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.