LYSISTRATA Now were they summoned to some shrine of Bacchus, Pan, Colias, Genetyllis, there had been No room to stir, so thick the crowd of timbrels. And now!—there’s not one woman to be seen. Stay, here comes one, my neighbour Calonice. Good morning, friend.
CALONICE Good morn, Lysistrata. Why, what’s the matter? don’t look gloomy, child. It don’t become you to knit-knot your eyebrows.
LYSISTRATA My heart is hot within me, Calonice, And sore I grieve for sake of womankind, Because the men account us all to be Sly, shifty rogues,
CALONICE And so, by Zeus, we are.
LYSISTRATA Yet though I told them to be here betimes, To talk on weighty business, they don’t come, They’re fast asleep.
CALONICE They’ll come, dear heart, they’ll come. ’Tis hard, you know, for women to get out.
CALONICE One has to mind her husband: one, to rouse Her servant: one, to put the child to sleep: One, has to wash him: one, to give him pap.
LYSISTRATA Ah! but they’ve other duties still more pressing Than such as these.
CALONICE Well but, Lysistrata, Why have you, dear, convoked us? Is the matter A weighty subject?
LYSISTRATA Weighty? yes.
CALONICE And pregnant?
LYSISTRATA Pregnant, by Zeus.
CALONICE Why ever don’t we come, then?
LYSISTRATA No, it’s not that: we’d have come fast enough For such-like nonsense. ’Tis a scheme I’ve hit on, Tossing it over many a sleepless night.
CALONICE Tossing it over? then ’tis light, I fancy.
LYSISTRATA Light? ay, so light, my dear, that all the hopes Of all the States are anchored on us women.
CALONICE Anchored on us! a slender stay to lean on.
LYSISTRATA Ay, all depends on us: whether as well the Peloponnesians all shall cease to be—
CALONICE Sure and ’tis better they should cease to be.
LYSISTRATA And all the dwellers in Boeotia perish—
CALONICE Except the eels; do pray except the eels.
LYSISTRATA But about Athens, mark you, I won’t utter Such words as these: you must supply my meaning. But if the women will but meet here now, Boeotian girls, Peloponnesian girls, And we ourselves, we’ll save the States between us.
CALONICE What can we women do? What brilliant scheme Can we, poor souls, accomplish? we who sit
CALONICE Trimmed and bedizened in our saffron silks, Our cambric robes, and little finical shoes.
LYSISTRATA Why, they’re the very things I hope will save us, Your saffron dresses, and your finical shoes, Your paints, and perfumes, and your robes of gauze.
CALONICE How mean you, save us?
LYSISTRATA So that nevermore Men in our day shall lift the hostile spear—
CALONICE O, by the Twain, I’ll use the saffron dye.
LYSISTRATA Or grasp the shield—
CALONICE I’ll don the cambric robe.
LYSISTRATA Or draw the sword.
CALONICE I’ll wear the finical shoes,
LYSISTRATA Should not the women, then, have come betimes?
CALONICE Come? no, by Zeus; they should have flown with wings.
LYSISTRATA Ah, friend, you’ll find them Attic to the core: Always too late in everything they do. Not even one woman from the coast has come, Not one from Salamis.
CALONICE O they, no doubt, Will cross this morning, early, in their boats.
LYSISTRATA And those I counted sure to come the first, My staunch Acharnian damsels, they’re not here— Not they.
CALONICE And yet Theagenes’s wife Consulted Hecate, as if to come. Hi! but they’re coming now: here they all are: First one, and then another. Hoity toity!
CALONICE Whence come all these?
LYSISTRATA From Anagyre.
CALONICE Aha! We’ve stirred up Anagyre at all events.
MYRRHINA Are we too late, Lysistrata? Well? What? Why don’t you speak?
LYSISTRATA I’m sorry, Myrrhina, That you should come so late on such a business,
MYRRHINA I scarce could find my girdle in the dark. But if the thing’s so pressing, tell us now.
LYSISTRATA No, no, let’s wait a little, till the women Of Peloponnesus and Boeotia come To join our congress.
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