It's the behaviour of these naughty women, it's the female heart and female weakness that so discourage me.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Tell us, tell us, what is it?
LYSISTRATA
I only tell the simple truth.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
What has happened so disconcerting? Come, tell your friends.
LYSISTRATA
Oh! the thing is so hard to tell-yet so impossible to conceal.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Never seek to hide any ill that has befallen our cause.
LYSISTRATA
To blurt it out in a word-we want laying!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Oh! Zeus, oh! Zeus!
LYSISTRATA
What use calling upon Zeus? The thing is even as I say.I cannot stop them any longer from lusting after the men.They are all for deserting.The first I caught was slipping out by the postern gate near the cave of Pan; another was letting herself down by a rope and pulley; a third was busy preparing her escape; while a fourth, perched on a bird's back, was just taking wing for Orsilochus' house, when Iseized her by the hair.One and all, they are inventing excuses to be off home.(Pointing to the gate) Look! there goes one, trying to get out! Halloa there! whither away so fast?
FIRST WOMAN
I want to go home; I have some Milesian wool in the house, which is getting all eaten up by the worms.
LYSISTRATA
Bah! you and your worms! go back, I say!
FIRST WOMAN
I will return immediately, I swear I will by the two goddesses!
I only have just to spread it out on the bed.
LYSISTRATA
You shall not do anything of the kind! I say, you shall not go.
FIRST WOMAN
Must I leave my wool to spoil then?
LYSISTRATA
Yes, if need be.
SECOND WOMAN
Unhappy woman that I am! Alas for my flax! I've left it at home unstript!
LYSISTRATA
So, here's another trying to escape to go home and strip her flax!
SECOND WOMAN
Oh! I swear by the goddess of light, the instant I have put it in condition I will come straight back.
LYSISTRATA
You shall do nothing of the kind! If once you began, others would want to follow suit.
THIRD WOMAN
Oh! goddess divine, Ilithyia, patroness of women in labour, stay, stay the birth, till I have reached a spot less hallowed than Athene's mount!
LYSISTRATA
What mean you by these silly tales?
THIRD WOMAN
I am going to have a child-now, this minute!
LYSISTRATA
But you were not pregnant yesterday!
THIRD WOMAN
Well, I am to-day.Oh! let me go in search of the midwife, Lysistrata, quick, quick!
LYSISTRATA
What is this fable you are telling me? (Feeling her stomach) Ah!
what have you got there so hard?
THIRD WOMAN
A male child.
LYSISTRATA
No, no, by Aphrodite! nothing of the sort! Why, it feels like something hollow-a pot or a kettle.(Opening her robe) Oh! you silly creature, if you have not got the sacred helmet of Pallas-and you said you were with child!
THIRD WOMAN
And so I am, by Zeus, I am!
LYSISTRATA
Then why this helmet, pray?
THIRD WOMAN
For fear my pains should seize me in the Acropolis; I mean to lay my eggs in this helmet, as the doves do.
LYSISTRATA
Excuses and pretences every word! the thing's as clear as daylight.Anyway, you must stay here now till the fifth day, your day of purification.
THIRD WOMAN
I cannot sleep any more in the Acropolis, now I have seen the snake that guards the temple.
FOURTH WOMAN
Ah! and those awful owls with their dismal hooting! I cannot get a wink of rest, and I'm just dying of fatigue.
LYSISTRATA
You wicked women, have done with your falsehoods! You want your husbands, that's plain enough.But don't you think they want you just as badly? They are spending dreadful nights, oh! I know that well enough.But hold out, my dears, hold out! A little more patience, and the victory will be ours.An oracle promises us success, if only we remain united.Shall I repeat the words?
THIRD WOMAN
Yes, tell us what the oracle declares.
LYSISTRATA
Silence then! Now-"Whenas the swallows, fleeing before the hoopoes, shall have all flocked together in one place, and shall refrain them from all amorous commerce, then will be the end of all the ills of life; yea, and Zeus, who doth thunder in the skies, shall set above what was erst below...."THIRD WOMAN
What! shall the men be underneath?
LYSISTRATA
"But if dissension do arise among the swallows, and they take wing from the holy temple, it will be said there is never a more wanton bird in all the world."THIRD WOMAN
Ye gods! the prophecy is clear.
LYSISTRATA
Nay, never let us be cast down by calamity! let us be brave to bear, and go back to our posts.It would be shameful indeed not to trust the promises of the oracle.
(They all go back into the Acropolis.)
CHORUS OF OLD MEN (singing)
I want to tell you a fable they used to relate to me when I was a little boy.This is it: Once upon a time there was a young man called Melanion, who hated the thought of marriage so sorely that he fled away to the wilds.So he dwelt in the mountains, wove himself nets, and caught hares.He never, never came back, he had such a horror of women.As chaste as Melanion, we loathe the jades just as much as he did.
AN OLD MAN (beginning a brief duet with one of the women)You dear old woman, I would fain kiss you.
WOMAN
I will set you crying without onions.
OLD MAN
And give you a sound kicking.
WOMAN (pointing)
Ah, ha! what a dense forest you have there!
OLD MAN
So was Myronides one of the bushiest of men of this side; his backside was all black, and he terrified his enemies as much as Phormio.
CHORUS OF WOMEN (singing)
I want to tell you a fable too, to match yours about Melanion.
Once there was a certain man called Timon, a tough customer, and a whimsical, a true son of the Furies, with a face that seemed to glare out of a thorn-bush.He withdrew from the world because he couldn't abide bad men, after vomiting a thousand curses at them.He had a holy horror of ill-conditioned fellows, but he was mighty tender towards women.
WOMAN (beginning another duet)
Suppose I up and broke your jaw for you!
OLD MAN
I am not a bit afraid of you.
WOMAN
Suppose I let fly a good kick at you?
OLD MAN
I should see your thing then.
WOMAN
You would see that, for all my age, it is very well plucked.
LYSISTRATA (rushing out of the Acropolis)
Ho there! come quick, come quick!
