Chapter I: Part 1

LYSISTRATA

Translated from the Greek of

ARISTOPHANES

Illustrations by Norman Lindsay

FOREWORD

_Lysistrata_ is the greatest work by Aristophanes. This blank and rash statement is made that it may be rejected. But first let it be understood that I do not mean it is a better written work than the _Birds_ or the _Frogs_, or that (to descend to the scale of values that will be naturally imputed to me) it has any more appeal to the collectors of "curious literature" than the _Ecclesiazusae_ or the _Thesmophoriazusae_. On the mere grounds of taste I can see an at least equally good case made out for the _Birds_. That brightly plumaged fantasy has an aerial wit and colour all its own. But there are certain works in which a man finds himself at an angle of vision where there is an especially felicitous union of the aesthetic and emotional elements which constitute the basic qualities of his uniqueness. We recognize these works as being welded into a strange unity, as having a homogeneous texture of ecstasy over them that surpasses any aesthetic surface of harmonic colour, though that harmony also is understood by the deeper welling of imagery from the core of creative exaltation. And I think that this occurs in _Lysistrata_. The intellectual and spiritual tendrils of the poem are more truly interwoven, the operation of their centres more nearly unified; and so the work goes deeper into life. It is his greatest play because of this, because it holds an intimate perfume of femininity and gives the finest sense of the charm of a cluster of girls, the sweet sense of their chatter, and the contact of their bodies, that is to be found before Shakespeare, because that mocking gaiety we call Aristophanies reaches here its most positive acclamation of life, vitalizing sex with a deep delight, a rare happiness of the spirit.

Indeed it is precisely for these reasons that it is _not_ considered Aristophanes' greatest play.

To take a case which is sufficiently near to the point in question, to make clear what I mean: the supremacy of _Antony and Cleopatra_ in the Shakespearean aesthetic is yet jealously disputed, and it seems silly to the academic to put it up against a work like _Hamlet_. But it is the comparatively more obvious achievement of _Hamlet_, its surface intellectuality, which made it the favourite of actors and critics. It is much more difficult to realize the complex and delicately passionate edge of the former play's rhythm, its tides of hugely wandering emotion, the restless, proud, gay, and agonized reaction from life, of the blood, of the mind, of the heart, which is its unity, than to follow the relatively straightforward definition of Hamlet's nerves. Not that anything derogatory to _Hamlet_ or the _Birds_ is intended; but the value of such works is not enhanced by forcing them into contrast with other works which cover deeper and wider nexus of aesthetic and spiritual material. It is the very subtlety of the vitality of such works as _Antony and Cleopatra_ and _Lysistrata_ that makes it so easy to undervalue them, to see only a phallic play and political pamphlet in one, only a chronicle play in a grandiose method in the other. For we have to be in a highly sensitized condition before we can get to that subtle point where life and the image mix, and so really perceive the work at all; whereas we can command the response to a lesser work which does not call so finely on the full breadth and depth of our spiritual resources.

I amuse myself at times with the fancy that Homer, Sappho, and Aristophanes are the inviolable Trinity of poetry, even to the extent of being reducible to One. For the fiery and lucid directness of Sappho, if her note of personal lyricism is abstracted, is seen to be an element of Homer, as is the profoundly balanced humour of Aristophanes, at once tenderly human and cruelly hard, as of a god to whom all sympathies and tolerances are known, but who is invulnerable somewhere, who sees from a point in space where the pressure of earth's fear and pain, and so its pity, is lifted. It is here that the Shakespearean and Homeric worlds impinge and merge, not to be separated by any academic classifications. They meet in this sensitivity equally involved and aloof, sympathetic and arrogant, suffering and joyous; and in this relation we see Aristophanes as the forerunner of Shakespeare, his only one. We see also that the whole present aesthetic of earth is based in Homer. We live and grow in the world of consciousness bequeathed to us by him; and if we grow beyond it through deeper Shakespearean ardours, it is because those beyond are rooted in the broad basis of the Homeric imagination. To shift that basis is to find the marshes of primitive night and fear alone beneath the feet: Christianity.

And here we return to the question of the immorality of _Lysistrata_. First we may inquire: is it possible for a man whose work has so tremendous a significance in the spiritual development of mankind--and I do not think anyone nowadays doubts that a work of art is the sole stabilizing force that exists for life--is it possible for a man who stands so grandly at head of an immense stream of liberating effort to write an immoral work? Surely the only enduring moral virtue which can be claimed is for that which moves to more power, beauty and delight in the future? The plea that the question of changing customs arises is not valid, for customs ratified by Aristophanes, by Rabelais, by Shakespeare, have no right to change. If they have changed, let us try immediately to return from our disgraceful refinements to the nobler and more rarefied heights of lyric laughter, tragic intensity, and wit, for we cannot have the first two without the last. And anyhow, how can a social custom claim precedence over the undying material of the senses and the emotions of man, over the very generating forces of life?

How could the humanistic emotions, such as pity, justice, sympathy, exist save as pacifistic quietings of the desire to slay, to hurt, to torment. Where the desire to hurt is gone pity ceases to be a significant, a central emotion. It must of course continue to exist, but it is displaced in the spiritual hierarchy; and all that moves courageously, desirously, and vitally into the action of life takes on a deeper and subtler intention. Lust, then, which on the lower plane was something to be very frightened of, becomes a symbol of the highest spirituality. It is right for Paul to be terrified of sex and so to hate it, because he has so freshly escaped a bestial condition of life that it threatens to plunge him back if he listens to one whisper But it is also right for a Shakespeare to suck every drop of desire from life, for he is building into a higher condition, one self-willed, self-responsible, the discipline of which comes from joy, not fear.

