYSISTRATA. Listen, and never a movement, please!

  MAGISTRATE. Oh! it is too much for me! I cannot keep my temper!

  A WOMAN. Then look out for yourself; you have more to fear than we have.

  MAGISTRATE. Stop your croaking, old crow, you! (To Lysistrata.) Now you, say your say.

  LYSISTRATA. Willingly. All the long time the War has lasted, we have endured in modest silence all you men did; we never allowed ourselves to open our lips. We were far from satisfied, for we knew how things were going; often in our homes we would hear you discussing, upside down and inside out, some important turn of affairs. Then with sad hearts, but smiling lips, we would ask you: Well, in to-day’s Assembly did they vote Peace? — But, “Mind your own business!” the husband would growl, “Hold your tongue, do!” And I would say no more.

  A WOMAN. I would not have held my tongue though, not I!

  MAGISTRATE. You would have been reduced to silence by blows then.

  LYSISTRATA. Well, for my part, I would say no more. But presently I would come to know you had arrived at some fresh decision more fatally foolish than ever. “Ah! my dear man,” I would say, “what madness next!” But he would only look at me askance and say: “Just weave your web, do; else your cheeks will smart for hours. War is men’s business!”

  MAGISTRATE. Bravo! well said indeed!

  LYSISTRATA. How now, wretched man? not to let us contend against your follies, was bad enough! But presently we heard you asking out loud in the open street: “Is there never a man left in Athens?” and, “No, not one, not one,” you were assured in reply. Then, then we made up our minds without more delay to make common cause to save Greece. Open your ears to our wise counsels and hold your tongues, and we may yet put things on a better footing.

  MAGISTRATE. You put things indeed! Oh! ’tis too much! The insolence of the creatures! Silence, I say.

  LYSISTRATA. Silence yourself!

  MAGISTRATE. May I die a thousand deaths ere I obey one who wears a veil!

  LYSISTRATA. If that’s all that troubles you, here, take my veil, wrap it round your head, and hold your tongue. Then take this basket; put on a girdle, card wool, munch beans. The War shall be women’s business.

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. Lay aside your water-pots, we will guard them, we will help our friends and companions. For myself, I will never weary of the dance; my knees will never grow stiff with fatigue. I will brave everything with my dear allies, on whom Nature has lavished virtue, grace, boldness, cleverness, and whose wisely directed energy is going to save the State. Oh! my good, gallant Lysistrata, and all my friends, be ever like a bundle of nettles; never let your anger slacken; the winds of fortune blow our way.

  LYSISTRATA. May gentle Love and the sweet Cyprian Queen shower seductive charms on our bosoms and all our person. If only we may stir so amorous a lust among the men that their tools stand stiff as sticks, we shall indeed deserve the name of peace-makers among the Greeks.

  MAGISTRATE. How will that be, pray?

  LYSISTRATA. To begin with, we shall not see you any more running like mad fellows to the Market holding lance in fist.

  A WOMAN. That will be something gained, anyway, by the Paphian goddess, it will!

  LYSISTRATA. Now we see ‘em, mixed up with saucepans and kitchen stuff, armed to the teeth, looking like wild Corybantes!

  MAGISTRATE. Why, of course; that’s how brave men should do.

  LYSISTRATA. Oh! but what a funny sight, to behold a man wearing a

  Gorgon’s-head buckler coming along to buy fish!

  A WOMAN. ‘Tother day in the Market I saw a phylarch with flowing ringlets; he was a-horseback, and was pouring into his helmet the broth he had just bought at an old dame’s stall. There was a Thracian warrior too, who was brandishing his lance like Tereus in the play; he had scared a good woman selling figs into a perfect panic, and was gobbling up all her ripest fruit.

  MAGISTRATE. And how, pray, would you propose to restore peace and order in all the countries of Greece?

  LYSISTRATA. ’Tis the easiest thing in the world!

  MAGISTRATE. Come, tell us how; I am curious to know.

  LYSISTRATA. When we are winding thread, and it is tangled, we pass the spool across and through the skein, now this way, now that way; even so, to finish off the War, we shall send embassies hither and thither and everywhere, to disentangle matters.

  MAGISTRATE. And ’tis with your yarn, and your skeins, and your spools, you think to appease so many bitter enmities, you silly women?

  LYSISTRATA. If only you had common sense, you would always do in politics the same as we do with our yarn.

  MAGISTRATE. Come, how is that, eh?

  LYSISTRATA. First we wash the yarn to separate the grease and filth; do the same with all bad citizens, sort them out and drive them forth with rods— ’tis the refuse of the city. Then for all such as come crowding up in search of employments and offices, we must car
d them thoroughly; then, to bring them all to the same standard, pitch them pell-mell into the same basket, resident aliens or no, allies, debtors to the State, all mixed up together. Then as for our Colonies, you must think of them as so many isolated hanks; find the ends of the separate threads, draw them to a centre here, wind them into one, make one great hank of the lot, out of which the Public can weave itself a good, stout tunic.

