Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 785–845: Parabasis: the women defend their sex

Now let us turn to the people, our own panegyric to render. Men never speak a good word, never one, for the feminine gender, Every one says we’re a Plague, the source of all evils to man, War, dissension, and strife. Come, answer me this, if you can;

Why, if we’re really a Plague, you’re so anxious to have us for wives; And charge us not to be peeping, nor to stir out of doors for our lives. Isn’t it silly to guard a Plague with such scrupulous care? Zounds! how you rave, coming home, if your poor little wife isn’t there. Should you not rather be glad, and rejoice all the days of your life, Rid of a Plague, you know, the source of dissension and strife? If on a visit we sport, and sleep when the sporting is over, O, how you rummage about; what a fuss, your lost Plague to discover. Every one stares at your Plague if she happens to look on the street: Stares all the more if your Plague thinks proper to blush and retreat. Is it not plain then, I ask, that Women are really the best? What, can you doubt that we are? I will bring it at once to the test. We say Women are best; you men (just like you) deny it, Nothing on earth is so easy as to come to the test, and to try it. I’ll take the name of a Man, and the name of a Woman, and show it. Did not Charminus give way to Miss-Fortune? Do you not know it?

Is not Cleophon viler than vile Salabaccho by far? Is there a Man who can equal, in matters of glory and war, Lady Victoria, Mistress of Marathon, queen of the Sea? Is not Prudence a Woman, and who is so clever as she? Certainly none of your statesmen, who only a twelvemonth ago Gave up their place and their duty. Would women demean themselves so? Women don’t ride in their coaches, as Men have been doing of late, Pockets and purses distended with cash they have filched from the State. We, at the very outside, steal a wee little jorum of corn, Putting it back in the even, whatever we took in the morn. (The Strophe.) But this is a true description of you. Are ye not gluttonous, vulgar, perverse, Kidnappers, housebreakers, footpads, and worse?

And we in domestic economy too Are thriftier, shiftier, wiser than you. For the loom which our mothers employed with such skill, With its Shafts and its Thongs,—we are working it still. And the ancient umbrella by no means is done, We are wielding it yet, as our Shield from the Sun. But O for the Shafts, and the Thong of the Shield, Which your Fathers in fight were accustomed to wield. Where are they to-day? Ye have cast them away As ye raced, in hot haste, and disgraced, from the fray! (The Epirrhema.) Many things we have against you, many rules we justly blame; But the one we now will mention is the most enormous shame. What, my masters! ought a lady, who has borne a noble son, One who in your fleets and armies great heroic deeds has done, Ought she to remain unhonoured? ought she not, I ask you, I, In our Stenia and our Scira still to take precedence high? Whoso breeds a cowardly soldier, or a seaman cold and tame. Crop her hair, and seat her lowly; brand her with the marks of shame;

Set the nobler dame above her. Can it, all ye Powers, be right That Hyperbolus’s mother, flowing-haired, and robed in white, Should in public places sit by Lamachus’s mother’s side, Hoarding wealth, and lending monies, gathering profits far and wide? Sure ’twere better every debtor, calm, resolving not to pay, When she comes exacting money, with a mild surprise should say, Keeping principal and income, You to claim percentage due! Sure a son so capital is CAPITAL enough for you.