LySIStRata
(Lysistrate)
First produced in 411 BCE
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
Lysistrata
Calonice
Myrrhine
Lampito
Female Representatives from Boeotia and Corinth
Scythian Slave Girl
Old Men’s Chorus Leader (Draces)
Chorus of Old Men
Old Women’s Chorus Leader (Stratyllis)
Chorus of Old Women
Commissioner
Four Policemen
Four Scythian Archers
Three Old Women
Four Women
Harden
Manes the Slave
Baby
Spartan Messenger
Two Spartan Ambassadors
Two Athenian Ambassadors
Reconciliation
Athenian Doorkeeper
Slaves
Piper
(The setting is Athens, Greece, in 411 BCE. Athens has been at war with Sparta and other Greek states, including Boeotia and Corinth, on and off for almost twenty years. There is a backdrop with two doors in it, for the moment representing the fronts of two typical Athenian houses. Lysistrata emerges through one of the doors. It is very early in the morning.)
LYSISTRATA:
If all the women had been called to worship
Pan, Bacchus or the Goddesses of Sex
at Colias,o believe me, there would be
so many drums around you couldn’t move,
and now there’s not a single female here—
(Calonice emerges from the other door.)
except my neighbor coming out. Good morning,
Calonice.
CALONICE:
Morning, Lysistrata.
What’s wrong with you? Don’t look so grumpy, girl.
Scrunching your face up like a tight-drawn bow
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is hardly an attractive look for you.
LYSISTRATA:
Oh, but my heart’s on fire. I’m grieving over
the way we women have been treated. Men
think we are all so wicked.
CALONICE:
Aren’t we, though?
LYSISTRATA:
I told the girls to come on time to talk
about important business, but they’re late.
They must be sleeping.
CALONICE:
Sweetie, they’ll be here.
It’s tough, you know, for wives to get away—
one will be doting on her man; another
waking the slaves. While one of them is putting
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the baby down, another will be nursing
or giving baths.
LYSISTRATA:
But there’s another matter
far more important to them than such things.
CALONICE:
What is it, Lysistrata? Why have you
convened this female council here today?
Is it a big deal?
LYSISTRATA:
Yes, it’s big.
CALONICE:
And meaty?
LYSISTRATA:
Meaty. Yes.
CALONICE:
Why aren’t the women here, then?
LYSISTRATA:
That’s not my meaning. They’d have been here quick
enough for that. But there’s this other thing
I’ve hit on; I’ve been tossing it about
for many sleepless nights.
CALONICE:
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“Tossing” the thing—
by now it must be flimsy.
LYSISTRATA:
Yes, so “flimsy”
that all of Greece’s future rests upon
us women.
CALONICE:
On us women! Then it rests
on very little.
LYSISTRATA:
Yes, the city’s future
rests upon womankind. Or else the people
of southern Greece will wholly cease to be—
CALONICE:
It would be better if they did, by Zeus!
LYSISTRATA:
. . . and all of the Boeotians be destroyed—
CALONICE:
But not their eels, but not their precious eels!o
LYSISTRATA:
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. . . and Athens, but I don’t dare utter such
an end for Athens. You must guess my meaning.
If the women would just meet here now,
all of them from the South and from Boeotia
and greater Athens, we could save all Greece!
CALONICE:
But what can women do that’s excellent
or noble? We just sit around at home
looking all pretty in our saffron dresses,
makeup, cambric gowns, and cozy shoes.
LYSISTRATA:
Those are the very things I hope will save us—
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our little saffron gowns, perfumes, and shoes,
our rouge and see-through undergarments.
CALONICE:
How, though?
LYSISTRATA:
They will make it so that no man living
will ever lift a spear against another . . .
CALONICE:
Then, by Demeter and Persephone,o
I’m heading out to have a dress dyed saffron!
LYSISTRATA:
. . . or hold a shield . . .
CALONICE:
I’ll wear a cambric gown!
LYSISTRATA:
. . . or even a knife.
CALONICE:
I’m off to go shoe shopping!
LYSISTRATA:
I know! Shouldn’t they all have come by now?
CALONICE:
“Come,” no—they should have flown here hours ago.
LYSISTRATA:
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Dear, you will find that they are perfectly
Athenian—always later than they should be.o
There aren’t even any who have sailed
over from Salamis or the Paralia.o
CALONICE:
Those girls must still be mounted on their broad-beamed
dinghies.
LYSISTRATA:
Not even the Acharnian womeno
are here. I thought they’d be the first to come.
I counted on them.
CALONICE:
Theogenes’s wife,
at least, had raised her mainsail high to get here.o
(Women enter from stage right.)
But look—some of the girls are coming now.
(More women enter from stage left, including Myrrhine.)
LYSISTRATA:
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And there are more arriving on this side.
CALONICE:
They reek! Where have they come from?
LYSISTRATA:
Stinkydale.o
CALONICE:
Of course: they kicked the stink up when they came.
MYRRHINE:
What’s up, Lysistrata? Are we tardy?
What do you have to tell us? Why so quiet?
LYSISTRATA:
Myrrhine, I disapprove of your arriving
so late when there is such important business.
MYRRHINE:
It was so dark at home. I couldn’t find
my bra. We’re here now. Give us what you’ve got.
LYSISTRATA:
No, we should wait a bit until the women
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come in from Boeotia and the South.
MYRRHINE:
That’s better, yes.
(Lampito enters from stage right, with the Female Representatives from Boeotia and Corinth and several other females. She speaks with a southern twang.)
But look, here comes Lampito!
LYSISTRATA:
Lampito darling, here you are from Sparta.
Sweetie, why, how gorgeous you are looking!
Your skin is glowing, and your body’s ripped.
I bet that you could snap a bull’s neck.
LAMPITO:
Shee-ute,
I bet I could. I work out regular—
you know, those heel-to-butt kicks people do.
CALONICE: (groping Lampito’s breasts)
Wow, what a banging rack you have!
LAMPITO:
Whoa, now!
You gropin’ me like I’m some animal
you gonna sacrifice.
LYSISTRATA:
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And this girl here,
where is she from?
LAMPITO:
She come here representin’
Boeotia.
MYRRHINE:
With her undulating lowlands,
she looks just like Boeotia!
CALONICE:
Yes indeed.
(looking down the Boeotian Representative’s dress at her pubic hair)
Look at that well-cropped herbage.
LYSISTRATA:
Who’s this woman?
LAMPITO:
She’s a great, great lady, outta Corinth.
CALONICE:
She’s great alright! Great front and great behind!
LAMPITO:
Now, which a’ y’all called for this here meetin’?
LYSISTRATA:
I am the one.
LAMPITO:
Then go on, girl. You tell us
what you got to say.
CALONICE:
Yes, darling, please
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do tell us what this serious business is.
LYSISTRATA:
I want to tell you but, before I do,
let me put a little question to you.
CALONICE:
Ask away.
LYSISTRATA:
Don’t all you ladies miss
your children’s fathers when they’re on campaign?
Each of you has a husband who’s away—
I know you do.
CALONICE:
Five months my man’s been gone
up north in Thrace fighting to save Eucrates
the general.o
MYRRHINE:
Seven months my man’s been off
at Pylos.o
LAMPITO:
Heck, my man no quicker comes
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back home to Sparta than he up and straps
his shield on and is gone again.
CALONICE:
What’s worse,
there aren’t even any lover-boys
to have affairs with. And, ever since Miletus
broke away from us, I haven’t seen
one of those five-inch dildos,o no, not one,
though they’d have been small consolation to us.
LYSISTRATA:
Ladies, if I could come up with a way
to end the war, would you agree to join me?
CALONICE:
By Demeter and Persephone,
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I would agree, though I be forced to sell
this gown and on the same day blow the money
getting . . . drunk!
MYRRHINE:
Count me in, also. I’d
be cut right down the middle like a flounder
and donate half myself to help you out.
LAMPITO:
I’d climb Mount Tayeegetyo if I thought
I’d catch a glimmer a’ a peace from there.
LYSISTRATA:
I’ll tell you, then. No need to keep the secret.
Alright: If we are going to force our men
to make a treaty, then we must abstain from . . .
CALONICE:
What is it? Tell us.
LYSISTRATA:
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You will do it, then?
CALONICE:
Yes, though we have to sacrifice our lives!
LYSISTRATA:
Alright, then. What we must abstain from is . . .
dick.
(All the women turn away from Lysistrata, some shaking their heads, some weeping.)
Hold on, don’t turn away from me.
Where are you going? Don’t pout and shake your heads.
Why are you turning pale? Why shedding tears?
Will you or won’t you do this thing? Decide.
CALONICE:
I just can’t do it. Let the war go on.
MYRRHINE:
God no, me either. Let the war go on.
LYSISTRATA: (to Myrrhine)
You, too, Ms. Flounderfish? Weren’t you just saying
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that you would cut yourself in half for peace?
MYRRHINE:
Anything else I’d do! If it’d help,
I’d walk through fire. Just, no, no, not the dick.
There’s nothing like it, dear.
LYSISTRATA:
Are you out, too?
WOMAN:
Me? I would also rather walk through fire.
LYSISTRATA:
What a bunch of nymphos women are!
The tragedies they make about our sex
are true, since all we do is hump and dump.o
But you, my Spartan friend—if you alone
are with me, then we still might save this business.
Vote with me!
LAMPITO:
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It ain’t no fun for women
to sleep without a woody for companion;
still, I’m with you, ’cause we need the peace.
LYSISTRATA:
You are a perfect dear! The one true woman!
CALONICE:
Hey, now, even if we did abstain from . . .
from what you said (and may we never have to),
would peace be then more likely to occur?
LYSISTRATA:
Sure it would. If we lounged about the house
with makeup on and sauntered past our husbands
wearing no clothes except a see-through gown
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and trimmed our pubes into a perfect triangle,
and if the men, then, got all hard and burned
to screw us, but we backed off and refused
to touch them, they would cut a peace damn quick.