  MAGISTRATE. Is it not a sin and a shame to see them carding and winding the State, these women who have neither art nor part in the burdens of the War?

  LYSISTRATA. What! wretched man! why, ’tis a far heavier burden to us than to you. In the first place, we bear sons who go off to fight far away from Athens.

  MAGISTRATE. Enough said! do not recall sad and sorry memories!

  LYSISTRATA. Then secondly, instead of enjoying the pleasures of love and making the best of our youth and beauty, we are left to languish far from our husbands, who are all with the army. But say no more of ourselves; what afflicts me is to see our girls growing old in lonely grief.

  MAGISTRATE. Don’t the men grow old too?

  LYSISTRATA. That is not the same thing. When the soldier returns from the wars, even though he has white hair, he very soon finds a young wife. But a woman has only one summer; if she does not make hay while the sun shines, no one will afterwards have anything to say to her, and she spends her days consulting oracles, that never send her a husband.

  MAGISTRATE. But the old man who can still erect his organ …

  LYSISTRATA. But you, why don’t you get done with it and die? You are rich; go buy yourself a bier, and I will knead you a honey-cake for Cerberus. Here, take this garland. (Drenching him with water.)

  FIRST WOMAN. And this one too. (Drenching him with water.)

  SECOND WOMAN. And these fillets. (Drenching him with water.)

  LYSISTRATA. What do you lack more? Step aboard the boat; Charon is waiting for you, you’re keeping him from pushing off.

  MAGISTRATE. To treat me so scurvily! What an insult! I will go show myself to my fellow-magistrates just as I am.

  LYSISTRATA. What! are you blaming us for not having exposed you according to custom? Nay, console yourself; we will not fail to offer up the third-day sacrifice for you, first thing in the morning.

  CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Awake, friends of freedom; let us hold ourselves aye ready to act. I suspect a mighty peril; I foresee another Tyranny like Hippias’. I am sore afraid the Laconians assembled here with Cleisthenes have, by a stratagem of war, stirred up these women, enemies of the gods, to seize upon our treasury and the funds whereby I lived. Is it not a sin and a shame for them to interfere in advising the citizens, to prate of shields and lances, and to ally themselves with Laconians, fellows I trust no more than I would so many famished wolves? The whole thing, my friends, is nothing else but an attempt to re-establish Tyranny. But I will never submit; I will be on my guard for the future; I will always carry a blade hidden under myrtle boughs; I will post myself in the Public Square under arms, shoulder to shoulder with Aristogiton; and now, to make a start, I must just break a few of that cursed old jade’s teeth yonder.

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. Nay, never play the brave man, else when you go back home, your own mother won’t know you. But, dear friends and allies, first let us lay our burdens down; then, citizens all, hear what I have to say. I have useful counsel to give our city, which deserves it well at my hands for the brilliant distinctions it has lavished on my girlhood. At seven years of age, I was bearer of the sacred vessels; at ten, I pounded barley for the altar of Athené; next, clad in a robe of yellow silk, I was little bear to Artemis at the Brauronia; presently, grown a tall, handsome maiden, they put a necklace of dried figs about my neck, and I was Basket-Bearer. So surely I am bound to give my best advice to Athens. What matters that I was born a woman, if I can cure your misfortunes? I pay my share of tolls and taxes, by giving men to the State. But you, you miserable greybeards, you contribute nothing to the public charges; on the contrary, you have wasted the treasure of our forefathers, as it was called, the treasure amassed in the days of the Persian Wars. You pay nothing at all in return; and into the bargain you endanger our lives and liberties by your mistakes. Have you one word to say for yourselves? … Ah! don’t irritate me, you there, or I’ll lay my slipper across your jaws; and it’s pretty heavy.

  CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Outrage upon outrage! things are going from bad to worse. Let us punish the minxes, every one of us that has a man’s appendages to boast of. Come, off with our tunics, for a man must savour of manhood; come, my friends, let us strip naked from head to foot. Courage, I say, we who in our day garrisoned Lipsydrion; let us be young again, and shake off eld. If we give them the least hold over us, ’tis all up! their audacity will know no bounds! We shall see them building ships, and fighting sea-fights, like Artemisia; nay, if they want to mount and ride as cavalry, we had best cashier the knights, for indeed women excel in riding, and have a fine, firm seat for the gallop. Just think of all those squadrons of Amazons Micon has painted for us engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men. Come then, we must e’en fit collars to all these willing necks.

