The Athenian Women

by Alessandro Barbero

  Glycera walked over to the animal and timidly brushed her fingers over its neck, pulling her hand away hastily. Cimon laughed.

  “You can touch him wherever you want, he won’t even notice.”

  He walked over, waited for her to lay her hand on the horse’s neck, then covered it with his own, and pushed her hand up toward the mane.

  “Grab a tuft of hair. That’s right. Now tug.”

  Glycera tugged. Cimon chuckled.

  “Tug harder if you want. I’m telling you, he won’t even notice. When he gallops, you can hold on tight to his mane, it doesn’t hurt him a bit.”

  For an instant Glycera was on the verge of asking him to let her climb on the horse’s back. Then she changed her mind. A little of Charis’s fear had infected her. Too bad, though, who knows when she’d have another chance like this.

  “Aren’t you going riding today?” she asked.

  A look of surprise appeared on Cimon’s face.

  “Today? No, today we’re here with you two.”

  Glycera didn’t know whether or not to be happy about that. Certainly, we’re here, but we can’t stay all that long.

  “I don’t want to be late getting back,” she said, and even as she said it she was already regretting it: what a little fool! There, it’s already all over. She hadn’t slept a wink all night in her excitement.

  “But it’s not late,” said Cimon. “You’re not going to go away already, are you?”

  Glycera looked at Charis. She didn’t know what to say either. Yes, we’d rather not leave, but what else are we supposed to do? Then her face lit up, she’d thought of something.

  “Can we go say hello to Moca?”

  It didn’t occur to her that such familiarity with a slave girl might make her look bad; she was so used to stopping and chatting with Moca every day! Cimon also registered this further piece of evidence without giving it too much thought: a couple of fleabitten peasant girls, I was right when I said it the first time. Just as I was right to send Moca back into the city with Davos, otherwise we’d have always had her underfoot.

  “Moca isn’t here,” said, with a polite smile. “She’s in the city today.”

  Under the low rafters and amidst the smell of hay a ponderous silence fell. Only then did the two young women realize that they were alone in the house with these two. It might be overstating the case to say they felt they were in danger, but certainly there was something not quite right: they shouldn’t be there, now they could see that all too clearly.

  “Oh well! Then I guess we should be going,” said Glycera; and she walked over next to Charis who already stood in the stable door. But Argyrus moved quickly and blocked the passageway.

  “What’s your hurry?” asked Cimon. His tone of voice was still courteous, but his eyes had hardened.

  7

  Nor will I; rather let the war go on,” Myrrhine agreed.

  “And you say this, my pretty flatfish, who declared just now they might split you in two?” Lysistrata mocked her.

  “Anything, anything but that!” Myrrhine retorted. “Bid me go through the fire, if you will; but don’t take away my beloved péos—don’t rob us of the sweetest thing in all the world, Lysistrata darling! There’s nothing like the péos.”

  “And you?”

  “Yes, I agree with the others; I too would sooner go through the fire,” Kleonike agreed.

  Desolated, Lysistrata turned to the audience, throwing her arms wide.

  “We really are all just sluts,” she declared.

  “True enough!” shouted someone in the audience.

  “Think about your wife!” another man retorted. The first man got to his feet, and craned his neck as he looked around for the one who had spoken. They came close to fisticuffs.

  “Enough! Silence!” a great many voices shouted.

  Lysistrata was waiting, with her hands on her hips. Once quiet had returned, she leaned out emphatically toward the audience, her hand behind her ear. Then she nodded with satisfaction and turned to Lampito.

  “But you, my dear, you from hardy Sparta, if you join me, all may yet be well; help me, second me, I beg you.”

  Lampito thought it over.

  “Not zuch a good ding for a voman, to go to zleep at night vissout a kock, all alone. But it’s all ze same to ze Dioskuri: peace is more important.”

  Lysistrata was jumping with joy.

  “My sweet! Of all the females here, you alone are a real woman!”

