The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLysistrataThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: LysistrataAuthor: AristophanesIllustrator: Norman LindsayTranslator: Jack LindsayRelease date: March 1, 2005 [eBook #7700]Most recently updated: November 2, 2012Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Ted Garvin, David Widger and the DistributedProofreaders Team*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYSISTRATA ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: LysistrataAuthor: AristophanesIllustrator: Norman LindsayTranslator: Jack LindsayRelease date: March 1, 2005 [eBook #7700]Most recently updated: November 2, 2012Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Ted Garvin, David Widger and the DistributedProofreaders Team
Title: Lysistrata
Author: AristophanesIllustrator: Norman LindsayTranslator: Jack Lindsay
Author: Aristophanes
Illustrator: Norman Lindsay
Translator: Jack Lindsay
Release date: March 1, 2005 [eBook #7700]Most recently updated: November 2, 2012
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Ted Garvin, David Widger and the DistributedProofreaders Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYSISTRATA ***
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FOREWORD
Lysistratais the greatest work by Aristophanes. This blank and rash statement is made that it may be rejected. But first let it be understood that I do not mean it is a better written work than theBirdsor theFrogs, or that (to descend to the scale of values that will be naturally imputed to me) it has any more appeal to the collectors of "curious literature" than theEcclesiazusaeor theThesmophoriazusae. On the mere grounds of taste I can see an at least equally good case made out for theBirds. That brightly plumaged fantasy has an aerial wit and colour all its own. But there are certain works in which a man finds himself at an angle of vision where there is an especially felicitous union of the aesthetic and emotional elements which constitute the basic qualities of his uniqueness. We recognize these works as being welded into a strange unity, as having a homogeneous texture of ecstasy over them that surpasses any aesthetic surface of harmonic colour, though that harmony also is understood by the deeper welling of imagery from the core of creative exaltation. And I think that this occurs inLysistrata. The intellectual and spiritual tendrils of the poem are more truly interwoven, the operation of their centres more nearly unified; and so the work goes deeper into life. It is his greatest play because of this, because it holds an intimate perfume of femininity and gives the finest sense of the charm of a cluster of girls, the sweet sense of their chatter, and the contact of their bodies, that is to be found before Shakespeare, because that mocking gaiety we call Aristophanies reaches here its most positive acclamation of life, vitalizing sex with a deep delight, a rare happiness of the spirit.
Indeed it is precisely for these reasons that it isnotconsidered Aristophanes' greatest play.
To take a case which is sufficiently near to the point in question, to make clear what I mean: the supremacy ofAntony and Cleopatrain the Shakespearean aesthetic is yet jealously disputed, and it seems silly to the academic to put it up against a work likeHamlet. But it is the comparatively more obvious achievement ofHamlet, its surface intellectuality, which made it the favourite of actors and critics. It is much more difficult to realize the complex and delicately passionate edge of the former play's rhythm, its tides of hugely wandering emotion, the restless, proud, gay, and agonized reaction from life, of the blood, of the mind, of the heart, which is its unity, than to follow the relatively straightforward definition of Hamlet's nerves. Not that anything derogatory toHamletor theBirdsis intended; but the value of such works is not enhanced by forcing them into contrast with other works which cover deeper and wider nexus of aesthetic and spiritual material. It is the very subtlety of the vitality of such works asAntony and CleopatraandLysistratathat makes it so easy to undervalue them, to see only a phallic play and political pamphlet in one, only a chronicle play in a grandiose method in the other. For we have to be in a highly sensitized condition before we can get to that subtle point where life and the image mix, and so really perceive the work at all; whereas we can command the response to a lesser work which does not call so finely on the full breadth and depth of our spiritual resources.
I amuse myself at times with the fancy that Homer, Sappho, and Aristophanes are the inviolable Trinity of poetry, even to the extent of being reducible to One. For the fiery and lucid directness of Sappho, if her note of personal lyricism is abstracted, is seen to be an element of Homer, as is the profoundly balanced humour of Aristophanes, at once tenderly human and cruelly hard, as of a god to whom all sympathies and tolerances are known, but who is invulnerable somewhere, who sees from a point in space where the pressure of earth's fear and pain, and so its pity, is lifted. It is here that the Shakespearean and Homeric worlds impinge and merge, not to be separated by any academic classifications. They meet in this sensitivity equally involved and aloof, sympathetic and arrogant, suffering and joyous; and in this relation we see Aristophanes as the forerunner of Shakespeare, his only one. We see also that the whole present aesthetic of earth is based in Homer. We live and grow in the world of consciousness bequeathed to us by him; and if we grow beyond it through deeper Shakespearean ardours, it is because those beyond are rooted in the broad basis of the Homeric imagination. To shift that basis is to find the marshes of primitive night and fear alone beneath the feet: Christianity.
