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?