Sex, therefore, is an animal function, one admits, one insists; it may be only that. But also in the bewildering and humorous and tragic duality of all life's energies, it is the bridge to every eternity which is not merely a spectral condition of earth disembowelled of its lusts. For sex holds the substance of the image. But we must remember with Heine that Aristophanes is the God of this ironic earth, and that all argument is apparently vitiated from the start by the simple fact that Wagner and a rooster are given an analogous method of making love. And therefore it seems impeccable logic to say that all that is most unlike the rooster is the most spiritual part of love. All will agree on that, schisms only arise when one tries to decide what does go farthest from the bird's automatic mechanism. Certainly not a Dante-Beatrice affair which is only the negation of the rooster in terms of the swooning bombast of adolescence, the first onslaught of a force which the sufferer cannot control or inhabit with all the potentialities of his body and soul. But the rooster is troubled by no dreams of a divine orgy, no carnival-loves like Beethoven's _Fourth Symphony_, no heroic and shining lust gathering and swinging into a merry embrace like the third act of _Siegfried_. It is desire in this sense that goes farthest from the animal.

Consciously, no one can achieve the act of love on earth as a completed thing of grace, with whatever delirium of delight, with whatever ingenious preciosity, we go through its process. Only as an image of beauty mated in some strange hermaphroditic ecstasy is that possible. I mean only as a dream projected into a hypothetical, a real heaven. But on earth we cannot complete the cycle in consciousness that would give us the freedom of an image in which two identities mysteriously realize their separate unities by the absorption of a third thing, the constructive rhythm of a work of art. It is thus that Tristan and Isolde become wholly distinct individuals, yet wholly submerged in the unity that is Wagner; and so reconcile life's duality by balancing its opposing laughters in a definite form--thereby sending out into life a profounder duality than existed before. A Platonic equipoise, Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence--the only real philosophic problem, therefore one of which these two philosophers alone are aware.

But though Wagner with Mathilde Wesendonck in his arms was Tristan in the arms of Isolde, he did not find a melody instead of a kiss on his lips; he did not find a progression of harmonies melting through the contours of a warm beauty with a blur of desperate ecstasies, semitones of desire, he found only the anxious happiness of any other lover. Nevertheless, he was gathering the substance of the second act of _Tristan und Isolde_. And it is this that Plato means when he says that fornication is something immortal in mortality. He does not mean that the act itself is a godlike thing, a claim which any bedroom mirror would quickly deride. He means that it is a symbol, an essential condition, and a part of something that goes deeper into life than any geometry of earth's absurd, passionate, futile, and very necessary antics would suggest.

It is a universal fallacy that because works like the comedies of Aristophanes discuss certain social or ethical problems, they are inspired by them. Aristophanes wrote to express his vision on life, his delight in life itself seen behind the warping screen of contemporary event; and for his purposes anything from Euripides to Cleon served as ground work. Not that he would think in those terms, naturally: but the rationalizing process that goes on in consciousness during the creation of a work of art, for all its appearance of directing matters, is the merest weathercock in the wind of the subconscious intention. As an example of how utterly it is possible to misunderstand the springs of inspiration in a poem, we may take the following remark of B. B. Rogers: _It is much to be regretted that the phallus element should be so conspicuous in this play.... (This) coarseness, so repulsive to ourselves, was introduced, it is impossible to doubt, for the express purpose of counter-balancing the extreme earnestness and gravity of the play_. It seems so logical, so irrefutable; and so completely misinterprets every creative force of Aristophanes' Psyche that it certainly deserves a little admiration. It is in the best academic tradition, and everyone respects a man for writing so mendaciously. The effort of these castrators is always to show that the parts considered offensive are not the natural expression of the poet, that they are dictated externally. They argue that Shakespeare's coarseness is the result of the age and not personal predilection, completely ignoring the work of men like Sir Philip Sidney and Spenser, indeed practically all the pre-Shakespearean writers, in whom none of this so-called grossness exists. Shakespeare wrote sculduddery because he liked it, and for no other reason; his sensuality is the measure of his vitality. These liars pretend similarly that because Rabelais had a humanistic reason for much of his work--the destructior Mediaevalism, and the Church, which purpose they construe of course as an effort to purify, etc.--therefore he only put the lewdery to make the rest palatable, when it should be obvious even to an academic how he glories in his wild humour.

What the academic cannot understand is that in such works, while attacking certain conditions, the creative power of the vigorous spirits is so great that it overflows and saturates the intellectual conception with their own passionate sense of life. It is for this reason that these works have an eternal significance. If Rabelais were merely a social reformer, then the value of his work would not have outlived his generation. If _Lysistrata_ were but a wise political tract, it would have merely an historical interest, and it would have ceased spiritually at 404 B.C.

But Panurge is as fantastic and fascinating a character now as he was 300 years ago, Lysistrata and her girls as freshly bodied as any girl kissed to-day. Therefore the serious part of the play is that which deals with them, the frivolous part that in which Rogers detects gravity and earnestness.

Aristophanes is the lord of all who take life as a gay adventure, who defy all efforts to turn life into a social, economic, or moral abstraction. Is it therefore just that the critics who, by some dark instinct, unerringly pick out the exact opposite of any creator's real virtues as his chief characteristics, should praise him as an idealistic reformer? An "ideal" state of society was the last thing Aristophanes desired. He wished, certainly, to eliminate inhumanities and baseness; but only that there might be free play for laughter, for individual happiness.

