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Lysistrata (version 2)

<h1>Scene 2 - before the gates of the Acropolis</h1> CHORUS OF OLD MEN.[412] Go easy, Draces, go easy; why, your shoulder is all chafed by these plaguey heavy olive stocks. But forward still, forward, man, as needs must. What unlooked-for things do happen, to be sure, in a long life! Ah! Strymodorus, who would ever have thought it? Here we have the women, who used, for our misfortune, to eat our bread and live in our houses, daring nowadays to lay hands on the holy image of the goddess, to seize the Acropolis and draw bars and bolts to keep any from entering! Come, Philurgus man, let's hurry thither; let's lay our faggots all about the citadel, and on the blazing pile burn with our hands these vile conspiratresses, one and all—and Lycon's wife, Lysistrata, first and foremost! Nay, by Demeter, never will I let 'em laugh at me, whiles I have a breath left in my body. Cleomenes himself,[413] the first who ever seized our citadel, had to quit it to his sore dishonour; spite his Lacedaemonian pride, he had to deliver me up his arms and slink off with a single garment to his back. My word! but he was filthy and ragged! and what an unkempt beard, to be sure! He had not had a bath for six long years! Oh! but that was a mighty siege! Our men were ranged seventeen deep before the gate, and never left their posts, even to sleep. These women, these enemies of Euripides and all the gods, shall I do nothing to hinder their inordinate insolence? else let them tear down my trophies of Marathon. But look ye, to finish our toilsome climb, we have only this last steep bit left to mount. Verily 'tis no easy job without beasts of burden, and how these logs do bruise my shoulder! Still let us on, and blow up our fire and see it does not go out just as we reach our destination. Phew! phew! (blows the fire). Oh! dear! what a dreadful smoke! it bites my eyes like a mad dog. It is Lemnos[414] fire for sure, or it would never devour my eyelids like this. Come on, Laches, let's hurry, let's bring succour to the goddess; it's now or never! Phew! phew! (blows the fire). Oh! dear! what a confounded smoke!—There now, there's our fire all bright and burning, thank the gods! Now, why not first put down our loads here, then take a vine-branch, light it at the brazier and hurl it at the gate by way of battering-ram? If they don't answer our summons by pulling back the bolts, then we set fire to the woodwork, and the smoke will choke 'em. Ye gods! what a smoke! Pfaugh! Is there never a Samos general will help me unload my burden?[415]—Ah! it shall not gall my shoulder any more. (Tosses down his wood.) Come, brazier, do your duty, make the embers flare, that I may kindle a brand; I want to be the first to hurl one. Aid me, heavenly Victory; let us punish for their insolent audacity the women who have seized our citadel, and may we raise a trophy of triumph for success! CHORUS OF WOMEN.[416] Oh! my dears, methinks I see fire and smoke; can it be a conflagration? Let us hurry all we can. Fly, fly, Nicodicé, ere Calycé and Crityllé perish in the fire, or are stifled in the smoke raised by these accursed old men and their pitiless laws. But, great gods, can it be I come too late? Rising at dawn, I had the utmost trouble to fill this vessel at the fountain. Oh! what a crowd there was, and what a din! What a rattling of water-pots! Servants and slave-girls pushed and thronged me! However, here I have it full at last; and I am running to carry the water to my fellow townswomen, whom our foes are plotting to burn alive. News has been brought us that a company of old, doddering greybeards, loaded with enormous faggots, as if they wanted to heat a furnace, have taken the field, vomiting dreadful threats, crying that they must reduce to ashes these horrible women. Suffer them not, oh! goddess, but, of thy grace, may I see Athens and Greece cured of their warlike folly. 'Tis to this end, oh! thou guardian deity of our city, goddess of the golden crest, that they have seized thy sanctuary. Be their friend and ally, Athené, and if any man hurl against them lighted firebrands, aid us to carry water to extinguish them. STRATYLLIS. Let me be, I say. Oh! oh! (She calls for help.) CHORUS OF WOMEN. What is this I see, ye wretched old men? Honest and pious folk ye cannot be who act so vilely. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah, ha! here's something new! a swarm of women stand posted outside to defend the gates! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Ah! ah! we frighten you, do we; we seem a mighty host, yet you do not see the ten-thousandth part of our sex. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ho, Phaedrias! shall we stop their cackle? Suppose one of us were to break a stick across their backs, eh? CHORUS OF WOMEN. Let us set down our water-pots on the ground, to be out of the way, if they should dare to offer us violence. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Let someone knock out two or three teeth for them, as they did to Bupalus;[417] they won't talk so loud then. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Come on then; I wait you with unflinching foot, and I will snap off your testicles like a bitch. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Silence! ere my stick has cut short your days. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Now, just you dare to touch Stratyllis with the tip of your finger! CHORUS OF OLD MEN. And if I batter you to pieces with my fists, what will you do? CHORUS OF WOMEN. I will tear out your lungs and entrails with my teeth. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Oh! what a clever poet is Euripides! how well he says that woman is the most shameless of animals. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Let's pick up our water-jars again, Rhodippé. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah! accursed harlot, what do you mean to do here with your water? CHORUS OF WOMEN. And you, old death-in-life, with your fire? Is it to cremate yourself? CHORUS OF OLD MEN. I am going to build you a pyre to roast your female friends upon. CHORUS OF WOMEN. And I,—I am going to put out your fire. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. You put out my fire—you! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Yes, you shall soon see. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. I don't know what prevents me from roasting you with this torch. CHORUS OF WOMEN. I am getting you a bath ready to clean off the filth. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. A bath for me, you dirty slut, you! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Yes, indeed, a nuptial bath—he, he! CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Do you hear that? What insolence! CHORUS OF WOMEN. I am a free woman, I tell you. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. I will make you hold your tongue, never fear! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Ah, ha! you shall never sit more amongst the heliasts.[418] CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Burn off her hair for her! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Water, do your office! (The women pitch the water in their water-pots over the old men.) CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Was it hot? CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Hot, great gods! Enough, enough! CHORUS OF WOMEN. I'm watering you, to make you bloom afresh. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Alas! I am too dry! Ah, me! how I am trembling with cold! MAGISTRATE. These women, have they made din enough, I wonder, with their tambourines? bewept Adonis enough upon their terraces?[419] I was listening to the speeches last assembly day,[420] and Demostratus,[421] whom heaven confound! was saying we must all go over to Sicily—and lo! his wife was dancing round repeating: Alas! alas! Adonis, woe is me for Adonis! Demostratus was saying we must levy hoplites at Zacynthus[422]—and lo! his wife, more than half drunk, was screaming on the house-roof: "Weep, weep for Adonis!"—while that infamous Mad Ox[423] was bellowing away on his side.—Do ye not blush, ye women, for your wild and uproarious doings? CHORUS OF OLD MEN. But you don't know all their effrontery yet! They abused and insulted us; then soused us with the water in their water-pots, and have set us wringing out our clothes, for all the world as if we had bepissed ourselves. MAGISTRATE. And 'tis well done too, by Poseidon! We men must share the blame of their ill conduct; it is we who teach them to love riot and dissoluteness and sow the seeds of wickedness in their hearts. You see a husband go into a shop: "Look you, jeweller," says he, "you remember the necklace you made for my wife. Well, t'other evening, when she was dancing, the catch came open. Now, I am bound to start for Salamis; will you make it convenient to go up to-night to make her fastening secure?" Another will go to a cobbler, a great, strong fellow, with a great, long tool, and tell him: "The strap of one of my wife's sandals presses her little toe, which is extremely sensitive; come in about midday to supple the thing and stretch it." Now see the results. Take my own case—as a Magistrate I have enlisted rowers; I want money to pay 'em, and lo! the women clap to the door in my face.[424] But why do we stand here with arms crossed? Bring me a crowbar; I'll chastise their insolence!—Ho! there, my fine fellow! (addressing one of his attendant officers) what are you gaping at the crows about? looking for a tavern, I suppose, eh? Come, crowbars here, and force open the gates. I will put a hand to the work myself. LYSISTRATA. No need to force the gates; I am coming out—here I am. And why bolts and bars? What we want here is not bolts and bars and locks, but common sense. MAGISTRATE. Really, my fine lady! Where is my officer? I want him to tie that woman's hands behind her back. LYSISTRATA. By Artemis, the virgin goddess! if he touches me with the tip of his finger, officer of the public peace though he be, let him look out for himself! MAGISTRATE (to the officer). How now, are you afraid? Seize her, I tell you, round the body. Two of you at her, and have done with it! FIRST WOMAN. By Pandrosos! if you lay a hand on her, I'll trample you underfoot till you shit