You can be sure of that.
LAMPITO:
Like Menelaus.
When he caught sight a’ nekked Helen’s peaches,
lickety-split he threw his sword aside.o
CALONICE:
What happens if our husbands just ignore us?
LYSISTRATA:
Well, like a poet says somewhere: In dog days,
dildo away.o
CALONICE:
Faux boners are a joke!
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And, anyway, what if our men just drag us
into the bedroom?
LYSISTRATA:
Hold on to the door frame.
CALONICE:
What if they beat us up?
LYSISTRATA:
Then grudgingly
submit. Men get no pleasure out of screwing
when they have to make a woman do it,
and there are other ways to make men ache.
They will surrender to us soon, I promise.
No man can live a happy life unless
his wife allows it.
CALONICE: (to Lampito and Lysistrata)
Well, if this seems best
to you two girls, the rest of us agree.
LAMPITO:
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We Spartan girls can surely git our men
to make a’ honest sort a’ peace that’s good
for everyone. But how can anybody
keep your Athenian mob from acting like
the crazy folk they are?
LYSISTRATA:
I promise you
that we will bring our husbands round to peace.
LAMPITO:
Y’all can’t—with all them warships under sail
and tons a’ money in Athena’s temple.o
LYSISTRATA:
That issue has been taken care of. We
are going to occupy the hilltop fortress
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of the Acropolis this very morning.o
That task has fallen to the older women.
Even as we are working out the terms
of our agreement here, they, on the pretext
of making sacrifice, are up there taking
the citadel.
LAMPITO:
Well, now, that sounds jus’ right,
like all the things you’ve said to me so far.
LYSISTRATA:
Why don’t we swear an oath right now, Lampito,
so that the details will be fixed forever?
LAMPITO:
Lay down the oath, so y’all and I can swear it.
LYSISTRATA:
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Very well. Where is my Scythian slave girl?
(The Scythian Slave Girl enters, carrying a shield.)
What are you gaping at? Now put the shield
facedown there on the ground in front of us,
and someone bring the cuttings from the victim.
(The Slave Girl lays the shield facedown on the stage.)
CALONICE:
What sort of oath will we be swearing for you?
LYSISTRATA:
What sort of oath? The oath that I have heard
Aeschylus had his heroes swear to, after
they slit a victim’s throat above a shield.o
CALONICE:
Come on, Lysistrata, please don’t make us
swear an oath for peace upon a shield!
LYSISTRATA:
What should the oath be, then?
CALONICE:
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What if we got
a pure-white steed somewhere and cut it up?o
LYSISTRATA:
A pure-white steed?
CALONICE:
Well, then, how will we swear?
LYSISTRATA:
I’ll tell you what I think: Let’s put a big
black wine cup on the ground right here, top upward,
and sacrifice a jar of Thasian wine into it
and swear never to add a drop of water.o
LAMPITO:
Yee-haw! I can’t praise that oath enough!
LYSISTRATA:
Someone go in and bring the cup and jar.
(The Slave Girl fetches a wine cup and wine jar from offstage.)
MYRRHINE:
O my dear ladies, that’s a whole wine vat!
CALONICE:
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We could get wasted just by touching it.
LYSISTRATA: (pretending the wine cup is a sacrificial boar)
Put down the wine cup now, and everyone
come lay her hands upon this sacral—boar.
(She prays while pouring wine from the jar into the cup.)
O Queen Persuasion and O Cup of Mirth,
kindly accept this offering from women.
CALONICE:
The blood looks good and bubbles like it should.
LAMPITO:
It smells a’ sweetness, by the gods.
MYRRHINE:
Please, ladies,
let me be first!
CALONICE:
By Aphrodite, only
if your number’s up.
LYSISTRATA:
Hey there, Lampito,
everyone, lay your hands upon the wine cup.
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One of you will repeat, for all, the terms
of our agreement after me, and then
the rest will swear to keep them once we’re done.
No man, be he a lover or a husband . . .
CALONICE: (stepping up as the representative for all the women)
No man, be he a lover or a husband . . .
LYSISTRATA:
. . . shall come up to me with a boner. Say it!
CALONICE:
. . . shall come up to me with a boner.
Ah!
My knees are going to buckle, Lysistrata!
LYSISTRATA:
And I shall pass the time in celibacy . . .
CALONICE:
And I shall pass the time in celibacy . . .
LYSISTRATA:
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. . . dressed in a saffron gown and all made up . . .
CALONICE:
. . . dressed in a saffron gown and all made up . . .
LYSISTRATA:
. . . so that my man gets very hot for me.
CALONICE:
. . . so that my man gets very hot for me.
LYSISTRATA:
Never shall I consent to sex with him.
CALONICE:
Never shall I consent to sex with him.
LYSISTRATA:
And if he forces me against my will . . .
CALONICE:
And if he forces me against my will . . .
LYSISTRATA:
. . . I shall be frigid and shall not grind back.
CALONICE:
. . . I shall be frigid and shall not grind back . . .
LYSISTRATA:
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. . . nor raise my fancy slippers toward the ceiling . . .
CALONICE:
. . . nor raise my fancy slippers toward the ceiling . . .
LYSISTRATA:
. . . nor pose my haunches like a lioness’s.
CALONICE:
. . . nor pose my haunches like a lioness’s.
LYSISTRATA:
If I fulfill these vows, may I drink wine . . .
CALONICE:
If I fulfill these vows, may I drink wine . . .
LYSISTRATA:
. . . but, if I fail, this cup be full of water.
CALONICE:
. . . but, if I fail, this cup be full of water.
LYSISTRATA:
So do you women swear?
ALL THE WOMEN:
So do we swear.
LYSISTRATA:
By drinking from this cup, I consecrate it.
(Lysistrata takes a deep drink.)
CALONICE: (eager to take her drink)
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Only your portion, dear. Prove from the start
that we are allies.
(Shouts are heard from offstage. They are the sound of older woman seizing the Acropolis.)
LAMPITO:
What’s that hullabaloo?
LYSISTRATA:
That’s what I was explaining to you: women
have just now taken the Acropolis,
Athena’s hilltop fortress. Now, Lampito,
head home and see to your side of this business—
just leave these women here as hostages.
(Lampito exits, stage right, with the Representatives from Boeotia and Corinth, leaving several females behind.)
We, for our part, will march into the fortress
and help the other women bar the gates.
CALONICE:
But don’t you think the men will very quickly
march in arms against us?
LYSISTRATA:
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Have no fear.
Never will they muster threat or fire
enough to penetrate our gates unless
they give in to our terms.
CALONICE:
By Aphrodite,
they won’t get in, or else we women never
should wear the names of “nasty” and “impossible.”
(The setting refocuses from the houses of Lysistrata and Calonice to the Acropolis. The two doors now represent the Propylaea, or gates to the Acropolis. Lysistrata and the remaining women exit through a stage door. A Chorus of Old Men enter from stage right, carrying small branches and a smoking pot full of coals.)
CHORUS OF OLD MEN:
Lead on, Draces,o lead on, though your shoulder’s aching bad
under that very heavy load of fresh-green olivewood.
Strophe 1
There will be lots of shocks in lives as long as ours.
Who would have thought we’d hear that womankind,
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a race we nursed at home, a blatant curse,
would now control Athena’s statue and
my beautiful Acropolis and, even worse,
have sealed the fortress gates with bolts and bars?
Let’s hurry to the citadel as quick as we can go
and make a ring of timber round the women, all those who
have spawned or nurtured this revolt. Let’s make a giant pile
of wood, a bonfire, and proceed, with a united will
and torches in our hands, to immolate them, all of them—
and Lycon’s drunken wifeo should be the first to feel the flame!
Antistrophe 1
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Their sex won’t get to mock me while I’m drawing breath.
Cleomenes,o the first to occupy
that citadel, barely escaped alive.
Though Spartan-proud, he gave his spear to me
and slunk off, small-cloaked, starved, in sore need of a shave.
It had been six years since he had a bath.
Such was the dogged way that we besieged the man—no sleep
by day or night, we stood in ranks seventeen-shieldmen deep.
And now am I just going to do nothing, stand around
instead of chastening the insolence of womankind,
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the foes of every godhead, and Euripides as well?o
May Marathon no longer feature my memorial.o
Strophe 2
We’re almost there. All that remains, now, is that steep
stretch to the citadel—my goal, my hope.
But, oh, without a donkey, how the heck
will we move all this lumber to that height?
For all this pair of tree trunks weighs my shoulders down,
I must bear up, I must go on,
and keep my fire alight.
It must keep burning till I reach the top.
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Huff, puff, and alack,
the smoke!
Antistrophe 2
Great Lord Heracles!o The smoke has viciously
leapt from the bucket and come after me.
My eyes sting from its crazy-bitch attack.
No doubt ours is the Lemnian sort of fireo—
that’s why it’s murdering my bloodshot eyes like this.
On, on to the Acropolis!
Rush to Athena, rescue her!
It’s urgent: we must save the deity!
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Huff, puff, and alack,
the smoke!
Thanks to the gods, the fire is very much alive and kicking.
Come on, let’s set our loads of wood down here. Then, after sticking
the torches in the pail and seeing that they catch a flame,
let’s rush the gates like battering rams. If, when we order them
to yield, the women still refuse, we’ll set the gates on fire
and smoke the rebels out. Alright, then, put the logs down there.
That smoke is something. Damn. Hey, generals at the naval base
in Samos, do you want to help us stack this lumber?o
(The Chorus of Old Men set the branches down.)
Those
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at last are off my back! Now, fire pail, it is up to you
to rouse your embers and provide me with a bright flambeau.