Consequently the critics lay the emphasis on the effort to cleanse society, not the method of laughter. Aristophanes wished to destroy Cleon because that demagogue failed to realize the poet's conception of dignified government and tended to upset the stability of Hellas. But it was the stability of life, the vindication of all individual freedoms, in which he was ultimately interested.

JACK LINDSAY.

* * * * *

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.]

LYSISTRATA

But with regard to Athens, note I'm careful Not to say any of these nasty things; Still, thought is free.... But if the women join us From Peloponnesus and Boeotia, then Hand in hand we'll rescue Greece.

CALONICE

How could we do Such a big wise deed? We women who dwell Quietly adorning ourselves in a back-room With gowns of lucid gold and gawdy toilets Of stately silk and dainty little slippers....

LYSISTRATA

These are the very armaments of the rescue. These crocus-gowns, this outlay of the best myrrh, Slippers, cosmetics dusting beauty, and robes With rippling creases of light.

CALONICE

Yes, but how?

LYSISTRATA

No man will lift a lance against another--

CALONICE

I'll run to have my tunic dyed crocus.

LYSISTRATA

Or take a shield--

CALONICE

I'll get a stately gown.

LYSISTRATA

Or unscabbard a sword--

CALONICE

Let me buy a pair of slipper.

LYSISTRATA

Now, tell me, are the women right to lag?

CALONICE

They should have turned birds, they should have grown wings and flown.

LYSISTRATA

My friend, you'll see that they are true Athenians: Always too late. Why, there's not a woman From the shoreward demes arrived, not one from Salamis.

CALONICE

I know for certain they awoke at dawn, And got their husbands up if not their boat sails.

LYSISTRATA

And I'd have staked my life the Acharnian dames Would be here first, yet they haven't come either!

CALONICE

Well anyhow there is Theagenes' wife We can expect--she consulted Hecate. But look, here are some at last, and more behind them. See ... where are they from?

CALONICE

From Anagyra they come.

LYSISTRATA

Yes, they generally manage to come first.

_Enter_ MYRRHINE.

MYRRHINE

Are we late, Lysistrata? ... What is that? Nothing to say?

LYSISTRATA

I've not much to say for you, Myrrhine, dawdling on so vast an affair.

MYRRHINE

I couldn't find my girdle in the dark. But if the affair's so wonderful, tell us, what is it?

LYSISTRATA

No, let us stay a little longer till The Peloponnesian girls and the girls of Bocotia Are here to listen.

MYRRHINE

That's the best advice. Ah, there comes Lampito.

_Enter_ LAMPITO.

LYSISTRATA

Welcome Lampito! Dear Spartan girl with a delightful face, Washed with the rosy spring, how fresh you look In the easy stride of your sleek slenderness, Why you could strangle a bull!

LAMPITO

I think I could. It's frae exercise and kicking high behint.

[Footnote: The translator has put the speech of the Spartan characters in Scotch dialect which is related to English about as was the Spartan dialect to the speech of Athens. The Spartans, in their character, anticipated the shrewd, canny, uncouth Scotch highlander of modern times.]

LYSISTRATA

What lovely breasts to own!

LAMPITO

Oo ... your fingers Assess them, ye tickler, wi' such tender chucks I feel as if I were an altar-victim.

LYSISTRATA

Who is this youngster?

LAMPITO

A Boeotian lady.

LYSISTRATA

There never was much undergrowth in Boeotia, Such a smooth place, and this girl takes after it.

CALONICE

Yes, I never saw a skin so primly kept.

LYSISTRATA

This girl?

LAMPITO

A sonsie open-looking jinker! She's a Corinthian.

LYSISTRATA

Yes, isn't she Very open, in some ways particularly.

LAMPITO

But who's garred this Council o' Women to meet here?

LYSISTRATA

I have.

LAMPITO

Propound then what you want o' us.

MYRRHINE

What is the amazing news you have to tell?

LYSISTRATA

I'll tell you, but first answer one small question.

MYRRHINE

As you like.

LYSISTRATA

Are you not sad your children's fathers Go endlessly off soldiering afar In this plodding war? I am willing to wager There's not one here whose husband is at home.

CALONICE

Mine's been in Thrace, keeping an eye on Eucrates For five months past.

MYRRHINE

And mine left me for Pylos Seven months ago at least.

LAMPITO

And as for mine No sooner has he slipped out frae the line He straps his shield and he's snickt off again.

LYSISTRATA

And not the slightest glitter of a lover! And since the Milesians betrayed us, I've not seen The image of a single upright man To be a marble consolation to us. Now will you help me, if I find a means To stamp the war out.

MYRRHINE

By the two Goddesses, Yes! I will though I've to pawn this very dress And drink the barter-money the same day.

CALONICE

And I too though I'm split up like a turbot And half is hackt off as the price of peace.

LAMPITO

And I too! Why, to get a peep at the shy thing I'd clamber up to the tip-top o' Taygetus.

LYSISTRATA

Then I'll expose my mighty mystery. O women, if we would compel the men To bow to Peace, we must refrain--

MYRRHINE

From what? O tell us!

LYSISTRATA

Will you truly do it then?

MYRRHINE

We will, we will, if we must die for it.

LYSISTRATA

We must refrain from every depth of love.... Why do you turn your backs? Where are you going? Why do you bite your lips and shake your heads? Why are your faces blanched? Why do you weep? Will you or won't you, or what do you mean?

MYRRHINE

No, I won't do it. Let the war proceed.

CALONICE

No, I won't do it. Let the war proceed.

LYSISTRATA

You too, dear turbot, you that said just now You didn't mind being split right up in the least?

CALONICE

Anything else? O bid me walk in fire But do not rob us of that darling joy. What else is like it, dearest Lysistrata?