  The flute underscored the wisecrack by blowing scurrilous raspberries. The other women exchanged glances of irritation, annoyed at having been pushed aside. But Kleonike took a short step in Lysistrata’s direction and stopped, hesitantly.

  “But if—which the gods forbid—we do refrain altogether from what you say, should we get peace any sooner?” she stammered, getting confused and then finally hurrying through the last few words.

  “Of course we should, by the Dioscuri twain! We need only sit indoors with painted cheeks, and meet our mates lightly clad in transparent gowns of silk, and with our thingie perfectly plucked,” Lysistrata intoned in her finest falsetto. “The men will get their tools up and be wild to lie with us. That will be the time to refuse, and they will hasten to make peace, I am convinced of that!”

  Lampito broke in with a learned reference.

  “Just as Menelaus, zey say, ven seeing the bosom of his naked Helen, flung down his zword.”

  The audience chuckled. Certainly: that’s the most ridiculous thing in the whole Iliad. Menelaus staged that whole hullabaloo, he launched the Trojan War, ten years away from home! to punish Helen, then when he finds himself face-to-face with her amidst the ruins, she unbuttons her blouse and shows him her tits—it’s been ten years, after all: and the gods only know that those tits had been used in the meantime, and not by just one man!—and he does nothing: he’s instantly ready to forgive her. What assholes we men really are, everyone was thinking, that woman is right.

  In the meantime, Kleonike had come up with another excuse.

  “But, oh dear, suppose our husbands go away and leave us?”

  Lysistrata didn’t know what answer to give, so she muddled through.

  “As the proverb says: the god helps those who help themselves!”

  In case anyone had failed to get the reference, Lysistrata ostentatiously passed her hand between her thighs. But Kleonike wasn’t giving up that easily.

  “I won’t accept substitutes! Fiddlesticks! these proverbs are all idle talk. . . . But what if our husbands drag us by force into the bedchamber?”

  “Cling to the doorposts!”

  “And if they beat us?”

  The drums, which hadn’t been heard from for a while now, suddenly broke into a roll. All the women curled up on the floor in fright. After a while, Lysistrata raised her head, saw that nothing was happening, and leapt to her feet.

  “Then yield to their wishes, but with a bad grace; there is no pleasure in it for them, when they do it by force. Besides, there are a thousand ways of tormenting them. Never fear, they’ll soon tire of the game; there’s no satisfaction for a man, unless the woman shares it.”

  All of the women solemnly agreed.

  “Our men,” Lampito guaranteed, “ve’ll konvince zem to make peace: a just peace, vissout deceit.”

  “That would be the first time!” shouted someone from the audience, in a shower of catcalls and whistles; but a triumphant drumroll drowned out the objections. Then the drums stumbled, missed a beat, and the drumroll seized up and died. But it was immediately clear that it had been done on purpose, because the Spartan had once again rushed over to the edge of the stage, and was looking down on the audience with contempt.

  “But ziss filth of the Athenian citizenry,” she slowly and clearly said, “who vill ever konvince them to stop spouting bullshit?”


  The crowd buzzed: some in indignation at the use of the word filth, others for the use of the word bullshit. More than one was upset at the way the name of the Athenians sounded in the Spartan dialect: something like “the Asanasi.” How can you trust anyone who says Asana when they mean Athens? Even the goddess would have had every right to take offense!

  To the sound of the audience’s catcalls and roars, Lampito beat a dignified retreat. But Lysistrata replaced her in addressing the audience.

  “As for our own men, we’ll take care of them,” she declared, menacingly. But Lampito still wasn’t finished.

  “Dat’s impossible, zo long as zey have zheir trusty ships and ze fast treasures stored in ze temple of ze goddess!”

  The audience’s spirits revived: so you see that the Spartans are scared of us after all. The fleet, certainly; and even more, the treasury of the alliance. What a genius, that Pericles, to have had it brought here to Athens, instead of keeping it on that faraway island the way they used to. Otherwise, we’d still be arguing with the allies before being able to spend a penny: this way, instead, the allies pay and have nothing to say in the matter!

