* * * * *
LYSISTRATA
The Persons of the drama.
LYSISTRATA CALONICE MYRRHINE LAMPITO Stratyllis, etc. Chorus of Women. MAGISTRATE CINESIAS SPARTAN HERALD ENVOYS ATHENIANS Porter, Market Idlers, etc. Chorus of old Men.
LYSISTRATA _stands alone with the Propylaea at her back._
LYSISTRATA
If they were trysting for a Bacchanal, A feast of Pan or Colias or Genetyllis, The tambourines would block the rowdy streets, But now there's not a woman to be seen Except--ah, yes--this neighbour of mine yonder.
_Enter_ CALONICE.
Good day Calonice.
CALONICE
Good day Lysistrata. But what has vexed you so? Tell me, child. What are these black looks for? It doesn't suit you To knit your eyebrows up glumly like that.
LYSISTRATA
Calonice, it's more than I can bear, I am hot all over with blushes for our sex. Men say we're slippery rogues--
CALONICE
And aren't they right?
LYSISTRATA
Yet summoned on the most tremendous business For deliberation, still they snuggle in bed.
CALONICE
My dear, they'll come. 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: Servants to be poked out: children washed Or soothed with lullays or fed with mouthfuls of pap.
LYSISTRATA
But I tell you, here's a far more weighty object.
CALONICE
What is it all about, dear Lysistrata, That you've called the women hither in a troop? What kind of an object is it?
LYSISTRATA
A tremendous thing!
CALONICE
And long?
LYSISTRATA
Indeed, it may be very lengthy.
CALONICE
Then why aren't they here?
LYSISTRATA
No man's connected with it; If that was the case, they'd soon come fluttering along. No, no. It concerns an object I've felt over And turned this way and that for sleepless nights.
CALONICE
It must be fine to stand such long attention.
LYSISTRATA
So fine it comes to this--Greece saved by Woman!
CALONICE
By Woman? Wretched thing, I'm sorry for it.
LYSISTRATA
Our country's fate is henceforth in our hands: To destroy the Peloponnesians root and branch--
CALONICE
What could be nobler!
LYSISTRATA
Wipe out the Boeotians--
CALONICE
Not utterly. Have mercy on the eels! [Footnote: The Boeotian eels were highly esteemed delicacies in Athens.]
YOU ARE READING
Lysistrata (Completed)
ClassicsThis text was banned for obscenity as well as its anti-war sentiment. From Wikipedia: "It is one of eleven surviving plays written by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinar...