LYSISTRATA

And you?

MYRRHINE

O please give me the fire instead.

LYSISTRATA

Lewd to the least drop in the tiniest vein, Our sex is fitly food for Tragic Poets, Our whole life's but a pile of kisses and babies. But, hardy Spartan, if you join with me All may be righted yet. O help me, help me.

LAMPITO

It's a sair, sair thing to ask of us, by the Twa, A lass to sleep her lane and never fill Love's lack except wi' makeshifts.... But let it be. Peace maun be thought of first.

LYSISTRATA

My friend, my friend! The only one amid this herd of weaklings.

CALONICE

But if--which heaven forbid--we should refrain As you would have us, how is Peace induced?

LYSISTRATA

By the two Goddesses, now can't you see All we have to do is idly sit indoors With smooth roses powdered on our cheeks, Our bodies burning naked through the folds Of shining Amorgos' silk, and meet the men With our dear Venus-plats plucked trim and neat. Their stirring love will rise up furiously, They'll beg our arms to open. That's our time! We'll disregard their knocking, beat them off-- And they will soon be rabid for a Peace. I'm sure of it.

LAMPITO

Just as Menelaus, they say, Seeing the bosom of his naked Helen Flang down the sword.

CALONICE

But we'll be tearful fools
If our husbands take us at our word and leave us.

LYSISTRATA

There's only left then, in Pherecrates' phrase, _To flay a skinned dog_--flay more our flayed desires.

CALONICE

Bah, proverbs will never warm a celibate. But what avail will your scheme be if the men Drag us for all our kicking on to the couch?

LYSISTRATA

Cling to the doorposts.

CALONICE

But if they should force us?

LYSISTRATA

Yield then, but with a sluggish, cold indifference. There is no joy to them in sullen mating. Besides we have other ways to madden them; They cannot stand up long, and they've no delight Unless we fit their aim with merry succour.

CALONICE

Well if you must have it so, we'll all agree.

LAMPITO

For us I ha' no doubt. We can persuade Our men to strike a fair an' decent Peace, But how will ye pitch out the battle-frenzy O' the Athenian populace?

LYSISTRATA

I promise you We'll wither up that curse.

LAMPITO

I don't believe it. Not while they own ane trireme oared an' rigged, Or a' those stacks an' stacks an' stacks O' siller.

LYSISTRATA

I've thought the whole thing out till there's no flaw. We shall surprise the Acropolis today: That is the duty set the older dames. While we sit here talking, they are to go And under pretence of sacrificing, seize it.

LAMPITO

Certie, that's fine; all's working for the best.

LYSISTRATA

Now quickly, Lampito, let us tie ourselves To this high purpose as tightly as the hemp of words Can knot together.

LAMPITO

Set out the terms in detail And we'll a' swear to them.

LYSISTRATA

Of course.... Well then Where is our Scythianess? Why are you staring? First lay the shield, boss downward, on the floor And bring the victim's inwards.

CAILONICE

But, Lysistrata, What is this oath that we're to swear?

LYSISTRATA

What oath! In Aeschylus they take a slaughtered sheep And swear upon a buckler. Why not we?

CALONICE

O Lysistrata, Peace sworn on a buckler!

LYSISTRATA

What oath would suit us then?

CALONICE

Something burden bearing Would be our best insignia.... A white horse! Let's swear upon its entrails.

LYSISTRATA

A horse indeed!

CALONICE

Then what will symbolise us?

LYSISTRATA

This, as I tell you-- First set a great dark bowl upon the ground And disembowel a skin of Thasian wine, Then swear that we'll not add a drop of water.

LAMPITO
Ah, what aith could clink pleasanter than that!

LYSISTRATA
Bring me a bowl then and a skin of wine.

CALONICE
My dears, see what a splendid bowl it is;
I'd not say No if asked to sip it off.

LYSISTRATA
Put down the bowl. Lay hands, all, on the victim.
Skiey Queen who givest the last word in arguments,
And thee, O Bowl, dear comrade, we beseech:
Accept our oblation and be propitious to us.

CALONICE
What healthy blood, la, how it gushes out!

LAMPITO
An' what a leesome fragrance through the air.

LYSISTRATA
Now, dears, if you will let me, I'll speak first.

CALONICE
Only if you draw the lot, by Aphrodite!

LYSISTRATA
SO, grasp the brim, you, Lampito, and all.
You, Calonice, repeat for the rest
Each word I say. Then you must all take oath
And pledge your arms to the same stern conditions--

LYSISTRATA
To husband or lover I'll not open arms

CALONICE

_To husband or lover I'll not open arms_

LYSISTRATA

Though love and denial may enlarge his charms.

CALONICE

_Though love and denial may enlarge his charms._ O, O, my knees are failing me, Lysistrata!

LYSISTRATA

But still at home, ignoring him, I'll stay,

CALONICE

_But still at home, ignoring him, I'll stay,_

LYSISTRATA

Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day.

CALONICE

_Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day._

LYSISTRATA

If then he seizes me by dint of force,

CALONICE

_If then he seizes me by dint of force,_

LYSISTRATA

I'll give him reason for a long remorse.

CALONICE

_I'll give him reason for a long remorse._

LYSISTRATA

I'll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,

CALONICE

_I'll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,_

LYSISTRATA

Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.

CALONICE

_Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling._

LYSISTRATA

If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.

CALONICE

_If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine._

LYSISTRATA

If not, to nauseous water change this wine.

CALONICE
_If not, to nauseous water change this wine._

LYSISTRATA

Do you all swear to this?

MYRRHINE

We do, we do.