Victory Goddess Nike,o be our ally, fight with us,
and we will win a trophy over female brazenness.
(A Chorus of Old Women enter through a stage door. They are carrying jugs full of water.)
CHORUS OF OLD WOMEN:
I think that I see smoke and ash, like something is aflame.
Faster now, my female soldiers. Hurry. Double time.
Strophe 1
Soar, women, soar up there before
our fighting sisters have been set on fire.
Look how the fierce winds fan the blaze!
Those old men would commit atrocities
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against us. I am terribly afraid
we are too late to do the others any good.
I’ve just come from the well,
where I had trouble filling up this water jug.
Yes, in the predawn ruckus and the glug-glug-glug
and clay-pot clash and shatter of it all,
I fought a tattooed slave and serving maid
and boldly set this vessel on my head
and now, to save my sister rebels from
the threatened fiery demise, have come,
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bringing lots of liquid aid.
Antistrophe 1
I’ve heard that homicidal old
fogeys have been let loose into the wild.
Dragging a superhuman weight
of firewood up the slope, they shout and shout,
like stokers in a bathhouse steam room, rash
threats like “We’re gonna turn those nasty hags to ash.”
Goddess Athena, please,
let me not see my sisters roasting in the fire.
I want to see them save from craziness and war
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our fellow citizens and all of Greece.
Yes, Golden-Crested Fortress Guardian,o
that is why we have occupied your shrine.
Tritogeneia,o aid us in this fight
and, if a man’s hand sets your house alight,
help us pour the water on.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (seeing the Chorus of Old Men for the first time)
Halt, women! What is this? They must be execrable villains
because no good and pious men would do what they are doing.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Here is a difficulty we did not expect to see:
a swarm of them has come out of the gates to help the others.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
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What, are you frightened? Does it seem that there are lots of us?
Well, you are only seeing one small fraction of our horde.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Men, are we going to let these women yammer on like this?
Someone should take his log and just start walloping them good.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
We’d better put our pitchers down so that our hands are free
in case one of those good-for-nothings lays his hands on us.
(The Chorus of Old Women set down the pitchers.)
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
By Zeus, if someone socked them in their kissers two or three times—
you know, like Bupe-Bupe-Bupalus,o they would be much more quiet.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Well, here’s my kisser. Hit me. I can take it. If you do, though,
no other bitch will ever grab you by the balls again!
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
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Shut up, or I will knock you right out of your withered hide.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Come on and touch me, touch Stratyllis with your fingertip.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
If I used combo punches, what you got to get me back?
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I’d use my teeth to rip your lungs and bowels out of your body.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I swear, no poet’s wiser than Euripides. He said:
“No race of beasts exists as pitiless as womankind.”
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Come on, let’s pick our water pitchers up and get them ready.
(The Chorus of Old Women pick up the pitchers.)
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Harridan hateful to the gods, why did you come with water?
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Why did you come with fire, you burial mound? To burn your carcass?
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
No, to build a big bonfire and burn up all your friends.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
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And I, well, I have come to put that fire out with my water.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
You think you’re going to douse my fire?
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
You’ll find out soon enough.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I think I might just use this torch to roast you where you stand.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Happen to bring some soap along? I’m giving you a bath.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
A bath from you, a shriveled hag?
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
And you, you’re quite a bridegroom.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (to the Chorus of Old Men)
You hear that disrespect?
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I’m free, and I will speak my mind!
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I’ll make you quit your screeching!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
You aren’t on a jury now!o
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (to the Chorus of Old Men)
Set her hair on fire!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (pouring water onto the Old Men’s Chorus Leader)
Do your work, now, River God.
(The Chorus of Old Women pour water on the Chorus of Old Men.)
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Oh no!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (ironically)
I hope it didn’t scald you.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Scald me? Desist! What are you doing?
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
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I’m watering you so you bloom.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I’m dry again from shivering.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Well, since you have a fire, why not sit down and warm yourself?
(The Commissioner of Athens enters from stage left. He has four Policemen with him and four Scythian Archers. They are all wearing disproportionately large, flaccid strap-on penises.)
COMMISSIONER:
Has feminine licentiousness flared up
again? The kettledrums? The endless cries
to that exotic god Sabezius?o
And all that rooftop worship of Adoniso
I heard while sitting once in the Assembly?
Demostratus (the villain) was proposing
that we dispatch a fleet to Sicily,
410
and all the while his wife would not stop dancing
and shouting, “Oh Adonis! Oh!” Demostratus,
next, was proposing we conscript foot soldiers
out of Zacynthus,o and his wife just kept on
drinking on the rooftop and exclaiming,
“Beat your bosoms for Adonis!” Well,
that god-detested wretched Captain Blather
just went on legislating, while his wife
exhibited the sort of wild behavior
you get from womankind.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (gesturing to the Chorus of Old Women)
What will you say
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when you find out about these ladies’ cheek?
They’ve gone too far in every way. They’ve even
soaked us with those jugs of theirs. We stand here
shaking our clothes out like we’ve pissed ourselves!
COMMISSIONER:
By Poseidon,o we’ve been asking for it!
We ourselves incite our wives’ transgressions;
we positively teach them to be wanton,
and so it’s no surprise these sorts of plots
are growing up among them. We ourselves
go to the shops and say such things as:
“Goldsmith,
430
you know that necklace that I had you make?
Last evening, while my wife was dancing in it,
the post that’s on the fastener slipped out of
the hole. Now I am off to Salamis—
gone till tomorrow. If you have the time,
stop by my house this evening, please, and fit
a post into her hole.”
Another husband goes
to see a shoemaker, a teenage boy
who’s got a grown man’s cock, and says such things as:
“Shoemaker, there’s this strap that’s rubbing raw
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my darling’s pinkie toe. Please come around
some early afternoon and stretch her gap out
wider.”
That’s the licentiousness that’s led us
to this impasse where I, the great Commish,
when I need money from the treasury
to outfit ships with oars, can’t get inside
because I’m locked out by our women!
(to the Policemen and Scythian Archers)
You,
what good is standing there? Go get some crowbars.
I’m going to put an end to female brashness
once and for all!
(to a Policeman)
What are you gaping at,
450
you dope? The only thing you’re looking for’s
a tavern, I suspect.
(to the Policemen and Scythian Archers)
All of you, come, now,
drive the crowbars underneath the gates
and yank from there, and I’ll start yanking mine
from over here.
(The males onstage start prying at one of the stage doors with the crowbars. Lysistrata enters from the other stage door. She is wearing a head scarf. Three Old Women attend, carrying a wreath, ribbons, and a basket containing wool and a spindle.)
LYSISTRATA:
Stop yanking on those things.
I’m coming out all on my own. Besides,
what need is there for crowbars? What you need
are wits and brains.
COMMISSIONER:
Oh really? What a bitch!
Where’s a policeman?
(to the First Policeman)
Go and get her. Bind
her hands behind her back.
LYSISTRATA:
Yeah, if that man
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dares touch me even with a fingertip,
I’ll send him home, a state employee, weeping.
(The First Policeman refuses to grab Lysistrata.)
COMMISSIONER: (to the First Policeman)
What, are you scared of her?
(to the Second Policeman)
Go help him. Quick, now,
grab her around the waist and bind her hands.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: (to the Second Policeman)
If you so much as lay a hand on her,
I’ll hit you so hard that you shit yourself!
(The Second Policeman refuses to grab Lysistrata.)
COMMISSIONER:
“Shit himself”? Where’s my other officer?
(to the Third Policeman)
You, come and tie this foul-mouthed hag up first.
SECOND OLD WOMAN: (to the Third Policeman)
Touch her, and you’ll be begging for a cupo
to be warmed up to soothe your big black eye.
(The Third Policeman refuses to grab the First Old Woman.)
COMMISSIONER:
What is this?
(to the Fourth Policeman)
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Hey there, you, policeman, seize her.
I’ll stop those hags from charging from the gates.
THIRD OLD WOMAN: (to the Fourth Policeman)
Go on and touch her, do it, and I’ll rip
your hair out by the roots and leave you screaming.
(The Fourth Policeman refuses to grab the First Old Woman. All four Policemen run off, stage left.)
COMMISSIONER:
Dammit! Now I’ve got no policemen left.
All the same, men must never be defeated
by women. Form up, Scythians, and charge them!
(The four Scythian Archers form in a line.)
LYSISTRATA:
You will soon learn well that we have four
brigades of fighting women on reserve
inside the gates.
COMMISSIONER:
Scythians, wrench their hands
behind their backs!
LYSISTRATA:
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March out, O my reservists!
(Women march out of the stage door in military formation.)
Onward, my greens-’n’-egg-seed-market-mongers,
my tavern-keeping-bread-’n’-garlic-hawkers!
Take them down! Wallop them! Devastate
and mock them! Be as foul as you can be!
(After a mock battle, the Scythian Archers retreat.)
Stop now! Withdraw. Don’t wait to strip the corpses.o
COMMISSIONER:
Goodness! My Scythians have not fared well.
LYSISTRATA:
What did you think would happen? Did you think
you’d be attacking slave girls? Did you think
that women have no fight in them?
COMMISSIONER:
Yes, lots,
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so long as someone nearby serves them drinks.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (to the Commissioner)
Commissioner, you just keep gabbing on and on and wasting words.
Why would you try to come to terms with savage beasts like these?
Do you not understand the sort of bath we got just now?
They left our cloaks all sopping, and they never gave us soap!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (to the Commissioner)
Buddy, you can’t just hit a person anytime you want.
Plus, if you do attack me, you will wind up with a black eye.
I’d rather be at home, seated demurely like a maiden,
troubling no one, crushing not one blade of grass—except,
if someone riles me like a wasp’s nest, I will be a wasp.