And here we return to the question of the immorality ofLysistrata. First we may inquire: is it possible for a man whose work has so tremendous a significance in the spiritual development of mankind--and I do not think anyone nowadays doubts that a work of art is the sole stabilizing force that exists for life--is it possible for a man who stands so grandly at head of an immense stream of liberating effort to write an immoral work? Surely the only enduring moral virtue which can be claimed is for that which moves to more power, beauty and delight in the future? The plea that the question of changing customs arises is not valid, for customs ratified by Aristophanes, by Rabelais, by Shakespeare, have no right to change. If they have changed, let us try immediately to return from our disgraceful refinements to the nobler and more rarefied heights of lyric laughter, tragic intensity, and wit, for we cannot have the first two without the last. And anyhow, how can a social custom claim precedence over the undying material of the senses and the emotions of man, over the very generating forces of life?
How could the humanistic emotions, such as pity, justice, sympathy, exist save as pacifistic quietings of the desire to slay, to hurt, to torment. Where the desire to hurt is gone pity ceases to be a significant, a central emotion. It must of course continue to exist, but it is displaced in the spiritual hierarchy; and all that moves courageously, desirously, and vitally into the action of life takes on a deeper and subtler intention. Lust, then, which on the lower plane was something to be very frightened of, becomes a symbol of the highest spirituality. It is right for Paul to be terrified of sex and so to hate it, because he has so freshly escaped a bestial condition of life that it threatens to plunge him back if he listens to one whisper But it is also right for a Shakespeare to suck every drop of desire from life, for he is building into a higher condition, one self-willed, self- responsible, the discipline of which comes from joy, not fear.
Sex, therefore, is an animal function, one admits, one insists; it may be only that. But also in the bewildering and humorous and tragic duality of all life's energies, it is the bridge to every eternity which is not merely a spectral condition of earth disembowelled of its lusts. For sex holds the substance of the image. But we must remember with Heine that Aristophanes is the God of this ironic earth, and that all argument is apparently vitiated from the start by the simple fact that Wagner and a rooster are given an analogous method of making love. And therefore it seems impeccable logic to say that all that is most unlike the rooster is the most spiritual part of love. All will agree on that, schisms only arise when one tries to decide what does go farthest from the bird's automatic mechanism. Certainly not a Dante-Beatrice affair which is only the negation of the rooster in terms of the swooning bombast of adolescence, the first onslaught of a force which the sufferer cannot control or inhabit with all the potentialities of his body and soul. But the rooster is troubled by no dreams of a divine orgy, no carnival-loves like Beethoven'sFourth Symphony, no heroic and shining lust gathering and swinging into a merry embrace like the third act ofSiegfried. It is desire in this sense that goes farthest from the animal.
Consciously, no one can achieve the act of love on earth as a completed thing of grace, with whatever delirium of delight, with whatever ingenious preciosity, we go through its process. Only as an image of beauty mated in some strange hermaphroditic ecstasy is that possible. I mean only as a dream projected into a hypothetical, a real heaven. But on earth we cannot complete the cycle in consciousness that would give us the freedom of an image in which two identities mysteriously realize their separate unities by the absorption of a third thing, the constructive rhythm of a work of art. It is thus that Tristan and Isolde become wholly distinct individuals, yet wholly submerged in the unity that is Wagner; and so reconcile life's duality by balancing its opposing laughters in a definite form--thereby sending out into life a profounder duality than existed before. A Platonic equipoise, Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence--the only real philosophic problem, therefore one of which these two philosophers alone are aware.