  “Ah! but we have seen to that, too,” declared Lysistrata. “This very day the Acropolis will be in our hands.”

  The audience was left breathless. Inside the house, a zither began to play sweetly. This was a clever invention: instead of the drums, to use a zither when an actor is about to let loose with some major statement. They come up with something new every day. Lysistrata stamped her foot and looked around.

  “This very day the Acropolis will be in our hands. That is the task assigned to the older women; while we are here in council, they are going, under pretense of offering sacrifice, to seize the citadel.”

  Kritias, Eubulus, and Euthydemus were listening, with ashen faces. All three men were hearing echoes of the conversations they’d had just two days ago at Eubulus’s house.

  “How can this be?” whispered Euthydemus.

  “It’s impossible,” decided Kritias. “Even if someone had talked, he didn’t write this comedy yesterday. It’s just a coincidence.”

  “Maybe so,” muttered Euthydemus. “All the same, he’s a madman, to say these things in front of the whole city.”

  “O Kritias, I thought he was a friend of yours, it was my understanding that he is on our side,” whispered Eubulus, leaning forward to speak into his ear.

  “Who do you mean, Aristophanes? I don’t know if he’s on our side. It’s never very clear, whose side he’s on,” hissed Kritias. He didn’t want to let it show, but he was frightened too. He hushed his comrades: let’s hear how it continues!

  But it was continuing even worse than before: on the stage, Lysistrata had explained to the women that it was necessary to swear an oath, all together, and now they were arguing about what would constitute the holiest oath of all. The women discarded the oath sworn on a shield: that doesn’t promise well for peace! In the end they decided to swear an oath on a goblet of wine.

  “From bad to worse!” said Euthydemus through clenched teeth.

  By now, Kritias didn’t know what to think either. Could someone have really talked? No, that couldn’t be, he told himself again, this scene has already been written for who knows how long, it’s nothing but a coincidence . . .

  “Listen to me. Let’s set a great black bowl on the ground,” Lysistrata specified. “Let’s sacrifice a skin of wine into it, and take an oath not to add one single drop of water.”

  A slave girl appeared with an enormous recipient: a basin for washing children. The women crowded around it, with exclamations of enthusiasm: that was some goblet!

  “Set it down, bring out the piglet,” ordered Lysistrata, using the slang for a jar of wine. The slave girl presented the jar of wine. That too was disproportionate: a full-grown boar, more than a piglet. The audience snickered: it’s well known that women, when they have the chance, like to guzzle their wine! Lysistrata skillfully opened the wine jar, poured the wine into the basin, and recited an invocation of good fortune.

  “Oh! the fine red blood! how well it flows!” Kleonike cried as she clapped her hands. No two ways about it, that was an excellent omen. When a priest cuts the victim’s throat, it’s very important for the blood to spray cheerfully, as the beast goes into its death throes: if instead it barely oozes, it means the gods aren’t happy.

  “And vatt a sveet perfume!”

  “Now, my dears, let me swear first, if you please!”

  “Ah no, by Aphrodite, we’ll draw lots!”

  With considerable effort, Lysistrata regained control of the situation.

  “Now all of you hold the rim of the goblet; it’s enough for one of you to repeat my words. The oath will be valid for you all. Now then: I will have naught to do whether with lover or husband . . . ”

  Kleonike took on the task of speaking for all the other women.

  “I will have naught to do whether with lover or husband . . . ”

  “Albeit he come to me with an erection.”

  Kleonike said nothing, while the audience snickered.

  “Say it!” Lysistrata shrilled.

  “Albeit . . . he come to me with an erection. Oh, oh, my knees are trembling, Lysistrata!”

  “I will stay at home, unmounted . . . ”

  “I will stay at home, unmounted.”

  The audience was laughing. You had to admit that this Aristophanes found some remarkable turns of phrase!