LYSISTRATA

Then I shall immolate the victim thus. _She drinks._

CALONICE

Here now, share fair, haven't we made a pact? Let's all quaff down that friendship in our turn.

LAMPITO

Hark, what caterwauling hubbub's that?

LYSISTRATA

As I told you, The women have appropriated the citadel. So, Lampito, dash off to your own land And raise the rebels there. These will serve as hostages, While we ourselves take our places in the ranks And drive the bolts right home.

CALONICE

But won't the men March straight against us?

LYSISTRATA

And what if they do? No threat shall creak our hinges wide, no torch Shall light a fear in us; we will come out To Peace alone.

CALONICE

That's it, by Aphrodite! As of old let us seem hard and obdurate.

LAMPITO _and some go off; the others go up into the Acropolis._

_Chorus of_ OLD MEN _enter to attack the captured Acropolis_.

Make room, Draces, move ahead; why your shoulder's chafed, I see, With lugging uphill these lopped branches of the olive-tree. How upside-down and wrong-way-round a long life sees things grow. Ah, Strymodorus, who'd have thought affairs could tangle so?

The women whom at home we fed, Like witless fools, with fostering bread, Have impiously come to this-- They've stolen the Acropolis, With bolts and bars our orders flout And shut us out.

Come, Philurgus, bustle thither; lay our faggots on the ground, In neat stacks beleaguering the insurgents all around; And the vile conspiratresses, plotters of such mischief dire, Pile and burn them all together in one vast and righteous pyre: Fling with our own hands Lycon's wife to fry in the thickest fire. By Demeter, they'll get no brag while I've a vein to beat! Cleomenes himself was hurtled out in sore defeat. His stiff-backed Spartan pride was bent. Out, stripped of all his arms, he went: A pigmy cloak that would not stretch To hide his rump (the draggled wretch), Six sprouting years of beard, the spilth Of six years' filth.

That was a siege! Our men were ranged in lines of seventeen deep Before the gates, and never left their posts there, even to sleep. Shall I not smite the rash presumption then of foes like these, Detested both of all the gods and of Euripides-- Else, may the Marathon-plain not boast my trophied victories!

Ah, now, there's but a little space To reach the place! A deadly climb it is, a tricky road With all this bumping load: A pack-ass soon would tire.... How these logs bruise my shoulders! further still Jog up the hill, And puff the fire inside, Or just as we reach the top we'll find it's died. Ough, phew! I choke with the smoke.

Lord Heracles, how acrid-hot Out of the pot This mad-dog smoke leaps, worrying me And biting angrily.... 'Tis Lemnian fire that smokes, Or else it would not sting my eyelids thus.... Haste, all of us; Athene invokes our aid. Laches, now or never the assault must be made! Ough, phew! I choke with the smoke. ..

Thanked be the gods! The fire peeps up and crackles as it should. Now why not first slide off our backs these weary loads of wood And dip a vine-branch in the brazier till it glows, then straight Hurl it at the battering-ram against the stubborn gate? If they refuse to draw the bolts in immediate compliance, We'll set fire to the wood, and smoke will strangle their defiance.

Phew, what a spluttering drench of smoke! Come, now from off my back.... Is there no Samos-general to help me to unpack? Ah there, that's over! For the last time now it's galled my shoulder. Flare up thine embers, brazier, and dutifully smoulder, To kindle a brand, that I the first may strike the citadel. Aid me, Lady Victory, that a triumph-trophy may tell How we did anciently this insane audacity quell!

_Chorus of_ WOMEN.

What's that rising yonder? That ruddy glare, that smoky skurry? O is it something in a blaze? Quick, quick, my comrades, hurry! Nicodice, helter-skelter! Or poor Calyce's in flames And Cratylla's stifled in the welter. O these dreadful old men And their dark laws of hate! There, I'm all of a tremble lest I turn out to be too late. I could scarcely get near to the spring though I rose before dawn, What with tattling of tongues and rattling of pitchers in one jostling din With slaves pushing in!....

Still here at last the water's drawn And with it eagerly I run To help those of my friends who stand In danger of being burned alive. For I am told a dribbling band Of greybeards hobble to the field, Great faggots in each palsied hand, As if a hot bath to prepare, And threatening that out they'll drive These wicked women or soon leave them charring into ashes there. O Goddess, suffer not, I pray, this harsh deed to be done, But show us Greece and Athens with their warlike acts repealed! For this alone, in this thy hold, Thou Goddess with the helm of gold, We laid hands on thy sanctuary, Athene.... Then our ally be And where they cast their fires of slaughter Direct our water!

STRATYLLIS (_caught_)

Let me go!

WOMEN

You villainous old men, what's this you do? No honest man, no pious man, could do such things as you.

MEN

Ah ha, here's something most original, I have no doubt: A swarm of women sentinels to man the walls without.

WOMEN

So then we scare you, do we? Do we seem a fearful host? You only see the smallest fraction mustered at this post.

MEN

Ho, Phaedrias, shall we put a stop to all these chattering tricks? Suppose that now upon their backs we splintered these our sticks?

WOMEN

Let us lay down the pitchers, so our bodies will be free,
In case these lumping fellows try to cause some injury.

MEN

O hit them hard and hit again and hit until they run away, And perhaps they'll learn, like Bupalus, not to have too much to say.

WOMEN

Come on, then--do it! I won't budge, but like a dog I'll bite At every little scrap of meat that dangles in my sight.

MEN

Be quiet, or I'll bash you out of any years to come.

WOMEN

Now you just touch Stratyllis with the top-joint of your thumb.

MEN

What vengeance can you take if with my fists your face I beat?

WOMEN

I'll rip you with my teeth and strew your entrails at your feet.