your guts! MAGISTRATE. Oh, there! my guts! Where is my other officer? Bind that minx first, who speaks so prettily! SECOND WOMAN. By Phoebé, if you touch her with one finger, you'd better call quick for a surgeon! MAGISTRATE. What do you mean? Officer, where are you got to? Lay hold of her. Oh! but I'm going to stop your foolishness for you all! THIRD WOMAN. By the Tauric Artemis, if you go near her, I'll pull out your hair, scream as you like. MAGISTRATE. Ah! miserable man that I am! My own officers desert me. What ho! are we to let ourselves be bested by a mob of women? Ho! Scythians mine, close up your ranks, and forward! LYSISTRATA. By the holy goddesses! you'll have to make acquaintance with four companies of women, ready for the fray and well armed to boot. MAGISTRATE. Forward, Scythians, and bind them! LYSISTRATA. Forward, my gallant companions; march forth, ye vendors of grain and eggs, garlic and vegetables, keepers of taverns and bakeries, wrench and strike and tear; come, a torrent of invective and insult! (They beat the officers.) Enough, enough! now retire, never rob the vanquished! MAGISTRATE. Here's a fine exploit for my officers! LYSISTRATA. Ah, ha! so you thought you had only to do with a set of slave-women! you did not know the ardour that fills the bosom of free-born dames. MAGISTRATE. Ardour! yes, by Apollo, ardour enough—especially for the wine-cup! CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Sir, sir! what use of words? they are of no avail with wild beasts of this sort. Don't you know how they have just washed us down—and with no very fragrant soap! CHORUS OF WOMEN. What would you have? You should never have laid rash hands on us. If you start afresh, I'll knock your eyes out. My delight is to stay at home as coy as a young maid, without hurting anybody or moving any more than a milestone; but 'ware the wasps, if you go stirring up the wasps' nest! CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah! great gods! how get the better of these ferocious creatures? 'tis past all bearing! But come, let us try to find out the reason of the dreadful scourge. With what end in view have they seized the citadel of Cranaus,[425] the sacred shrine that is raised upon the inaccessible rock of the Acropolis? Question them; be cautious and not too credulous. 'Twould be culpable negligence not to pierce the mystery, if we may. MAGISTRATE (addressing the women). I would ask you first why ye have barred our gates. LYSISTRATA. To seize the treasury; no more money, no more war. MAGISTRATE. Then money is the cause of the War? LYSISTRATA. And of all our troubles. 'Twas to find occasion to steal that Pisander[426] and all the other agitators were for ever raising revolutions. Well and good! but they'll never get another drachma here. MAGISTRATE. What do you propose to do then, pray? LYSISTRATA. You ask me that! Why, we propose to administer the treasury ourselves. MAGISTRATE. You do? LYSISTRATA. What is there in that to surprise you? Do we not administer the budget of household expenses? MAGISTRATE. But that is not the same thing. LYSISTRATA How so—not the same thing? MAGISTRATE. It is the treasury supplies the expenses of the War. LYSISTRATA. That's our first principle—no War! MAGISTRATE. What! and the safety of the city? LYSISTRATA. We will provide for that. MAGISTRATE You? LYSISTRATA Yes, just we. MAGISTRATE. What a sorry business! LYSISTRATA. Yes, we're going to save you, whether you will or no. MAGISTRATE. Oh! the impudence of the creatures! LYSISTRATA. You seem annoyed! but there, you've got to come to it. MAGISTRATE. But 'tis the very height of iniquity! LYSISTRATA. We're going to save you, my man. MAGISTRATE. But if I don't want to be saved? LYSISTRATA. Why, all the more reason! MAGISTRATE. But what a notion, to concern yourselves with questions of Peace and War! LYSISTRATA. We will explain our idea. MAGISTRATE. Out with it then; quick, or … (threatening her). LYSISTRATA. Listen, and never a movement, please! MAGISTRATE. Oh! it is too much for me! I cannot keep my temper! A WOMAN. Then look out for yourself; you have more to fear than we have. MAGISTRATE. Stop your croaking, old crow, you! (To Lysistrata.) Now you, say your say. LYSISTRATA. Willingly. All the long time the War has lasted, we have endured in modest silence all you men did; we never allowed ourselves to open our lips. We were far from satisfied, for we knew how things were going; often in our homes we would hear you discussing, upside down and inside out, some important turn of affairs. Then with sad hearts, but smiling lips, we would ask you: Well, in to-day's Assembly did they vote Peace?—But, "Mind your own business!" the husband would growl, "Hold your tongue, do!" And I would say no more. A WOMAN. I would not have held my tongue though, not I! MAGISTRATE. You would have been reduced to silence by blows then. LYSISTRATA. Well, for my part, I would say no more. But presently I would come to know you had arrived at some fresh decision more fatally foolish than ever. "Ah! my dear man," I would say, "what madness next!" But he would only look at me askance and say: "Just weave your web, do; else your cheeks will smart for hours. War is men's business!" MAGISTRATE. Bravo! well said indeed! LYSISTRATA. How now, wretched man? not to let us contend against your follies, was bad enough! But presently we heard you asking out loud in the open street: "Is there never a man left in Athens?" and, "No, not one, not one," you were assured in reply. Then, then we made up our minds without more delay to make common cause to save Greece. Open your ears to our wise counsels and hold your tongues, and we may yet put things on a better footing. MAGISTRATE. You put things indeed! Oh! 