CHORUS OF OLD MEN:
Strophe
500
Great Lord Zeus, what are we going to do about this pack
of monsters? They are unendurable. Come, now, and look
into this plot along with me until
we know why they have seized the citadel
and the whole sacred and restricted space
that is our great limestone Acropolis.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Now start the inquisition! Cast suspicion upon all
she says. It’s shameful that we let these actions go unchecked.
COMMISSIONER:
Here is the thing I want to find out first of all, by Zeus:
What did you hope to gain by locking up the citadel?
LYSISTRATA:
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To keep the money safe and stop the war for lack of it.
COMMISSIONER:
We are at war because of money—is that what you think?
LYSISTRATA:
Yes, and that’s why so many other things got screwed up, too.
Pisander and the other would-be officeholders kept on
stirring up trouble as a pretext to get at the silver.
Now they can keep on stirring up whatever they might scheme—
they will be taking no more money from the citadel.
COMMISSIONER:
What are you going to do with it?
LYSISTRATA:
We’ll manage it, of course.
COMMISSIONER:
Women will manage it?
LYSISTRATA:
Why do you think that this is strange?
Don’t we already manage your domestic finances?
COMMISSIONER:
That’s not the same.
LYSISTRATA:
Why not?
COMMISSIONER:
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This money is for waging war.
LYSISTRATA:
There doesn’t need to be a war.
COMMISSIONER:
How will we be protected?
LYSISTRATA:
We women will protect you.
COMMISSIONER:
What, you women?
LYSISTRATA:
Yes, us women.
COMMISSIONER:
How ballsy.
LYSISTRATA:
We will save you whether you consent or not.
COMMISSIONER:
That’s crazy talk!
LYSISTRATA:
Oh, are you angry? Still it must be done.
COMMISSIONER:
It’s just not proper.
LYSISTRATA:
Still, you must be saved, my dear, dear man.
COMMISSIONER:
Even if I never asked?
LYSISTRATA:
Yes, all the more for that.
COMMISSIONER:
But why are peace and war of such importance to you now?
LYSISTRATA:
I’ll tell you.
COMMISSIONER: (threatening her with his fist)
Do it quick or else you’re going to get beaten.
LYSISTRATA:
Listen up, then, and control your hands.
COMMISSIONER:
I can’t control them.
I’m so worked up that I can’t keep from flailing.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: (to the Commissioner)
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You’re the one
who’s gonna get a beating!
COMMISSIONER: (to the First Old Woman)
Croak away, you old hag, croak!
(to Lysistrata)
And you there, start explaining what you plan to do.
LYSISTRATA:
With pleasure:
Blessed with self-control, we women have endured in silence,
for quite a long time now, whatever you men did, because
you never let us speak. Believe me: you weren’t all we dreamed of—
yes, we took good stock of you. Quite frequently at home
we heard you speaking of some fool political decision
you’d lately made. Then, full of agony but still all smiles,
we’d ask: “What was resolved about the rider to the peace
540
today in the Assembly?” Well, my husband always answered,
“What’s it to you?” and “Woman, shut your mouth.” And I shut up—
FIRST OLD WOMAN:
Not me: I never would have shut my mouth.
COMMISSIONER: (to the First Old Woman)
Well, if you hadn’t,
you’d have gotten smacked.
LYSISTRATA:
. . . I shut up, and I stayed at home.
And soon enough we heard about some even more atrocious
legislation you had passed. And I would say, “O husband,
why have you gone and voted in so very bad a law?”
Frowningly he would snap back: “Mind your spinning, now, or else
I’ll knock your head around, some. War is an affair for men.”o
COMMISSIONER:
Yeah, by the gods, your husband schooled you good!
LYSISTRATA:
What’s “good,” moron,
550
about not giving good advice to people who are making
awful decisions? When we heard you men all over town
lamenting, “Isn’t there a man left anywhere in Athens?”
and others crying, “No men left,” we women met in council,
and we resolved to raise a coup and rescue Greece ourselves.
Why should we waste more time? If you are ready now to shut up
just like you said “shut up” to us and heed our good advice,
we’ll tell you how to set the city straight.
COMMISSIONER:
You? You tell us?
An outrage! It’s impossible!
LYSISTRATA:
Shut up.
COMMISSIONER:
“Shut up” for you,
a nasty creature with a veil on? Never, on my life!
LYSISTRATA: (taking her head scarf off and putting it on the Commissioner)
560
Well, if my veil’s the trouble here,
you take it from me, wear it over
your head. Now you’re the “shut up” one.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: (handing the Commissioner a sewing basket)
Oh, and here’s a sewing basket.
LYSISTRATA:
Tuck in your clothes and get some beans
to chew ono while you do your spinning.
War is an affair for women.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Leave your water jugs, now, girls, because the time has come
for us to play our part by helping in a different way.
(The Chorus of Old Women set down the pitchers.)
CHORUS OF OLD WOMEN:
Strophe
I’ll never tire of dancing. I’ll keep dancing on and on,
570
and no exhausting hours of work will make my knees break down.
I’m not afraid of anything because
I’ve women with me who are bold as these.
They’ve got good breeding, grace and spunk in them.
They’ve got street smarts and patriotic vim.
Now most manly grannies, ye maternal stinging jellies,
advance with rage and don’t grow soft. Run with a gale astern.
LYSISTRATA:
If sweet-souled Eros and his mother Aphrodite of Cyprus
breathe desire onto our breasts and thighs, if they afflict
the men with big love-clubs of amorous rigidity,
580
all Greece will come to praise us as the “Looseners of War.”
COMMISSIONER:
And why’s that?
LYSISTRATA:
First we will have put a stop to armed men going
around the market and behaving like they’re crazy people.
FIRST OLD WOMAN:
Three cheers for Aphrodite!
LYSISTRATA:
At this moment, in the market,
among the pottery stalls and grocers, there are men with weapons
walking around like nutjobs.
COMMISSIONER:
Men are best when they look manly.
LYSISTRATA:
It’s madness when a soldier with a Gorgon on his shield
goes fresh-fish shopping.
FIRST OLD WOMAN:
Yes, I saw a mounted man with long hair,
a cavalry commander, buying oatmeal from a woman—
he had her scoop the stuff into his metal helmet! Plus,
590
this Thracian guy would not stop brandishing his shield and lance
as if he were a hoopoe!o Why, he scared the old fig lady
so much she ran away and then he gobbled up the ripe ones.
COMMISSIONER:
What will you women do to fix the mess we have in Greece?
How will you sort it out?
LYSISTRATA:
That’s easy.
COMMISSIONER:
How, though? Teach me.
LYSISTRATA: (taking the wool and spindle from the basket)
Well,
when everything gets tangled up it’s like a mess of wool.
We women hold our wool like this and wind strands of it deftly
around the spindle, some in this direction, some in that—
so, if allowed, we’ll break this war down by untangling it
with envoys sent out, some in this direction, some in that.
COMMISSIONER:
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What, you think your spindles, wool and yarn can put an end
to so intractable a crisis? That’s just stupid.
LYSISTRATA:
Yes,
That’s what I think, and if you had a brain, you would conduct
all the affairs of Athens just as women handle wool.
COMMISSIONER:
How? Make me understand.
LYSISTRATA:
Imagine Athens is a fresh-shorn fleece.
First, what you do is dunk it in a bath and wash away
the sheep poop; then you lay it on a bed and take a stick
and beat out all the nasties, then you pick the thistles out.
Next, you take those that have stuck together and become
as thick as felt (to snag up all the civic offices)
610
and comb them out and pluck their heads off. Then you go and card
the raw cleaned wool into the Basket of Reciprocal
Agreeableness, mixing everyone in there together—
resident aliens and other foreigners you like
and those who owe the state back taxes—mix them in there good.
Next, you should think of all the cities that are colonies
of Athens as if they are scattered bits of wool. You take
these bits and bring them all together and combine them into
one big ball, from which you weave apparel for the people.
COMMISSIONER: (to the Chorus of Old Men)
Isn’t it crazy how these women prate about their sticks
620
and balls, while in the war they’ve never had a thing at stake?
LYSISTRATA:
Nothing at stake? Prick, we have more than twice as much at stake
as you have! First off, we give birth to sons and send them out
to battle in your war—
COMMISSIONER:
Shut up about that—don’t remind me.
LYSISTRATA:
Secondly, when we should be having good times and enjoying
being young, we have to sleep alone because our men
are on campaign. But let’s forget about us wives—what hurts
is all the maidens growing old at home.
COMMISSIONER:
Don’t men age, too?
LYSISTRATA:
It’s not the same. A man that comes back home can quickly find
some girl to marry, even if he is a graybeard geezer.
630
A woman has a briefer season. If she misses it,
no one will want to wed her. She will sit at home awaiting
marriage omens.
COMMISSIONER:
But whatever guy can still get hard—
LYSISTRATA:
Drop dead. What’s stopping you?
Here is your burial plot. Yes, you
may go and buy a coffin, sir,
and I will bake the honey cake
for Cerberus.o
(giving the Commissioner a wreath)
Here, take my wreath.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: (giving the Commissioner ribbons)
And I will give these ribbons to you.
SECOND OLD WOMAN: (giving the Commissioner another wreath)
And here’s another wreath from me.
LYSISTRATA:
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What else do you need? Embark.
Charon is calling out your name,o
and you are keeping him from sailing.
COMMISSIONER:
Isn’t the way they have been treating me
appalling? Yes, by Zeus, I’m going straight off
to show my fellow government officials
what has been done to me.
(The Commissioner exits stage left with the four Scythian Archers.)
LYSISTRATA:
You won’t be lodging
complaints about the way we laid you out
for burial, will you? Well, I promise that,
two days from now, just after sunrise, we
650
will make the third-day offerings at your grave!o
(Lysistrata exits into the Acropolis. The Three Old Women follow her, one of them carrying the basket of wool.)
