***ISTRATA
We will explain our idea.
MAGISTRATE
Out with it then; quick, or...(threatening her).
***ISTRATA (sternly)
Listen, and never a movement, please!
MAGISTRATE (in impotent rage)
Oh! it is too much for me! I cannot keep my temper!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Then look out for yourself; you have more to fear than we have.
MAGISTRATE
Stop your croaking, you old crow! (To ***ISTRATA) Now you, say what you have to say.
***ISTRATA
Willingly.All the long time the war has lasted, we have endured in modest silence all you men did; you never allowed us 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 today's Assembly did they vote peace?-But, "Mind your own business!" the husband would growl, "Hold your tongue, please!" And we would say no more.
CLEONICE
I would not have held my tongue though, not I!
MAGISTRATE
You would have been reduced to silence by blows then.
***ISTRATA
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, please;else your cheeks will smart for hours.War is men's business!"MAGISTRATE
Bravo! well said indeed!
***ISTRATA
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! this is too much! The insolence of the creatures!
***ISTRATA
Be still!
MAGISTRATE
May I die a thousand deaths ere I obey one who wears a veil!
***ISTRATA
If that's all that troubles you, here, take my veil, wrap it round your head, and hold your tongue.
CLEONICE
Then take this basket; put on a girdle, card wool, munch beans.
The war shall be women's business.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Lay aside your water-pots, we will guard them, we will help our friends and companions.
CHORUS OF WOMEN (singing)
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.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
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.
***ISTRATA
May gentle Love and the sweet Cyprian Queen shower seductive charms on our breasts and our thighs.If only we may stir so amorous a feeling among the men that they stand as firm as sticks, we shall indeed deserve the name of peace-makers among the Greeks.
MAGISTRATE
How will that be, pray?
***ISTRATA
To begin with, we shall not see you any more running like mad fellows to the Market holding lance in fist.
CLEONICE
That will be something gained, anyway, by the Paphian goddess, it will!
***ISTRATA
Now we see them, mixed up with saucepans and kitchen stuff, armed to the teeth, looking like wild Corybantes!
MAGISTRATE
Why, of course; that's what brave men should do.
***ISTRATA
Oh! but what a funny sight, to behold a man wearing a Gorgon's-bead buckler coming along to buy fish!
CLEONICE
The other day in the Market I saw a phylarch with flowing ringlets; he was on horseback, and was pouring into his helmet the broth he had just bought at an old dame's still.There was a Thracian warrior too, who was brandishing his lance like Tereus in the play; 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?
***ISTRATA
It's the easiest thing in the world!
MAGISTRATE
Come, tell us how; I am curious to know.
***ISTRATA
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 of the war, we shall send embassies hither and thither and everywhere, to disentangle matters.
MAGISTRATE
And is it with your yarn, and your skeins, and your spools, you think to appease so many bitter enmities, you silly women?
***ISTRATA
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?
***ISTRATA
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-they're 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?
***ISTRATA
What! wretched man! why, it's 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!
***ISTRATA