But though Wagner with Mathilde Wesendonck in his arms was Tristan in the arms of Isolde, he did not find a melody instead of a kiss on his lips; he did not find a progression of harmonies melting through the contours of a warm beauty with a blur of desperate ecstasies, semitones of desire, he found only the anxious happiness of any other lover. Nevertheless, he was gathering the substance of the second act ofTristan und Isolde. And it is this that Plato means when he says that fornication is something immortal in mortality. He does not mean that the act itself is a godlike thing, a claim which any bedroom mirror would quickly deride. He means that it is a symbol, an essential condition, and a part of something that goes deeper into life than any geometry of earth's absurd, passionate, futile, and very necessary antics would suggest.
It is a universal fallacy that because works like the comedies of Aristophanes discuss certain social or ethical problems, they are inspired by them. Aristophanes wrote to express his vision on life, his delight in life itself seen behind the warping screen of contemporary event; and for his purposes anything from Euripides to Cleon served as ground work. Not that he would think in those terms, naturally: but the rationalizing process that goes on in consciousness during the creation of a work of art, for all its appearance of directing matters, is the merest weathercock in the wind of the subconscious intention. As an example of how utterly it is possible to misunderstand the springs of inspiration in a poem, we may take the following remark of B. B. Rogers:It is much to be regretted that the phallus element should be so conspicuous in this play.... (This) coarseness, so repulsive to ourselves, was introduced, it is impossible to doubt, for the express purpose of counter-balancing the extreme earnestness and gravity of the play. It seems so logical, so irrefutable; and so completely misinterprets every creative force of Aristophanes' Psyche that it certainly deserves a little admiration. It is in the best academic tradition, and everyone respects a man for writing so mendaciously. The effort of these castrators is always to show that the parts considered offensive are not the natural expression of the poet, that they are dictated externally. They argue that Shakespeare's coarseness is the result of the age and not personal predilection, completely ignoring the work of men like Sir Philip Sidney and Spenser, indeed practically all the pre-Shakespearean writers, in whom none of this so-called grossness exists. Shakespeare wrote sculduddery because he liked it, and for no other reason; his sensuality is the measure of his vitality. These liars pretend similarly that because Rabelais had a humanistic reason for much of his work--the destructior Mediaevalism, and the Church, which purpose they construe of course as an effort to purify, etc.--therefore he only put the lewdery to make the rest palatable, when it should be obvious even to an academic how he glories in his wild humour.
What the academic cannot understand is that in such works, while attacking certain conditions, the creative power of the vigorous spirits is so great that it overflows and saturates the intellectual conception with their own passionate sense of life. It is for this reason that these works have an eternal significance. If Rabelais were merely a social reformer, then the value of his work would not have outlived his generation. IfLysistratawere but a wise political tract, it would have merely an historical interest, and it would have ceased spiritually at 404 B.C.
But Panurge is as fantastic and fascinating a character now as he was 300 years ago, Lysistrata and her girls as freshly bodied as any girl kissed to-day. Therefore the serious part of the play is that which deals with them, the frivolous part that in which Rogers detects gravity and earnestness.
Aristophanes is the lord of all who take life as a gay adventure, who defy all efforts to turn life into a social, economic, or moral abstraction. Is it therefore just that the critics who, by some dark instinct, unerringly pick out the exact opposite of any creator's real virtues as his chief characteristics, should praise him as an idealistic reformer? An "ideal" state of society was the last thing Aristophanes desired. He wished, certainly, to eliminate inhumanities and baseness; but only that there might be free play for laughter, for individual happiness.
Consequently the critics lay the emphasis on the effort to cleanse society, not the method of laughter. Aristophanes wished to destroy Cleon because that demagogue failed to realize the poet's conception of dignified government and tended to upset the stability of Hellas. But it was the stability of life, the vindication of all individual freedoms, in which he was ultimately interested.
JACK LINDSAY.
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LYSISTRATAstands alone with the Propylaea at her back.
LYSISTRATA
If they were trysting for a Bacchanal,A feast of Pan or Colias or Genetyllis,The tambourines would block the rowdy streets,But now there's not a woman to be seenExcept--ah, yes--this neighbour of mine yonder.
EnterCALONICE.
Good day Calonice.
CALONICE
Good day Lysistrata.But what has vexed you so? Tell me, child.What are these black looks for? It doesn't suit youTo knit your eyebrows up glumly like that.