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
This is no time for sleeping. Every freeborn man should look alive!
Let’s strip, men, strip our jackets off to face this great emergency.
(The Chorus of Old Men remove their jackets.)
CHORUS OF OLD MEN:
Strophe
My nose has just now caught
a whiff of something more significant.
Oh yes, there is the scent
of Hippias’s tyrannyo in this.
I greatly fear that certain Spartan men have met
at Cleisthenes’s houseo
and there agreed upon a plot
660
to stir up all the nasty women of
our town so that they seize the treasury
and by this action take away my life,
my means—my precious jury pay.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
It’s terrible that they, mere women, now are criticizing fellow
citizens and discussing bronze-wrought shields and, what is even worse,
working to reconcile us with the Spartans, men less to be trusted
than famished wolves! In actual fact the plot the women have been weaving
is aimed at tyranny. But they will never tyrannize yours truly—
I’ll be prepared and henceforth “hide a sword inside a myrtle bough.”
670
I’ll march in arms down to Aristogeiton’s statue in the marketo
(striking a heroic pose)
and stand like this right next to him.
(looking at the Old Women’s Chorus Leader)
Oh, how I’ve a got an overwhelming
desire in me to sock this god-despised old woman on the jaw.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Try it, and your own mom won’t recognize you when you get back home.
Rouse yourselves, fellow geriatrics! Lay your jackets on the ground.
(The Chorus of Old Women remove their jackets.)
CHORUS OF OLD WOMEN:
Antistrophe
People, I shall begin
by giving useful counsel to the state,
and this is only right,
seeing as it brought me up in noble splendor:
at seven, I was Weaver of Athena’s Gown;o
680
at ten, I served as Grinder
for Artemis the Foundress;o then,
shedding my saffron robe, I danced as Bear
at Brauron.o Next, a pretty maiden, back
in Athens, I was Basket-Carrier
and wore dried figs around my neck.o
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
That’s why I owe good counsel to the state. Although I am a woman,
don’t hold a grudge against me if I give far better counsel than
the nonsense we have now. I’ve got a stake in Athens: what I’ve paid
is men. You worthless fogeys haven’t got a stake because you wasted
690
what you inherited, all that your fathers captured from the Persians,
and now you pay no taxes to replace it. We are almost ruined
because of you! Do you have anything to grumble in response?
(The Chorus of Old Men make threatening gestures.)
Upset me, and I’ll use this rawhide boot to kick you in the jaw!
CHORUS OF OLD MEN:
Strophe
Don’t you think that womankind
has finally gone too far?
This mess is only getting worse from here.
It’s time for everyone with balls to make a stand!
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Strip your shirts off, since it’s better when a man smells like a man.
We shouldn’t be concealed inside our clothes like meat in ravioli.
(The Chorus of Old Men remove their shirts.)
CHORUS OF OLD MEN:
700
Come on, White Feet!o When we were in our prime,
we fought a tyrant at Leipsydrium.o
We must rejuvenate ourselves. It’s time
to cast off this old skin
so that our carcasses can fledge again.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
If anybody on our side allows those hags the slightest handhold,
they will get their greedy mitts all over everything.
Sure, soon enough they will be building warships and, before we know it,
launching a fleet against us men like Artemisia.o If they turn
to horseback riding, you can cross out all our cavalry, because
710
women are made for mounting up and riding hard—you see, they never
slip out of the saddle! Take a look at Micon’s paintings of
the Amazonso—see how they charge on horseback to attack the heroes.
We’d better grab these women by the necks and lock them in the stocks.
CHORUS OF OLD WOMEN:
Antistrophe
Oh, but when I am on fire,
I will attack you like
a feral sow and send you bleating back
home to your buddies with your hide clipped bare.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (to the Chorus of Old Women)
Quick, now, strip your outer layers off, so that we emanate
the reek of women mad enough to use their teeth to bite their foes.
(The Chorus of Old Women remove their clothing.)
CHORUS OF OLD WOMEN:
720
If someone dares attack me, he will chew
on no more garlic, no more beans. If you
so much as toss curse words my way, I’ll go
crazy with rage and, like
the beetle, make your eagle’s eggs go “crack.”o
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I won’t be giving all you men another thought, not while Lampito
and Ismenia, that distinguished Theban girl, are still alive.
You have no power, not though you should pass the same law seven times.
(to the Old Men’s Chorus Leader)
You, jackass, are despised by everyone—all the Athenians
and all your neighbors. Yesterday in fact, when I was celebrating
730
Hecate with my friends,o I asked a fine and lovable girl over
from just across the way—an eel out of Boeotia—but those neighbors
said that she couldn’t come due to a law of yours. You’ll go on passing
laws until someone grabs your leg and drags you off and breaks your neck!
(The setting refocuses in time to several days later. The sex strike has had its effect. Subsequently, all the male characters’ strapons are represented as erect. Lysistrata enters from a stage door. She has a parchment in her pocket. For the opening eight lines of this scene the characters speak in a mock-lofty pastiche.)
Queen of our deed and plot, why dost thou enter
from out the palace with so dour a visage?
LYSISTRATA:
Base women’s actions and the female heart
cause me to pace about in deep despair.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
What sayest thou? What sayest thou?
LYSISTRATA:
’Tis true! ’Tis true!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
740
Pray, what’s the matter? Tell your confidantes.
LYSISTRATA:
’Tis shame to speak, but cumbrous to conceal.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Do not conceal our miseries from me.
LYSISTRATA:
Well, in a nutshell, then: we need a fuck.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
O great Zeus!
LYSISTRATA:
Why call on Zeus? That’s just the way things are.
I’ve tried, but I can’t keep them from their husbands
any longer. They keep running off.
The first one that I caught was over by
Pan’s Grotto,o digging out the hole; the second
750
was trying to desert by sliding down
a pulley rope. I caught another one
just yesterday—she was astride a sparrow
and hoped to fly to see Orsilochus.o
I had to grab her by the hair. The women
just keep on coming up with lame excuses
to go back home.
(The First Woman enters from the Acropolis.)
Where are you running to?
FIRST WOMAN:
Home. I have fine Milesian wool there, wool
that’s being cut to bits by moths.
LYSISTRATA:
What moths?
Get back in there.
FIRST WOMAN:
I’ll go and come back quick.
760
Just let me spread my wool out on the bed.
LYSISTRATA:
No spreading on the bed. No going home.
FIRST WOMAN:
So I just have to let my wool be wasted?
LYSISTRATA:
Yes, if necessary.
(The Second Woman enters from the Acropolis.)
SECOND WOMAN:
Oh no, no,
my flax, I left my flax unscutchedo at home.
LYSISTRATA:
This other woman here is running off
to scutch her flax. You get right back inside.
SECOND WOMAN:
I’ll just go do some shucking and be back.
LYSISTRATA:
No shucking! If I let you do your “shucking,”
the other girls will beg to do the same.
(The Third Woman enters from the Acropolis. She has a helmet tucked under her shirt to simulate pregnancy.)
THIRD WOMAN:
770
Queen Eileithyia,o please delay my childbirth
until I get outside of sacred space.
LYSISTRATA:
What are you saying?
THIRD WOMAN:
I am giving birth!
LYSISTRATA:
But you weren’t even pregnant yesterday.
THIRD WOMAN:
I am today. Oh, Lysistrata, let me go
home to my nurse as quick as I can run.
LYSISTRATA:
What story are you making up?
(knocking on the helmet)
What hard
object are you concealing?
THIRD WOMAN:
It’s a boy!
LYSISTRATA:
No, not a boy, but something hollow
and made of metal. Well, let’s take a look.
(Lysistrata removes the helmet from under the Third Woman’s shirt.)
780
What you are really saying is that you
are pregnant with Athena’s Sacred Helmet.o
THIRD WOMAN:
I’m pregnant, though. I swear to Zeus I am.
LYSISTRATA:
Why did you have the helmet?
THIRD WOMAN:
Well, I thought
that, if I started giving birth while still
up in Athena’s temple, I could make
a sort of pigeon’s nest out of the thing
and give birth there.
LYSISTRATA:
What sort of lie is that?
A lame excuse. Your real intent is clear,
and you will have to stay up here until
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your—helmet—has its name-day festival.
THIRD WOMAN:
But I can’t sleep on the Acropolis,
not since I saw the sacred guardian snake.
(The Fourth Woman enters through a stage door.)
FOURTH WOMAN:
Oh, oh me! I am ruined utterly
because the owls keep going “who-who-who”
all night and I can’t get to sleep!
LYSISTRATA:
Enough
lies and excuses, girls. You’re acting crazy!
No doubt you miss your men. But don’t you think
that they miss you? You can be sure that they
are spending miserable nights. Good ladies,
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be patient and endure a short while longer.
There is, in fact, an oracle foretelling
victory for us, if only we
do not become divided. Here it is.
(Lysistrata takes out a parchment.)
THIRD WOMAN:
Go on and tell us what it says.
LYSISTRATA:
Hush, now:
When all the swallows settle in a roost
separate from the hoopoes and desist
from congress with the feathered phalluses,
their problems will be solved. Loud-thundering Zeus
will turn all upside down—
THIRD WOMAN:
And we will get
to ride on top?
LYSISTRATA:
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. . . but if the swallows fight
and fly out of the venerable shrine,
they will be seen as sluts by everyone.
THIRD WOMAN:
Well, that was blunt. Praise be to all the gods!
LYSISTRATA:
Though we are suffering, let’s not surrender
but go inside, dears. It would be a shame
for us to act against the oracle.
(Everyone exits into the Acropolis except the members of choruses.)
CHORUS OF OLD MEN:
Strophe
When I was a child
I heard the story of a nice young man—
Milanion.
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Running from marriage, he escaped into the wild
and lived upon the mountain slopes,
kept a dog, plaited rabbit traps,
and never thought to go back home
because he so detested them—
the loathsome members of the female race.