'tis too much! The insolence of the creatures! Silence, I say. LYSISTRATA. Silence yourself! MAGISTRATE. May I die a thousand deaths ere I obey one who wears a veil! LYSISTRATA. If that's all that troubles you, here, take my veil, wrap it round your head, and hold your tongue. Then take this basket; put on a girdle, card wool, munch beans. The War shall be women's business. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Lay aside your water-pots, we will guard them, we will help our friends and companions. For myself, I will never weary of the dance; my knees will never grow stiff with fatigue. I will brave everything with my dear allies, on whom Nature has lavished virtue, grace, boldness, cleverness, and whose wisely directed energy is going to save the State. Oh! my good, gallant Lysistrata, and all my friends, be ever like a bundle of nettles; never let your anger slacken; the winds of fortune blow our way. LYSISTRATA. May gentle Love and the sweet Cyprian Queen shower seductive charms on our bosoms and all our person. If only we may stir so amorous a lust among the men that their tools stand stiff as sticks, we shall indeed deserve the name of peace-makers among the Greeks. MAGISTRATE. How will that be, pray? LYSISTRATA. To begin with, we shall not see you any more running like mad fellows to the Market holding lance in fist. A WOMAN. That will be something gained, anyway, by the Paphian goddess, it will! LYSISTRATA. Now we see 'em, mixed up with saucepans and kitchen stuff, armed to the teeth, looking like wild Corybantes![427] MAGISTRATE. Why, of course; that's how brave men should do. LYSISTRATA. Oh! but what a funny sight, to behold a man wearing a Gorgon's-head buckler coming along to buy fish! A WOMAN. 'Tother day in the Market I saw a phylarch[428] with flowing ringlets; he was a-horseback, and was pouring into his helmet the broth he had just bought at an old dame's stall. There was a Thracian warrior too, who was brandishing his lance like Tereus in the play;[429] he had scared a good woman selling figs into a perfect panic, and was gobbling up all her ripest fruit. MAGISTRATE. And how, pray, would you propose to restore peace and order in all the countries of Greece? LYSISTRATA. 'Tis the easiest thing in the world! MAGISTRATE. Come, tell us how; I am curious to know. LYSISTRATA. When we are winding thread, and it is tangled, we pass the spool across and through the skein, now this way, now that way; even so, to finish off the War, we shall send embassies hither and thither and everywhere, to disentangle matters. MAGISTRATE. And 'tis with your yarn, and your skeins, and your spools, you think to appease so many bitter enmities, you silly women? LYSISTRATA. If only you had common sense, you would always do in politics the same as we do with our yarn. MAGISTRATE. Come, how is that, eh? LYSISTRATA. First we wash the yarn to separate the grease and filth; do the same with all bad citizens, sort them out and drive them forth with rods—'tis the refuse of the city. Then for all such as come crowding up in search of employments and offices, we must card them thoroughly; then, to bring them all to the same standard, pitch them pell-mell into the same basket, resident aliens or no, allies, debtors to the State, all mixed up together. Then as for our Colonies, you must think of them as so many isolated hanks; find the ends of the separate threads, draw them to a centre here, wind them into one, make one great hank of the lot, out of which the Public can weave itself a good, stout tunic. MAGISTRATE. Is it not a sin and a shame to see them carding and winding the State, these women who have neither art nor part in the burdens of the War? LYSISTRATA. What! wretched man! why, 'tis a far heavier burden to us than to you. In the first place, we bear sons who go off to fight far away from Athens. MAGISTRATE. Enough said! do not recall sad and sorry memories![430] LYSISTRATA. Then secondly, instead of enjoying the pleasures of love and making the best of our youth and beauty, we are left to languish far from our husbands, who are all with the army. But say no more of ourselves; what afflicts me is to see our girls growing old in lonely grief. MAGISTRATE. Don't the men grow old too? LYSISTRATA. That is not the same thing. When the soldier returns from the wars, even though he has white hair, he very soon finds a young wife. But a woman has only one summer; if she does not make hay while the sun shines, no one will afterwards have anything to say to her, and she spends her days consulting oracles, that never send her a husband. MAGISTRATE. But the old man who can still erect his organ … LYSISTRATA. But you, why don't you get done with it and die? You are rich; go buy yourself a bier, and I will knead you a honey-cake for Cerberus. Here, take this garland. (Drenching him with water.) FIRST WOMAN. And this one too. (Drenching him with water.) SECOND WOMAN. And these fillets. (Drenching him with water.) LYSISTRATA. What do you lack more? Step aboard the boat; Charon is waiting for you, you're keeping him from pushing off. MAGISTRATE. To treat me so scurvily! What an insult! I will go show myself to my fellow-magistrates just as I am. LYSISTRATA. What! are you blaming us for not having exposed you according to custom?