LYSISTRATA
Calonice, it's more than I can bear,I am hot all over with blushes for our sex.Men say we're slippery rogues--
CALONICE
And aren't they right?
LYSISTRATA
Yet summoned on the most tremendous businessFor deliberation, still they snuggle in bed.
CALONICE
My dear, they'll come. It's hard for women, you know,To get away. There's so much to do;Husbands to be patted and put in good tempers:Servants to be poked out: children washedOr soothed with lullays or fed with mouthfuls of pap.
LYSISTRATA
But I tell you, here's a far more weighty object.
CALONICE
What is it all about, dear Lysistrata,That you've called the women hither in a troop?What kind of an object is it?
LYSISTRATA
A tremendous thing!
CALONICE
And long?
LYSISTRATA
Indeed, it may be very lengthy.
CALONICE
Then why aren't they here?
LYSISTRATA
No man's connected with it;If that was the case, they'd soon come fluttering along.No, no. It concerns an object I've felt overAnd turned this way and that for sleepless nights.
CALONICE
It must be fine to stand such long attention.
LYSISTRATA
So fine it comes to this--Greece saved by Woman!
CALONICE
By Woman? Wretched thing, I'm sorry for it.
LYSISTRATA
Our country's fate is henceforth in our hands:To destroy the Peloponnesians root and branch--
CALONICE
What could be nobler!
LYSISTRATA
Wipe out the Boeotians--
CALONICE
Not utterly. Have mercy on the eels![Footnote: The Boeotian eels were highly esteemed delicacies in Athens.]
LYSISTRATA
But with regard to Athens, note I'm carefulNot to say any of these nasty things;Still, thought is free.... But if the women join usFrom Peloponnesus and Boeotia, thenHand in hand we'll rescue Greece.
CALONICE
How could we doSuch a big wise deed? We women who dwellQuietly adorning ourselves in a back-roomWith gowns of lucid gold and gawdy toiletsOf stately silk and dainty little slippers....
LYSISTRATA
These are the very armaments of the rescue.These crocus-gowns, this outlay of the best myrrh,Slippers, cosmetics dusting beauty, and robesWith rippling creases of light.
CALONICE
Yes, but how?
LYSISTRATA
No man will lift a lance against another--
CALONICE
I'll run to have my tunic dyed crocus.
LYSISTRATA
Or take a shield--
CALONICE
I'll get a stately gown.
LYSISTRATA
Or unscabbard a sword--
CALONICE
Let me buy a pair of slipper.
LYSISTRATA
Now, tell me, are the women right to lag?
CALONICE
They should have turned birds, they should have grownwings and flown.
LYSISTRATA
My friend, you'll see that they are true Athenians:Always too late. Why, there's not a womanFrom the shoreward demes arrived, not one from Salamis.
CALONICE
I know for certain they awoke at dawn,And got their husbands up if not their boat sails.
LYSISTRATA
And I'd have staked my life the Acharnian damesWould be here first, yet they haven't come either!
CALONICE
Well anyhow there is Theagenes' wifeWe can expect--she consulted Hecate.But look, here are some at last, and more behind them.See ... where are they from?
CALONICE
From Anagyra they come.
LYSISTRATA
Yes, they generally manage to come first.
EnterMYRRHINE.
MYRRHINE
Are we late, Lysistrata? ... What is that?Nothing to say?
LYSISTRATA
I've not much to say for you,Myrrhine, dawdling on so vast an affair.
MYRRHINE
I couldn't find my girdle in the dark.But if the affair's so wonderful, tell us, what is it?
LYSISTRATA
No, let us stay a little longer tillThe Peloponnesian girls and the girls of BocotiaAre here to listen.
MYRRHINE
That's the best advice.Ah, there comes Lampito.
EnterLAMPITO.
LYSISTRATA
Welcome Lampito!Dear Spartan girl with a delightful face,Washed with the rosy spring, how fresh you lookIn the easy stride of your sleek slenderness,Why you could strangle a bull!
LAMPITO
I think I could.It's frae exercise and kicking high behint.
[Footnote: The translator has put the speech of the Spartan charactersin Scotch dialect which is related to English about as was the Spartandialect to the speech of Athens. The Spartans, in their character,anticipated the shrewd, canny, uncouth Scotch highlander of moderntimes.]
LYSISTRATA
What lovely breasts to own!