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. By the blessed goddesses, if you anger me, I will let loose the beast of my evil passions, and a very hailstorm of blows will set you yelling for help. Come, dames, off tunics, and quick’s the word; women must scent the savour of women in the throes of passion…. Now just you dare to measure strength with me, old greybeard, and I warrant you you’ll never eat garlic or black beans more. No, not a word! my anger is at boiling point, and I’ll do with you what the beetle did with the eagle’s eggs. I laugh at your threats, so long as I have on my side Lampito here, and the noble Theban, my dear Ismenia…. Pass decree on decree, you can do us no hurt, you wretch abhorred of all your fellows. Why, only yesterday, on occasion of the feast of Hecaté, I asked my neighbours of Boeotia for one of their daughters for whom my girls have a lively liking — a fine, fat eel to wit; and if they did not refuse, all along of your silly decrees! We shall never cease to suffer the like, till someone gives you a neat trip-up and breaks your neck for you!

  CHORUS OF WOMEN (addressing Lysistrata). You, Lysistrata, you who are leader of our glorious enterprise, why do I see you coming towards me with so gloomy an air?

  LYSISTRATA. ’Tis the behaviour of these naughty women, ’tis the female heart and female weakness so discourages me.

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. Tell us, tell us, what is it?

  LYSISTRATA. I only tell the simple truth.

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. What has happened so disconcerting; come, tell your friends.

  LYSISTRATA. Oh! the thing is so hard to tell — yet so impossible to conceal.

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. Nay, never seek to hide any ill that has befallen our cause.

  LYSISTRATA. To blurt it out in a word — we are in heat!

  CHORUS OF WOMEN. Oh! Zeus, oh! Zeus!

  LYSISTRATA. What use calling upon Zeus? The thing is even as I say. I cannot stop them any longer from lusting after the men. They are all for deserting. The first I caught was slipping out by the postern gate near the cave of Pan; another was letting herself down by a rope and pulley; a third was busy preparing her escape; while a fourth, perched on a bird’s back, was just taking wing for Orsilochus’ house, when I seized her by the hair. One and all, they are inventing excuses to be off home. Look! there goes one, trying to get out! Halloa there! whither away so fast?

  FIRST WOMAN. I want to go home; I have some Miletus wool in the house, which is getting all eaten up by the worms.

  LYSISTRATA. Bah! you and your worms! go back, I say!

  FIRST WOMAN. I will return immediately, I swear I will by the two goddesses! I only have just to spread it out on the bed.

  LYSISTRATA. You shall not do anything of the kind! I say, you shall not go.

  FIRST WOMAN. Must I leave my wool to spoil then?

  LYSISTRATA. Yes, if need be.

  SECOND WOMAN. Unhappy woman that I am! Alas for my flax! I’ve left it at home
unstript!

  LYSISTRATA. So, here’s another trying to escape to go home and strip her flax forsooth!

  SECOND WOMAN. Oh! I swear by the goddess of light, the instant I have put it in condition I will come straight back.

  LYSISTRATA. You shall do nothing of the kind! If once you began, others would want to follow suit.

  THIRD WOMAN. Oh! goddess divine, Ilithyia, patroness of women in labour, stay, stay the birth, till I have reached a spot less hallowed than Athene’s Mount!

  LYSISTRATA. What mean you by these silly tales?

  THIRD WOMAN. I am going to have a child — now, this minute.

  LYSISTRATA. But you were not pregnant yesterday!

  THIRD WOMAN. Well, I am to-day. Oh! let me go in search of the midwife,

  Lysistrata, quick, quick!

  LYSISTRATA. What is this fable you are telling me? Ah! what have you got there so hard?

  THIRD WOMAN. A male child.

  LYSISTRATA. No, no, by Aphrodité! nothing of the sort! Why, it feels like something hollow — a pot or a kettle. Oh! you baggage, if you have not got the sacred helmet of Pallas — and you said you were with child!

  THIRD WOMAN. And so I am, by Zeus, I am!

  LYSISTRATA. Then why this helmet, pray?

  THIRD WOMAN. For fear my pains should seize me in the Acropolis; I mean to lay my eggs in this helmet, as the doves do.

  LYSISTRATA. Excuses and pretences every word! the thing’s as clear as daylight. Anyway, you must stay here now till the fifth day, your day of purification.

  THIRD WOMAN. I cannot sleep any more in the Acropolis, now I have seen the snake that guards the Temple.

  FOURTH WOMAN. Ah! and those confounded owls with their dismal hooting! I cannot get a wink of rest, and I’m just dying of fatigue.

  LYSISTRATA. You wicked women, have done with your falsehoods! You want your husbands, that’s plain enough. But don’t you think they want you just as badly? They are spending dreadful nights, oh! I know that well enough. But hold out, my dears, hold out! A little more patience, and the victory will be ours. An Oracle promises us success, if only we remain united. Shall I repeat the words?

  FIRST WOMAN. Yes, tell us what the Oracle declares.