We hate them like he did, and we are wise.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (jokingly to the Women’s Chorus Leader)
I want to kiss you, harridan—
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Stop eating onions, then.
(The Old Men’s Chorus Leader lifts his leg.)
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
. . . and raise my leg to kick you good.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (looking at the Old Men’s Chorus Leader’s crotch)
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You’ve got a hairy sack indeed.
CHORUS OF OLD MEN:
General Myronides—
he had a very shaggy crotch as well
and flashed his black-haired butt-cheeks at his foes,
and so did Phormion our admiral.
CHORUS OF OLD WOMEN:
Antistrophe
I want to tell
a tale to counter your “Milanion”:
There was a man,
Timon, a wandering hermit hidden in a veil
of stubborn thorns, the Furies’ child.
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He also went into the wild
and there tongue-lashed the whole male race.
Yes, he despised you. Yes, like us,
he thought you worthy of endless odium.
But women—we were always dear to him.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Want me to punch you in the jaw?
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER: (sarcastically)
Oh no! You’re scaring me!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
You want a kick? Would you like that?
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Do it, and you’ll expose your twat.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Well, if I do, you men
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won’t see my pubes, old lady though I am,
rough as a wilderness and overgrown.
No, they are tidied by a candle’s flame.
(Lysistrata appears atop the wooden backdrop and spots a man approaching from stage left.)
LYSISTRATA:
Hip, hip, hooray! Come quick, now, ladies.
(Myrrhine and the First Woman appear beside her, above.)
FIRST WOMAN:
What’s up?
Tell us. What’s all the hollering about?
LYSISTRATA:
A man, I see a crazed man coming, seized
by orgiastic Aphrodite’s powers.
Goddess of Cyprus, Cythera and Paphos,
the road you’re coming down is very straight.
FIRST WOMAN:
Where is this mystery man?
LYSISTRATA:
Beside the shrine
of Chloe.
FIRST WOMAN:
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Ah yes, now I make him out.
Who is he, though?
LYSISTRATA:
Look closely, all of you.
Does anybody recognize the man?
MYRRHINE:
Oh, that’s my “better half”—my husband Harden.
LYSISTRATA:
Your mission is to spit him, roast him, turn him,
to trick him, to adore and not adore him,
to give him everything except those items
the bowl that we have sworn by has forbidden.
MYRRHINE:
No need to worry. I’ll do what you ask.
LYSISTRATA:
Still, I will stay close by to help you roast
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and trick him. All you other women, go.
(The First Woman and Myrrhine disappear from the top of the backdrop. Harden enters from stage left, wearing a disproportionately large, erect strap-on penis. With him is Manes the Slave carrying the Baby.)
HARDEN:
Oh, how I am afflicted! Cramps and spasms
torturing me like I’m on the rack!
LYSISTRATA:
Who there has penetrated our defenses?
HARDEN:
Me.
LYSISTRATA:
A man?
HARDEN: (gesturing to his erection)
Yes, very much a man.
LYSISTRATA:
Then very much get out of here.
HARDEN:
And who
are you to drive me off?
LYSISTRATA:
Me, I’m the day watch.
HARDEN:
Oh god! Just tell Myrrhine to come out here.
LYSISTRATA:
What’s with that “tell Myrrhine”? And who are you?
HARDEN:
Her husband Harden, up from Dickersdale.o
LYSISTRATA:
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Hello, you darling. Yes, the name of “Harden”
is hardly seldom-heard and unrenowned
among us. You are always in your wife’s mouth.
Always, when she eats an egg or apple,
she sighs, “If only this could be for Harden.”
HARDEN: (suffering a spasm of pain)
Damn, the pain!
LYSISTRATA:
So help me, Aphrodite,
she says that. When we talk about our husbands,
she blurts out right away, “Compared with Harden,
all other husbands are just so much garbage.”
HARDEN:
Go on, then, call her out.
LYSISTRATA:
What will you give me?
HARDEN: (gripping his erection)
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Well, if you want it, I’ve got this for you.
It’s all the bribe I’ve got, but you can have it.
LYSISTRATA:
Alright, I’ll go and call Myrrhine.
(Lysistrata disappears, above.)
HARDEN:
Just hurry!
(to the audience)
My life has had no pleasure in it, none,
since she has gone away. When I come home,
I only ache, and everything feels empty.
Not even food has any pleasure for me.
Damn, it’s hard!
(Myrrhine appears above.)
MYRRHINE: (as if speaking to Lysistrata)
I do adore him, yes,
adore him, but the man does not know how
to be adored. Don’t make me go and meet him.
HARDEN:
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Myrrhie my sweet, why are you doing this?
Get down here, please!
MYRRHINE:
I absolutely won’t.
HARDEN:
You won’t come down here when I ask you to?
MYRRHINE:
You ask, but you don’t really, really need me.
HARDEN:
Not need you? Life is agony without you.
MYRRHINE:
I’m leaving.
HARDEN:
Wait, wait—listen to the baby.
(to the Baby)
Hey, baby, call for Mama.
BABY:
Mama! Mama!
HARDEN:
What kind of mother are you? Six days now
your child has gone without a bath, unnursed,
and you feel nothing?
MYRRHINE:
Oh, I feel for him.
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His dad, though, doesn’t give a damn about him.
HARDEN:
You crazy girl, come down and see your baby!
MYRRHINE:
What a thing it is to bear a child.
I must go down to him.
(Myrrhine disappears from above.)
HARDEN: (to the audience)
What can I do?
Myrrhine seems so much younger than before.
Her glances have a sultry look, and all
her getting mad and flouncing back and forth
just makes me burn with passion even more.
(Myrrhine enters from the Acropolis. She goes immediately to the Baby.)
MYRRHINE:
O sweetie little baby! What a naughty
daddy you have. Let Mommy give you kisses.
HARDEN:
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Why are you acting like this, troublemaker?
Why are you listening to all those women?
You’re killing me and injuring yourself.
(Harden tries to drag Myrrhine off.)
MYRRHINE: (resisting)
Don’t do it—don’t you lay your hands on me.
HARDEN:
But you are letting everything at home,
all of our possessions, go to ruin.
MYRRHINE:
I really couldn’t care at all about that.
HARDEN:
It matters very little to you that
chickens are ripping up the tapestry
you had been working on?
MYRRHINE:
Yes, very little.
HARDEN:
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For too long now the rites of Aphrodite
have gone uncelebrated by us. Please,
won’t you come home?
MYRRHINE:
I’ll come back home as soon
as all you men make peace and end the war.
HARDEN:
That’s what we’ll do . . . if we decide to do it.
MYRRHINE:
I’ll come home when you men decide to do it.
I’ve sworn an oath to stay right here till then.
HARDEN:
Will you just lie down with me for a bit?
It’s been so long.
MYRRHINE:
I won’t. But I won’t say
that I don’t love you.
HARDEN:
Do you love me? Then
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won’t you lie down with me for just a little?
MYRRHINE:
You joker. With the baby watching us?
HARDEN: (to Manes the Slave)
Manes, take the baby home.
(Manes takes the Baby off stage left.)
(to Myrrhine)
Alright,
the kid’s no longer an impediment.
Won’t you lie down?
MYRRHINE:
Where will we do it, though?
HARDEN:
Pan’s Grotto will be fine.
MYRRHINE:
How could I go
back up to the Acropolis, unbathed, impure,
after the act?
HARDEN:
No problem. Take a bath
in the Clepsydra.o
MYRRHINE:
Are you saying, love,
that I should break the oath I took?
HARDEN:
May all
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the consequences light upon my head.
Don’t think about the oath.
MYRRHINE:
Alright, but first
I need to go and get a bed.
HARDEN:
No way.
The ground will be just perfect for us.
MYRRHINE:
Never.
I’d never let you do it on the ground,
whatever sort of man you are.
(Myrrhine goes offstage and returns with a cot.)
HARDEN: (to the audience)
My wife
really does love me. Nothing could be clearer.
MYRRHINE:
Here it is! You just take a load off there
and I will get undressed. But, darn, a mattress—
I should get a mattress.
HARDEN:
What, a mattress?
No need.
MYRRHINE:
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It would be awkward on the bed frame.
HARDEN:
Just kiss me.
MYRRHINE:
Muh.
HARDEN:
Damn, get that mattress quick!
(Myrrhine goes offstage and returns with a mattress.)
MYRRHINE:
Here it is! You just lie back down right there
and I will get undressed. But, darn, a pillow—
I should get a pillow.
HARDEN:
I don’t want one.
MYRRHINE:
I do.
(Myrrhine goes offstage.)
HARDEN: (to the audience)
What, is my dick voracious Heracles
forever waiting for his dinner now?o
(Myrrhine returns with a pillow.)
MYRRHINE:
Up, up. Sit up, now. Is that everything?
HARDEN:
Yes, everything. Come here, my precious one.
MYRRHINE:
Yes, I’m just getting off my bra. Remember:
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Don’t let me down about the peace agreement.
HARDEN:
Great Zeus, destroy me if I do.
MYRRHINE:
Oh, but
you need a blanket.
HARDEN:
I don’t need a blanket—
I need a fuck!
MYRRHINE:
And, never fear, you’ll get it—
right after I get back.
(Myrrhine goes offstage.)
HARDEN: (to the audience)
The girl will drive me
crazy with all this bedclothes talk.
(Myrrhine returns with a blanket.)
MYRRHINE:
Get up.
HARDEN:
Oh, I am “up” already.
MYRRHINE:
Want some scent?
HARDEN:
God no.
MYRRHINE:
By Aphrodite, I want scent,
whether or not you want some.
HARDEN:
Great Lord Zeus,
then pour it on.
(Myrrhine goes offstage and returns with a flask of scent.)