LAMPITO
Oo ... your fingersAssess them, ye tickler, wi' such tender chucksI feel as if I were an altar-victim.
LYSISTRATA
Who is this youngster?
LAMPITO
A Boeotian lady.
LYSISTRATA
There never was much undergrowth in Boeotia,Such a smooth place, and this girl takes after it.
CALONICE
Yes, I never saw a skin so primly kept.
LYSISTRATA
This girl?
LAMPITO
A sonsie open-looking jinker!She's a Corinthian.
LYSISTRATA
Yes, isn't sheVery open, in some ways particularly.
LAMPITO
But who's garred this Council o' Women to meet here?
LYSISTRATA
I have.
LAMPITO
Propound then what you want o' us.
MYRRHINE
What is the amazing news you have to tell?
LYSISTRATA
I'll tell you, but first answer one small question.
MYRRHINE
As you like.
LYSISTRATA
Are you not sad your children's fathersGo endlessly off soldiering afarIn this plodding war? I am willing to wagerThere's not one here whose husband is at home.
CALONICE
Mine's been in Thrace, keeping an eye on EucratesFor five months past.
MYRRHINE
And mine left me for PylosSeven months ago at least.
LAMPITO
And as for mineNo sooner has he slipped out frae the lineHe straps his shield and he's snickt off again.
LYSISTRATA
And not the slightest glitter of a lover!And since the Milesians betrayed us, I've not seenThe image of a single upright manTo be a marble consolation to us.Now will you help me, if I find a meansTo stamp the war out.
MYRRHINE
By the two Goddesses, Yes!I will though I've to pawn this very dressAnd drink the barter-money the same day.
CALONICE
And I too though I'm split up like a turbotAnd half is hackt off as the price of peace.
LAMPITO
And I too! Why, to get a peep at the shy thingI'd clamber up to the tip-top o' Taygetus.
LYSISTRATA
Then I'll expose my mighty mystery.O women, if we would compel the menTo bow to Peace, we must refrain--
MYRRHINE
From what?O tell us!
LYSISTRATA
Will you truly do it then?
MYRRHINE
We will, we will, if we must die for it.
LYSISTRATA
We must refrain from every depth of love....Why do you turn your backs? Where are you going?Why do you bite your lips and shake your heads?Why are your faces blanched? Why do you weep?Will you or won't you, or what do you mean?
MYRRHINE
No, I won't do it. Let the war proceed.
CALONICE
No, I won't do it. Let the war proceed.
LYSISTRATA
You too, dear turbot, you that said just nowYou didn't mind being split right up in the least?
CALONICE
Anything else? O bid me walk in fireBut do not rob us of that darling joy.What else is like it, dearest Lysistrata?
LYSISTRATA
And you?
MYRRHINE
O please give me the fire instead.
LYSISTRATA
Lewd to the least drop in the tiniest vein,Our sex is fitly food for Tragic Poets,Our whole life's but a pile of kisses and babies.But, hardy Spartan, if you join with meAll may be righted yet. O help me, help me.
LAMPITO
It's a sair, sair thing to ask of us, by the Twa,A lass to sleep her lane and never fillLove's lack except wi' makeshifts.... But let it be.Peace maun be thought of first.
LYSISTRATA
My friend, my friend!The only one amid this herd of weaklings.
CALONICE
But if--which heaven forbid--we should refrainAs you would have us, how is Peace induced?
LYSISTRATA
By the two Goddesses, now can't you seeAll we have to do is idly sit indoorsWith smooth roses powdered on our cheeks,Our bodies burning naked through the foldsOf shining Amorgos' silk, and meet the menWith our dear Venus-plats plucked trim and neat.Their stirring love will rise up furiously,They'll beg our arms to open. That's our time!We'll disregard their knocking, beat them off--And they will soon be rabid for a Peace.I'm sure of it.
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LAMPITO
Just as Menelaus, they say,Seeing the bosom of his naked HelenFlang down the sword.
CALONICE
But we'll be tearful foolsIf our husbands take us at our word and leave us.
LYSISTRATA
There's only left then, in Pherecrates' phrase,To flay a skinned dog--flay more our flayed desires.
CALONICE
Bah, proverbs will never warm a celibate.But what avail will your scheme be if the menDrag us for all our kicking on to the couch?