MEN

Now I appreciate Euripides' strange subtlety: Woman is the most shameless beast of all the beasts that be.

WOMEN

Rhodippe, come, and let's pick up our water-jars once more.

MEN

Ah cursed drab, what have you brought this water for?

WOMEN

What is your fire for then, you smelly corpse? Yourself to burn?

MEN

To build a pyre and make your comrades ready for the urn.

WOMEN

And I've the water to put out your fire immediately.

MEN

What, you put out my fire?

WOMEN

Yes, sirrah, as you soon will see.

MEN

I don't know why I hesitate to roast you with this flame.

WOMEN

If you have any soap you'll go off cleaner than you came.

MEN

Cleaner, you dirty slut?

WOMEN

A nuptial-bath in which to lie!

MEN

Did you hear that insolence?

WOMEN

I'm a free woman, I.

MEN

I'll make you hold your tongue.

WOMEN

Henceforth you'll serve in no more juries.

MEN

Burn off her hair for her.

WOMEN

Now forward, water, quench their furies!

MEN

O dear, O dear!

WOMEN

So ... was it hot?

MEN

Hot! ... Enough, O hold.

WOMEN

Watered, perhaps you'll bloom again--why not?

MEN

Brrr, I'm wrinkled up from shivering with cold.

WOMEN

Next time you've fire you'll warm yourself and leave us to our lot.

MAGISTRATE _enters with attendant_ SCYTHIANS.

MAGISTRATE

Have the luxurious rites of the women glittered Their libertine show, their drumming tapped out crowds, The Sabazian Mysteries summoned their mob, Adonis been wept to death on the terraces, As I could hear the last day in the Assembly? For Demostratus--let bad luck befoul him-- Was roaring, "We must sail for Sicily," While a woman, throwing herself about in a dance Lopsided with drink, was shrilling out "Adonis, Woe for Adonis." Then Demostratus shouted, "We must levy hoplites at Zacynthus," And there the woman, up to the ears in wine, Was screaming "Weep for Adonis" on the house-top, The scoundrelly politician, that lunatic ox, Bellowing bad advice through tipsy shrieks: Such are the follies wantoning in them.

MEN

O if you knew their full effrontery! All of the insults they've done, besides sousing us With water from their pots to our public disgrace For we stand here wringing our clothes like grown-up infants.

MAGISTRATE

By Poseidon, justly done! For in part with us The blame must lie for dissolute behaviour And for the pampered appetites they learn. Thus grows the seedling lust to blossoming: We go into a shop and say, "Here, goldsmith, You remember the necklace that you wrought my wife; Well, the other night in fervour of a dance Her clasp broke open. Now I'm off for Salamis; If you've the leisure, would you go tonight And stick a bolt-pin into her opened clasp." Another goes to a cobbler; a soldierly fellow, Always standing up erect, and says to him, "Cobbler, a sandal-strap of my wife's pinches her, Hurts her little toe in a place where she's sensitive. Come at noon and see if you can stretch out wider This thing that troubles her, loosen its tightness." And so you view the result. Observe my case-- I, a magistrate, come here to draw Money to buy oar-blades, and what happens? The women slam the door full in my face. But standing still's no use. Bring me a crowbar, And I'll chastise this their impertinence. What do you gape at, wretch, with dazzled eyes? Peering for a tavern, I suppose. Come, force the gates with crowbars, prise them apart! I'll prise away myself too.... (LYSISTRATA _appears._)

LYSISTRATA

Stop this banging. I'm coming of my own accord.... Why bars? It is not bars we need but common sense.

MAGISTRATE

Indeed, you slut! Where is the archer now? Arrest this woman, tie her hands behind.

LYSISTRATA

If he brushes me with a finger, by Artemis, The public menial, he'll be sorry for it.

MAGISTRATE

Are you afraid? Grab her about the middle. Two of you then, lay hands on her and end it.

CALONICE

By Pandrosos I if your hand touches her I'll spread you out and trample on your guts.

MAGISTRATE

My guts! Where is the other archer gone? Bind that minx there who talks so prettily.

MYRRHINE

By Phosphor, if your hand moves out her way You'd better have a surgeon somewhere handy.

MAGISTRATE

You too! Where is that archer? Take that woman. I'll put a stop to these surprise-parties.

STRATYLLIS

By the Tauric Artemis, one inch nearer My fingers, and it's a bald man that'll be yelling.

MAGISTRATE

Tut tut, what's here? Deserted by my archers.... But surely women never can defeat us; Close up your ranks, my Scythians. Forward at them.

LYSISTRATA

By the Goddesses, you'll find that here await you Four companies of most pugnacious women Armed cap-a-pie from the topmost louring curl To the lowest angry dimple.

MAGISTRATE

On, Scythians, bind them.

LYSISTRATA

On, gallant allies of our high design, Vendors of grain-eggs-pulse-and-vegetables, Ye garlic-tavern-keepers of bakeries, Strike, batter, knock, hit, slap, and scratch our foes, Be finely imprudent, say what you think of them.... Enough! retire and do not rob the dead.

MAGISTRATE

How basely did my archer-force come off.

LYSISTRATA

Ah, ha, you thought it was a herd of slaves You had to tackle, and you didn't guess The thirst for glory ardent in our blood.

MAGISTRATE

By Apollo, I know well the thirst that heats you-- Especially when a wine-skin's close.

MEN

You waste your breath, dear magistrate, I fear, in answering back. What's the good of argument with such a rampageous pack? Remember how they washed us down (these very clothes I wore) With water that looked nasty and that smelt so even more.