  “Beautifully dressed and wearing a saffron-colored gown . . . ”

  “Beautifully dressed and wearing a saffron-colored gown.”

  “That I may inspire my husband with the most ardent longings . . . ”

  “That I may inspire my husband with the most ardent longings.”

  “And never will I give myself voluntarily to my husband . . . ”

  “And never will I give myself voluntarily to my husband . . . ”

  “And if he takes me by force . . . ”

  “And if he takes me by force . . . ”

  “I will be cold as ice, and never stir a limb . . . ”

  “I will be cold as ice, and never stir a limb . . . ”

  “I will neither extend my Persian slippers toward the ceiling . . . ”

  “I will neither extend my Persian slippers toward the ceiling . . . ”

  “Nor will I crouch like the carven lionesses on a cheese grater . . . ”

  Because on cheese graters the handle was always in the shape of a lioness: prone, elongated, back arched nicely. The Athenians always liked for an object to be made the same way: they found it reassuring. Who knows what the cheese graters even looked like in Sparta?

  “Nor will I crouch like the carven lionesses on a cheese grater . . . ”

  “And if I keep my oath, may I be suffered to drink of this wine . . . ”

  “And if I keep my oath, may I be suffered to drink of this wine . . . ”

  “But if I break it, let my bowl be filled with water!”

  “But if I break it, let my bowl be filled with water!”

  As if seized by a doubt, Lysistrata leaned over the goblet, stuck in a finger, and tasted it. How delicious! In her joy, she shook her tits. It was still wine.

  “Will you all take this oath?”

  “By Zeus!” all the women replied.

  “Well, then, I’ll make the offering to the gods.”

  She dipped her fingers in the goblet, scattered a few drops on the floor with some caution, then, with considerable effort, she lifted the enormous recipient and began to gulp it down. Kleonike grew alarmed.

  “Only your fair share, dear! That is, if we’re planning to stay good friends . . . ”

  At that very moment, the drums started echoing savagely once again. Lysistrata came close to choking. Lampito looked around.

  “W
ho is datt datt’s shouting?”

  “It’s just as I was telling you,” Lysistrata said as she recovered. “The women have just occupied the Acropolis. So now, Lampito, you return to Sparta to organize the plot. For ourselves, let us go and join the rest of the women on the Acropolis, and let us help them push the bolts well home.”

  “But don’t you think that men will immediately barrel down upon us?” Kleonike objected.

  “I don’t care about them one bit. They won’t be able to force us open with threats or with fire . . . ”

  Lysistrata hesitated, looked down between her legs, and then looked at the front door of the house.

  “ . . . the doors, I mean! Not unless they agree to do as we say.”

  As Lampito was vanishing out the side door, Lysistrata moved toward the interior of the house which, by now the audience had understood, represented the Acropolis. Myrrhine and Kleonike once again turned toward the audience and bounced their tits, then turned to follow her.

  “We shall not open them, by Aphrodite! Otherwise we should be called women indeed: cowardly and wretched!”

  Kritias was laughing. Euthydemus, livid, leaned over to his ear.

  “Are you laughing, Kritias? It seems to me that there’s nothing to laugh about.”

  “Of course I am. I’m feeling better, I’ve figured it out. No betrayal. Quite simply, he’s a man who knows what’s in the air. Maybe he’s even playing on the fact.”

  “How so? The people will be on their guard!”

  Kritias looked at him mockingly.

  “And that’s the way we want them: on their guard. From being on their guard to being afraid, it’s just a short step. And when you’re afraid of some major change, it’s all the easier to convince you to accept one that at first seems just small.”

  8

  Why do you want to leave already? Stay with us a little longer,” said Cimon, kindly; and he walked over to Glycera. Argyrus, as if he’d been waiting for this opportunity, walked over to Charis.

  Now the two young women really were a bit frightened. We have to go home now, they said again. The two young men didn’t even pretend to listen to them: they walked toward them and reached out their hands.