[431] Nay, console yourself; we will not fail to offer up the third-day sacrifice for you, first thing in the morning.[432] CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Awake, friends of freedom; let us hold ourselves aye ready to act. I suspect a mighty peril; I foresee another Tyranny like Hippias'.[433] I am sore afraid the Laconians assembled here with Cleisthenes have, by a stratagem of war, stirred up these women, enemies of the gods, to seize upon our treasury and the funds whereby I lived.[434] Is it not a sin and a shame for them to interfere in advising the citizens, to prate of shields and lances, and to ally themselves with Laconians, fellows I trust no more than I would so many famished wolves? The whole thing, my friends, is nothing else but an attempt to re-establish Tyranny. But I will never submit; I will be on my guard for the future; I will always carry a blade hidden under myrtle boughs; I will post myself in the Public Square under arms, shoulder to shoulder with Aristogiton;[435] and now, to make a start, I must just break a few of that cursed old jade's teeth yonder. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Nay, never play the brave man, else when you go back home, your own mother won't know you. But, dear friends and allies, first let us lay our burdens down; then, citizens all, hear what I have to say. I have useful counsel to give our city, which deserves it well at my hands for the brilliant distinctions it has lavished on my girlhood. At seven years of age, I was bearer of the sacred vessels; at ten, I pounded barley for the altar of Athené; next, clad in a robe of yellow silk, I was little bear to Artemis at the Brauronia;[436] presently, grown a tall, handsome maiden, they put a necklace of dried figs about my neck, and I was Basket-Bearer.[437] So surely I am bound to give my best advice to Athens. What matters that I was born a woman, if I can cure your misfortunes? I pay my share of tolls and taxes, by giving men to the State. But you, you miserable greybeards, you contribute nothing to the public charges; on the contrary, you have wasted the treasure of our forefathers, as it was called, the treasure amassed in the days of the Persian Wars.[438] You pay nothing at all in return; and into the bargain you endanger our lives and liberties by your mistakes. Have you one word to say for yourselves? … Ah! don't irritate me, you there, or I'll lay my slipper across your jaws; and it's pretty heavy. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Outrage upon outrage! things are going from bad to worse. Let us punish the minxes, every one of us that has a man's appendages to boast of. Come, off with our tunics, for a man must savour of manhood; come, my friends, let us strip naked from head to foot. Courage, I say, we who in our day garrisoned Lipsydrion;[439] let us be young again, and shake off eld. If we give them the least hold over us, 'tis all up! their audacity will know no bounds! We shall see them building ships, and fighting sea-fights, like Artemisia;[440] nay, if they want to mount and ride as cavalry, we had best cashier the knights, for indeed women excel in riding, and have a fine, firm seat for the gallop.[441] Just think of all those squadrons of Amazons Micon has painted for us engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men.[442] Come then, we must e'en fit collars to all these willing necks. CHORUS OF WOMEN. By the blessed goddesses, if you anger me, I will let loose the beast of my evil passions, and a very hailstorm of blows will set you yelling for help. Come, dames, off tunics, and quick's the word; women must scent the savour of women in the throes of passion…. Now just you dare to measure strength with me, old greybeard, and I warrant you you'll never eat garlic or black beans more. No, not a word! my anger is at boiling point, and I'll do with you what the beetle did with the eagle's eggs.[443] I laugh at your threats, so long as I have on my side Lampito here, and the noble Theban, my dear Ismenia…. Pass decree on decree, you can do us no hurt, you wretch abhorred of all your fellows. Why, only yesterday, on occasion of the feast of Hecaté, I asked my neighbours of Boeotia for one of their daughters for whom my girls have a lively liking—a fine, fat eel to wit; and if they did not refuse, all along of your silly decrees! We shall never cease to suffer the like, till someone gives you a neat trip-up and breaks your neck for you! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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