WOMEN

What else to do, since you advanced too dangerously nigh. If you should do the same again, I'll punch you in the eye. Though I'm a stay-at-home and most a quiet life enjoy, Polite to all and every (for I'm naturally coy), Still if you wake a wasps' nest then of wasps you must beware.

MEN

How may this ferocity be tamed? It grows too great to bear. Let us question them and find if they'll perchance declare The reason why they strangely dare To seize on Cranaos' citadel, This eyrie inaccessible, This shrine above the precipice, The Acropolis. Probe them and find what they mean with this idle talk; listen, but watch they don't try to deceive. You'd be neglecting your duty most certainly if now this mystery unplumbed you leave.

MAGISTRATE

Women there! Tell what I ask you, directly.... Come, without rambling, I wish you to state What's your rebellious intention in barring up thus on our noses our own temple-gate.

LYSISTRATA

To take first the treasury out of your management, and so stop the war through the absence of gold.

MAGISTRATE

Is gold then the cause of the war?

LYSISTRATA

Yes, gold caused it and miseries more, too many to be told. 'Twas for money, and money alone, that Pisander with all of the army of mob-agitators. Raised up revolutions. But, as for the future, it won't be worth while to set up to be traitors. Not an obol they'll get as their loot, not an obol! while we have the treasure-chest in our command.

MAGISTRATE

What then is that you propose?

LYSISTRATA

Just this--merely to take the exchequer henceforth in hand.

MAGISTRATE

The exchequer!

LYSISTRATA

Yes, why not? Of our capabilities you have had various clear evidences. Firstly remember we have always administered soundly the budget of all home-expenses.

MAGISTRATE

But this matter's different.

LYSISTRATA

How is it different?

MAGISTRATE

Why, it deals chiefly with war-time supplies.

LYSISTRATA

But we abolish war straight by our policy.

MAGISTRATE

What will you do if emergencies arise?

LYSISTRATA

Face them our own way.

MAGISTRATE

What _you_ will?

LYSISTRATA

Yes _we_ will!

MAGISTRATE

Then there's no help for it; we're all destroyed.

LYSISTRATA

No, willy-nilly you must be safeguarded.

MAGISTRATE

What madness is this?

LYSISTRATA

Why, it seems you're annoyed. It must be done, that's all.

MAGISTRATE

Such awful oppression never, O never in the past yet I bore.

LYSISTRATA

You must be saved, sirrah--that's all there is to it.

MAGISTRATE

If we don't want to be saved?

LYSISTRATA

All the more.

MAGISTRATE

Why do you women come prying and meddling in matters of state touching war-time and peace?

LYSISTRATA

That I will tell you.

MAGISTRATE

O tell me or quickly I'll--

LYSISTRATA

Hearken awhile and from threatening cease.

MAGISTRATE

I cannot, I cannot; it's growing too insolent.

WOMEN

Come on; you've far more than we have to dread.

MAGISTRATE

Stop from your croaking, old carrion-crow there.... Continue.

LYSISTRATA

Be calm then and I'll go ahead. All the long years when the hopeless war dragged along we, unassuming, forgotten in quiet, Endured without question, endured in our loneliness all your incessant child's antics and riot. Our lips we kept tied, though aching with silence, though well all the while in our silence we knew How wretchedly everything still was progressing by listening dumbly the day long to you. For always at home you continued discussing the war and its politics loudly, and we Sometimes would ask you, our hearts deep with sorrowing though we spoke lightly, though happy to see, "What's to be inscribed on the side of the Treaty-stone What, dear, was said in the Assembly today?" "Mind your own business," he'd answer me growlingly "hold your tongue, woman, or else go away." And so I would hold it.

WOMEN

I'd not be silent for any man living on earth, no, not I!

MAGISTRATE

Not for a staff?

LYSISTRATA

Well, so I did nothing but sit in the house, feeling dreary, and sigh, While ever arrived some fresh tale of decisions more foolish by far and presaging disaster. Then I would say to him, "O my dear husband, why still do they rush on destruction the faster?" At which he would look at me sideways, exclaiming, "Keep for your web and your shuttle your care, Or for some hours hence your cheeks will be sore and hot; leave this alone, war is Man's sole affair!"

MAGISTRATE

By Zeus, but a man of fine sense, he.

LYSISTRATA

How sensible? You dotard, because he at no time had lent His intractable ears to absorb from our counsel one temperate word of advice, kindly meant? But when at the last in the streets we heard shouted (everywhere ringing the ominous cry) "Is there no one to help us, no saviour in Athens?" and, "No, there is no one," come back in reply. At once a convention of all wives through Hellas here for a serious purpose was held, To determine how husbands might yet back to wisdom despite their reluctance in time be compelled. Why then delay any longer? It's settled. For the future you'll take up our old occupation. Now in turn you're to hold tongue, as we did, and listen while we show the way to recover the nation.

MAGISTRATE

_You_ talk to _us!_ Why, you're mad. I'll not stand it.

LYSISTRATA

Cease babbling, you fool; till I end, hold your tongue.

MAGISTRATE

If I should take orders from one who wears veils, may my neck straightaway be deservedly wrung.

LYSISTRATA

O if that keeps pestering you, I've a veil here for your hair, I'll fit you out in everything As is only fair.

CALONICE

Here's a spindle that will do.

MYRRHINE

I'll add a wool-basket too.

LYSISTRATA

Girdled now sit humbly at home, Munching beans, while you card wool and comb. For war from now on is the Women's affair.

WOMEN.

Come then, down pitchers, all, And on, courageous of heart, In our comradely venture Each taking her due part.