MYRRHINE:
Hold out your hand and take some.
Rub yourself with it.
HARDEN:
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This is no sweet scent—
it feels like much delay and doesn’t smell
like conjugal relations.
MYRRHINE:
Oh, how silly,
I brought the scent from Rhodes.
HARDEN:
It’s good. Just leave it,
goofball.
MYRRHINE:
What are you going on about?
(Myrrhine goes offstage.)
HARDEN: (to the audience)
My curses on the man who first made scent!
(Myrrhine returns with another flask of scent.)
MYRRHINE:
Here, use this flask.
HARDEN: (grabbing his erection)
I’ve got a big one here.
Lie down now, minx, and don’t you go and get me
anything more.
MYRRHINE:
Just as you say, and now
I’m taking off my shoes. Be sure, though, dearest,
to vote to make the peace.
(Myrrhine silently exits through a stage door.)
HARDEN:
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I’ll think about it.
(realizing that Myrrhine has left)
She has destroyed me! Killed me! Even worse:
she got me all worked up and then just left.
HARDEN:
Oh, what I’m going through! Where will I find a lover
now that the fairest of them all has screwed me over?
(gesturing to his erection)
How will I feed this offspring here? Where is the pimp
Foxhound?o Let him come rent me out a nurse to pump.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Terrible horrible pain
must now be torturing your soul.
I pity you, poor man—
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you have been played the fool.
What kidney could endure this much?
What soul? What balls? What loins? What crotch
strained like a victim on the rack?
And, in the morning hours, no fuck!
HARDEN:
O Zeus, the ache is back!
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Your utterly revolting and appalling
wife has done these things to you.
HARDEN:
No, she is gorgeous and enthralling.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
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No, by Zeus, she’s wicked through and through.
HARDEN:
Yes, by Zeus, she’s wicked through and through.
Zeus, send a firestorm or a great typhoon
to strike her like a little pile of grain
and set her spinning. Sweep her up, up, up,
then make her drop
back down toward earth again
and land precisely on my boner’s tip.
(A Spartan Messenger runs on from stage left. He is wearing a disproportionately large, erect strap-on penis hidden crudely beneath his robe. He speaks with a southern twang.)
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
Where do y’all keep the Senate House in Athens?
Y’all’s Assembly? I got news to tell.
HARDEN:
What are you, then, a man or boner-monster?
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
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Me, I’m a messenger, ma boy, and I
come here from Sparta to discuss a peace.
HARDEN:
Is that a spear tucked up beneath your arm?
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
I swear it ain’t.
HARDEN:
Why have you turned away?
Why tugged your cloak out there in front of you?
What, are your balls all swollen from the ride?
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
You’re crazy.
HARDEN:
Dirty dawg, you’ve got a woody.
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
Naw, naw, no woody. Cut out all your guff.
HARDEN:
What do you call that thing?
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
A Spartan staff.
HARDEN: (gesturing to his erection)
Well, if it is, then here’s my “Spartan staff.”
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Listen, I understand the situation.
Now tell me truly: How are things in Sparta?
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
Sparta is up in arms, and all her allies
are scared stiff. What we need’s that whore Pellene!o
HARDEN:
Who sent this plague upon you? Was it Pan?
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
Naw, but Lampito was the one, I think.
Then all together, jus’ like they were runners
leavin’ a startin’ gate, our other ladies
locked us menfolk outta their vaginas.
HARDEN:
How are you holding up?
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
We got it, bad.
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We hobble ’roun’ the town a’ Sparta doubled
over like we luggin’ lamps about.
Our ladies—they won’t let us even touch
their nether cherries till we men agree
as one to make peace with the rest a’ Greece.
HARDEN:
So all the women everywhere in Greece
conspired to work this plot. I get it now.
Go back to Sparta quick as you can ride
and tell them there to send ambassadors
up here with absolute authority
to make a peace.
(gesturing to his erection)
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After presenting this—
my cock—as evidence, I’ll ask our council
to choose our own ambassadors as well.
SPARTAN MESSENGER:
I’m flyin’ off, now. What ya said’s jus’ right.
(The Spartan Messenger exits stage left. Harden exits stage right.)
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Nothing, no, no animal, not even fire, is more unruly
than woman. Womankind is even more ferocious than a leopard.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
You admit all that but still insist on waging war on us.
It’s possible, you naughty boy, for us to have a lasting friendship.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
No, I never shall desist from loathing women. Never. NEVER!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Whenever you are ready. Now, though, well—I just can’t let you go
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around half-naked like that. Take a good look at yourself: you are
ridiculous. I’m coming over there to help you put your shirt on.
(The Old Women’s Chorus Leader helps the Old Men’s Chorus Leader put his shirt back on.)
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Why, what you did for me just now was right, not wrong. I must admit
that it was wrong of me to strip it off in rage a while ago.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
The first thing is that you look like a man again; the second thing,
that you no longer look ridiculous. If you weren’t such a grump,
I’d have removed that insect from your eye for you. It’s still there now.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
So that’s what has been irritating me! You take this little ring
and plow the thing out of my eye. Then, when you’re done, please show it to me.
By Zeus, that insect has been gnawing on my eye for ages now!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
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Alright, I’ll do it for you. Just you don’t be such a grumpy-face.
(The Old Women’s Chorus Leader takes the ring and uses it to remove the mosquito from the Old Men’s Chorus Leader’s eye.)
By Zeus, what a gargantuan mosquito you had in your eye!
Just look at this! A monster spawned within the swamps of Tricorysia!o
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Thanks very much. That monster had been digging pits in me for days.
Now that you’ve gotten rid of my mosquito, I can’t keep from weeping.
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
Though you are quite a naughty boy, I’ll wipe your tears away . . . and kiss you.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
No kissing!
OLD WOMEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I am going to kiss you whether you consent or not.
OLD MEN’S CHORUS LEADER:
I wish you all bad luck.
(The Old Women’s Chorus Leader kisses the Old Men’s Chorus Leader.)
You women were just born to be persuasive.
There is a proverb that has got the thing just right: we men can live
neither with nor without all you wretches. All the same, I now
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declare a peace: henceforth we’ll never do you wrong, and, you all, never
do us wrong as well. Let’s join together and begin our song:
(The Old Men’s Chorus Leader and the Old Women’s Chorus Leader unite.)
CHORUS:
Strophe
Gentlemen, we’re not here to make a scandal of
some citizen’s behavior. No, instead,
we only want to say and do what’s good.
Your present troubles are already quite enough.
Let every man and wife
who need a little money—say,
a whole year’s salary—
come ask us for a loan.
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We’ve got that sum at home and bags to put it in.
And, if we ever get to live at peace again,
our debtors need not pay us back—
because they won’t have gotten jack!
Antistrophe
This evening we will entertain distinguished, gracious
gentlemen from Carystus.o We have soup.
We have a suckling pig, which I cut up
for sacrifice. (I kept the choice and juiciest pieces.)
Come over to my house this
evening. Be sure to take a bath,
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but come on over with
your wife and kids in tow.
Trust me, you won’t need anyone’s permission—no,
just walk on up as if the place belonged to you.
What will be waiting for you there?
A stiffly locked and bolted door!
(Two Spartan Ambassadors enter from stage left. They are wearing disproportionately large, erect strap-on penises beneath their cloaks. They speak with a southern twang.)
CHORUS LEADER:
Here come the Spartan Ambassadors—bearded
gentlemen wearing something like wicker
pig-cages strapped between their thighs.
First off: my greetings to you, men of Sparta.
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Second: please tell me how you have been doing.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Heck, what’s the use a’ gabbin’ on and on:
Y’all can see quite clear jus’ how we’re doin’.
(The Spartan Ambassadors remove their cloaks, exposing their erections.)
CHORUS LEADER:
Goodness, what awful diplomatic tension.
This mess was hot but now looks even hotter.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Words jus’ can’t say it. Let some fella come
and make a treaty any way he fancies.
(Two Athenian Ambassadors enter from stage right. They, too, are wearing disproportionately large, erect strap-on penises.)
CHORUS LEADER:
And now I see these native sons of Athens
letting the robes hang forward from their stomachs
like wrestlers crouching for a hold. It looks
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like they have got some bad groin injuries.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
We’d like to know where Lysistrata is.
We men are here, as you can clearly see.
CHORUS LEADER:
These men’s afflictions match up with the others’.
The spasms—do they strike worst late at night?
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Yes, and we can’t stop getting chafed down there.
If someone doesn’t reconcile us soon,
we’ll all be forced to go fuck Cleisthenes.
CHORUS LEADER:
Be careful, now, and cover up or else
someone will come and mutilate your . . . Herms.o
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
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Thank you. That is excellent advice.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Sure is. Come on, let’s put our cloaks back on.
(The Ambassadors all cover up their erections with their cloaks.)
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR: (to the Spartan Ambassadors)
Spartans, hello. We’ve suffered quite a bit.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Buddy, we’re sufferin’ something fierce as well.
(gesturing to the audience)
I hope them choppers a’ the Herms don’t see us!
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Spartans, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.
Why have you come here?
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
As ambassadors
to make a peace.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Great news. That’s why we’re here
as well. Why don’t we call in Lysistrata?
She’s the one to bring us all together.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
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Heck, if you like, go call her brother, too.
(Lysistrata enters from the Acropolis.)
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Why, there’s no need to call her—here she is.
She must have heard us when we said her name.
CHORUS LEADER: (to Lysistrata)
Greetings to you, most manly of women.
It’s time for you to be clever and gentle,
classy and trashy, severe and sweet—
in sum, a universal lady.
Seduced by the power of your amorous magic,
important men have gathered together
from all over Greece to lay their many
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disputes before your arbitration.
LYSISTRATA: (to the Chorus Leader)
They’re not so hard to manage if you catch them
when they are aroused and not attacking
one another. Well, we’ll find out soon.
Where is Reconciliation?
(Reconciliation, a voluptuous female, enters, nude, from a stage door.)
(to Reconciliation)
Go
and bring those Spartans over here by me.
Do not be rough or overbearing with them
or paw them boorishly the way our husbands
have handled us, but touch them like a woman—
domestically. If he won’t offer up
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his hand, you’ll have to grab him by the dick.
Now go get those Athenians as well.
Take hold of what they offer up and drag them
over here.
(to the Spartans and Athenians)
You Spartans, stand right here
beside me; you Athenians, right here.
Now listen to my words: I am a woman,
yes, but I have a brain. Although I’ve got
plenty of intellect in my own right,
I’ve also listened frequently to what
my father and his friends were talking over,
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so I’ve become quite educated, too.
Now that I have you here, I want to scold you,
both sides, in common, as is only just.
Both Spartans and Athenians, like kinsmen,
sprinkle the altars from a single bowl
of sacred water at Olympia,
at Pytho, at Thermopylaeo—how many
other places could I add to make
the list still longer? But, though there are foreign
enemies out there with their armies, you
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wage war against Greek men and towns in Greece.
One point, my first, has now been driven home.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
My dick’s about to burst out of its skin!
LYSISTRATA: (to the Spartans)
Next, Spartans, I will turn my words on you.
Have you forgot how Pericleidaso came
and, though a Spartan, took a seat upon
a shrine in Athens as a suppliant,
a pale man in a vivid red cloak, begging
for military aid? Your subject state
Messenia had attacked you, and Poseidon
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had shocked you with a quake. Our Cimon took
four thousand infantry and saved all Sparta.
Since you have received such benefits
from the Athenians, why do you Spartans
ravage the land that gave you so much aid?
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
They’ve done us an injustice, Lysistrata!
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
We sure did.
(looking at Reconciliation’s behind)
Dang, she’s got a luscious ass.
LYSISTRATA: (to the Athenians)
Now, don’t assume that I’ll be letting you
Athenians off scot-free. Don’t you remember,
when you were dressed in sheepskin clothes like slaves,
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how Spartans showed up with their spears and killed
many Thessalian men and many allies
and friends of Hippias as well?o That day
they were the only ones who helped you kick
the tyrant out. Don’t you remember how
they came and liberated you and how
they wrapped your people in a cloak again?
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR: (gawking at Reconciliation)
Me, I never seen a nicer woman.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR: (looking at Reconciliation’s crotch)
And me, I’ve never seen a finer pussy.
LYSISTRATA:
You’ve done so many favors for each other.
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Why are you fighting? Why not put an end
to all this turmoil? Why not make a peace?
Come on, what’s stopping you?
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR: (looking at Reconciliation’s buttocks)
We come ’roun’ to’t, if one
a’ y’all come ’roun’ to giving us this here
round mountain on her backside.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
What round mountain?
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Why, Pylos, that’s the thing that we been gropin’
and hankerin’ after for a long time now.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
No, by Poseidon, you will not get Pylos!o
LYSISTRATA: (to the Athenian Ambassador)
Be a good man, now, and give it to them.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Where will we go to get some loving, then?
LYSISTRATA:
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Just ask for somewhere else as compensation.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR: (looking at Reconciliation’s front)
Alright, then. Give us this, er, mound right here,
Echinous, and the Malian Gulf behind it,
and both these long legs stretching out of Megara.o
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Dang, we ain’t gonna give y’all everythin’!
LYSISTRATA: (to the Athenian Ambassador)
Just let it drop. Why wrangle over legs?
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR: (looking at Reconciliation’s crotch)
I want to strip right now and start my plowing!
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR: (looking at Reconciliation’s buttocks)
I’ll git up with the sun and spread manure!
LYSISTRATA:
After you both have sworn to the agreement,
you each can get down to your business. Now,
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if it seems best to you to make this peace,
go and present your allies with the terms.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Allies, my dear? Just look how hard I am.
Won’t all our allies reach the same decision—
to fuck?
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Our allies sure will do the like.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Our Carystian men—they’ll go along.
LYSISTRATA:
Alright, then. You must purify yourselves
so that my girls and I can entertain you
on the Acropolis and share with you
the food we have inside our wicker baskets.
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There you will conclude the peace with oaths
on both sides. Then you all may claim your wives
and go back home.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Well, let’s get going, then.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Y’all fetch me where I need to go.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
And quickly!
(Everyone exits into the Acropolis except the members of the Chorus.)
CHORUS:
Strophe
Embroidered tapestries, nice clothing, fancy gowns,
even my gold, all this—I willingly provide
to everybody to supply their sons
or dress their daughters for the Big Parade.
I welcome you to come and take
everything that I have in stock.
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Nothing is sealed up so well
that you can’t break the seal
and take whatever you might find inside.
Ah, but unless you’re blessed with better eyes than me,
there won’t be anything to see.
Antistrophe
If anyone is out of bread and has a lot
of slaves to feed and lots of little children, too,
come borrow flour from me—small grains of it,
but, taken all together, they would grow
into a healthy-looking loaf.
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And all you who are paupers, if
you bring your own bags to my house,
my servant boy Manes
will pour in little grains of flour for you.
Be careful, though: if ever you come to my door,
you’ll find a killer watchdog there.
(The Athenian Ambassador emerges with another Athenian from a stage door. They are very drunk. The first Athenian Ambassador is carrying a torch. A Doorkeeper and several Slaves are sitting on the ground near the door.)
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR: (to the Doorkeeper)
Open the door there, you. You should have moved.
(to the Slaves)
You slaves, what are you doing sitting there?
Yeah, maybe I should burn you with this torch.
That’s shtick, though. I would never do it.
(addressing the audience)
Well,
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if you insist I do it, then I’ll go
all-out and do the audience a favor.
(He chases the Slaves off with the torch.)
ATHENIAN: (helping to chase the Slaves off)
Me, too. I’ll go all-out along with you.
(to the Slaves)
Git, now! I’ll burn your hair until you scream.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Yeah, git, so that the Spartans, when they come out
after the feast, enjoy some peace and quiet.
ATHENIAN: (to the Athenian Ambassador)
I’ve never seen a party so fantastic!
The Spartans, for their part, were charming guests,
and we were pretty clever in our cups.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
That’s what I would expect, since, when we’re sober,
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we go astray. If the Athenians
would only listen to me, we would always
go on ambassadorial missions drunk.
As things are now, when we arrive in Sparta
sober, we look for ways to cause a ruckus;
and we don’t hear whatever they are saying
and, when they don’t say boo, we turn suspicious.
So we wind up with rival versions of
the same events. But everything was perfect
this time around. When someone started singing
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the Telamon, when he should have been singing
Cleitagora,o we all just whooped and swore
that there was no mistake.
(The Slaves return and sit down again.)
Those slaves have all
come back again. Get out of here, you vagrants!
(He chases the Slaves off with the torch again.)
ATHENIAN:
Here are the Spartans right now, coming out.
(The Spartan Ambassador emerges with other Spartans and a Piper.)
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR:
Hey, piper, grab your flute, now, ’cause I’m gonna
dance a two-step while I sing a pretty
Spartan ditty for the men a’ Athens.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Piper, by all the gods, take up your flute.
I just love watching Spartans do their dances.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR: (singing while he dances)
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O Goddess a’ Rememberin’, rouse
for me a Muse who knows
all a’ the Spartans’ and Athenians’ deeds—
how, off the Cape a’ Artemisium,
the men a’ Athens spread their sails like gods
and beat the navy a’ the Medes,
while Spartans under Leonidas fought on lando
like boars. Like boars, we gnashed our tusks, and foam
ran from our jaws, and sweat ran down our thighs.
The Persian troops outnumbered grains a’ sand
upon the shore.
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O Goddess a’ the Wilderness,
Beast-Slayer Virgin Power, come
join in this treaty, help us live
in harmony a good long time.
Let lots a’ amity attend
always this sacred peace.
Let us forever put a’ end
to foxy guile and stratagem.
O Virgin Huntress, come here, please.
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
Well, now that everything has come together,
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you Spartans may reclaim your spouses here.
Let every husband stand beside his woman,
and every woman by her man. Let’s hold a dance
in honor of the gods to celebrate
today’s successes, and let’s promise never,
ever again, to make the same old blunders.
CHORUS:
Begin the dancing, bring the Graces in
and Artemis and her dance-leading twin,
Apollo, the kindhearted healing power,
and Dionysus with his eyes aflame,
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guiding the madwomen who follow him,
and King Zeus brandishing his bolts of fire
and Hera, prosperous wife of Zeus,
and many other deities
to serve as witnesses
of the magnanimous Peace
that Aphrodite made for us.
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Hip, hip, hooray!
Hooray, it’s like a victory!
Lift your legs up high.
Hip, hip, hooray!
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR:
My Spartan friend, since we have sung a new song,
share a new song of your own with us.
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR: (singing while he dances)
Come, Spartan Muse, from handsome Tayeegety
and celebrate this friendship with a ditty
in honor a’ the gods
Apollo and Athena a’ the Brazen Houseo
and both the sons a’ King Tyndareus
riding their steeds
beside the Eurotas.o
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Come on and leap,
now! Up, now, up!
Let’s sing in praise a’ Sparta where
everyone in the sacred choir
sings, and the sound of dancing gives
off echoes, where the girls like fillies raise
dust clouds while running with the Eurotas,
where they have great fun, waving sacred staves
under the tutelage a’ Leda’s daughter,o
their fine and pious chorus leader.
(to the Chorus)
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Come, now, and tie your hair up with a ribbon. Like a deer now, leap,
and make a brouhaha to keep the people dancin’, while you sing
in honor a’ invincible Athena a’ the Brazen House.
(The ensemble dances together and then exits stage left and right.)