I could dance, dance, dance, and be fresher after, I could dance away numberless suns, To no weariness let my knees bend. Earth I could brave with laughter, Having such wonderful girls here to friend. O the daring, the gracious, the beautiful ones! Their courage unswerving and witty Will rescue our city.

O sprung from the seed of most valiant-wombed grand-mothers, scions of savage and dangerous nettles! Prepare for the battle, all. Gird up your angers. Our way the wind of sweet victory settles.

LYSISTRATA

O tender Eros and Lady of Cyprus, some flush of beauty I pray you devise To flash on our bosoms and, O Aphrodite, rosily gleam on our valorous thighs! Joy will raise up its head through the legions warring and all of the far-serried ranks of mad-love Bristle the earth to the pillared horizon, pointing in vain to the heavens above. I think that perhaps then they'll give us our title-- Peace-makers.

MAGISTRATE

What do you mean? Please explain.

LYSISTRATA

First, we'll not see you now flourishing arms about into the
Marketing-place clang again.

WOMEN
No, by the Paphian.

LYSISTRATA

Still I can conjure them as past were the herbs stand or crockery's sold Like Corybants jingling (poor sots) fully armoured, they noisily round on their promenade strolled.

MAGISTRATE

And rightly; that's discipline, they--

LYSISTRATA

But what's sillier than to go on an errand of buying a fish Carrying along an immense. Gorgon-buckler instead the usual platter or dish? A phylarch I lately saw, mounted on horse-back, dressed for the part with long ringlets and all, Stow in his helmet the omelet bought steaming from an old woman who kept a food-stall. Nearby a soldier, a Thracian, was shaking wildly his spear like Tereus in the play, To frighten a fig-girl while unseen the ruffian filched from her fruit-trays the ripest away.

MAGISTRATE

How, may I ask, will your rule re-establish order and justice in lands so tormented?

LYSISTRATA

Nothing is easier.

MAGISTRATE

Out with it speedily--what is this plan that you boast you've invented?

LYSISTRATA

If, when yarn we are winding, It chances to tangle, then, as perchance you may know, through the skein This way and that still the spool we keep passing till it is finally clear all again: So to untangle the War and its errors, ambassadors out on all sides we will send This way and that, here, there and round about--soon you will find that the War has an end.

MAGISTRATE

So with these trivial tricks of the household, domestic analogies of threads, skeins and spools, You think that you'll solve such a bitter complexity, unwind such political problems, you fools!

LYSISTRATA

Well, first as we wash dirty wool so's to cleanse it, so with a pitiless zeal we will scrub Through the whole city for all greasy fellows; burrs too, the parasites, off we will rub. That verminous plague of insensate place-seekers soon between thumb and forefinger we'll crack. All who inside Athens' walls have their dwelling into one great common basket we'll pack. Disenfranchised or citizens, allies or aliens, pell-mell the lot of them in we will squeeze. Till they discover humanity's meaning.... As for disjointed and far colonies, Them you must never from this time imagine as scattered about just like lost hanks of wool. Each portion we'll take and wind in to this centre, inward to Athens each loyalty pull, Till from the vast heap where all's piled together at last can be woven a strong Cloak of State.

MAGISTRATE

How terrible is it to stand here and watch them carding and winding at will with our fate, Witless in war as they are.

LYSISTRATA

What of us then, who ever in vain for our children must weep Borne but to perish afar and in vain?

MAGISTRATE

Not that, O let that one memory sleep!

LYSISTRATA

Then while we should be companioned still merrily, happy as brides may, the livelong night, Kissing youth by, we are forced to lie single.... But leave for a moment our pitiful plight, It hurts even more to behold the poor maidens helpless wrinkling in staler virginity.

MAGISTRATE

Does not a man age?

LYSISTRATA

Not in the same way. Not as a woman grows withered, grows he. He, when returned from the war, though grey-headed, yet if he wishes can choose out a wife. But she has no solace save peering for omens, wretched and lonely the rest of her life.

MAGISTRATE

But the old man will often select--

LYSISTRATA

O why not finish and die? A bier is easy to buy, A honey-cake I'll knead you with joy, This garland will see you are decked.

CALONICE

I've a wreath for you too.

MYRRHINE

I also will fillet you.

LYSISTRATA

What more is lacking? Step aboard the boat. See, Charon shouts ahoy. You're keeping him, he wants to shove afloat.

MAGISTRATE

Outrageous insults! Thus my place to flout! Now to my fellow-magistrates I'll go And what you've perpetrated on me show.

LYSISTRATA

Why are you blaming us for laying you out? Assure yourself we'll not forget to make The third day offering early for your sake.

MAGISTRATE _retires_, LYSISTRATA _returns within_.

OLD MEN.

All men who call your loins your own, awake at last, arise And strip to stand in readiness. For as it seems to me Some more perilous offensive in their heads they now devise. I'm sure a Tyranny Like that of Hippias In this I detect.... They mean to put us under Themselves I suspect, And that Laconians assembling At Cleisthenes' house have played A trick-of-war and provoked them Madly to raid The Treasury, in which term I include The Pay for my food.

For is it not preposterous They should talk this way to us On a subject such as battle!

And, women as they are, about bronze bucklers dare prattle-- Make alliance with the Spartans--people I for one Like very hungry wolves would always most sincere shun.... Some dirty game is up their sleeve, I believe. A Tyranny, no doubt... but they won't catch me, that know. Henceforth on my guard I'll go, A sword with myrtle-branches wreathed for ever in my hand, And under arms in the Public Place I'll take my watchful stand, Shoulder to shoulder with Aristogeiton. Now my staff I'll draw And start at once by knocking that shocking Hag upon the jaw.

WOMEN.