LYSISTRATA
Cling to the doorposts.
CALONICE
But if they should force us?
LYSISTRATA
Yield then, but with a sluggish, cold indifference.There is no joy to them in sullen mating.Besides we have other ways to madden them;They cannot stand up long, and they've no delightUnless we fit their aim with merry succour.
CALONICE
Well if you must have it so, we'll all agree.
LAMPITO
For us I ha' no doubt. We can persuadeOur men to strike a fair an' decent Peace,But how will ye pitch out the battle-frenzyO' the Athenian populace?
LYSISTRATA
I promise youWe'll wither up that curse.
LAMPITO
I don't believe it.Not while they own ane trireme oared an' rigged,Or a' those stacks an' stacks an' stacks O' siller.
LYSISTRATA
I've thought the whole thing out till there's no flaw.We shall surprise the Acropolis today:That is the duty set the older dames.While we sit here talking, they are to goAnd under pretence of sacrificing, seize it.
LAMPITO
Certie, that's fine; all's working for the best.
LYSISTRATA
Now quickly, Lampito, let us tie ourselvesTo this high purpose as tightly as the hemp of wordsCan knot together.
LAMPITO
Set out the terms in detailAnd we'll a' swear to them.
LYSISTRATA
Of course.... Well thenWhere is our Scythianess? Why are you staring?First lay the shield, boss downward, on the floorAnd bring the victim's inwards.
CAILONICE
But, Lysistrata,What is this oath that we're to swear?
LYSISTRATA
What oath!In Aeschylus they take a slaughtered sheepAnd swear upon a buckler. Why not we?
CALONICE
O Lysistrata, Peace sworn on a buckler!
LYSISTRATA
What oath would suit us then?
CALONICE
Something burden bearingWould be our best insignia.... A white horse!Let's swear upon its entrails.
LYSISTRATA
A horse indeed!
CALONICE
Then what will symbolise us?
LYSISTRATA
This, as I tell you--First set a great dark bowl upon the groundAnd disembowel a skin of Thasian wine,Then swear that we'll not add a drop of water.
LAMPITOAh, what aith could clink pleasanter than that!
LYSISTRATABring me a bowl then and a skin of wine.
CALONICEMy dears, see what a splendid bowl it is;I'd not say No if asked to sip it off.
LYSISTRATAPut down the bowl. Lay hands, all, on the victim.Skiey Queen who givest the last word in arguments,And thee, O Bowl, dear comrade, we beseech:Accept our oblation and be propitious to us.
CALONICEWhat healthy blood, la, how it gushes out!
LAMPITOAn' what a leesome fragrance through the air.
LYSISTRATANow, dears, if you will let me, I'll speak first.
CALONICEOnly if you draw the lot, by Aphrodite!
LYSISTRATASO, grasp the brim, you, Lampito, and all.You, Calonice, repeat for the restEach word I say. Then you must all take oathAnd pledge your arms to the same stern conditions--
LYSISTRATATo husband or lover I'll not open arms
CALONICE
To husband or lover I'll not open arms
LYSISTRATA
Though love and denial may enlarge his charms.
CALONICE
Though love and denial may enlarge his charms.O, O, my knees are failing me, Lysistrata!
LYSISTRATA
But still at home, ignoring him, I'll stay,
CALONICE
But still at home, ignoring him, I'll stay,
LYSISTRATA
Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day.
CALONICE
Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day.
LYSISTRATA
If then he seizes me by dint of force,
CALONICE
If then he seizes me by dint of force,
LYSISTRATA
I'll give him reason for a long remorse.
CALONICE
I'll give him reason for a long remorse.
LYSISTRATA
I'll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,
CALONICE
I'll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,
LYSISTRATA
Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.
CALONICE
Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.
LYSISTRATA
If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.
CALONICE
If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.
LYSISTRATA
If not, to nauseous water change this wine.
CALONICEIf not, to nauseous water change this wine.
LYSISTRATA
Do you all swear to this?
MYRRHINE
We do, we do.
LYSISTRATA
Then I shall immolate the victim thus.She drinks.
CALONICE
Here now, share fair, haven't we made a pact?Let's all quaff down that friendship in our turn.
LAMPITO
Hark, what caterwauling hubbub's that?
LYSISTRATA
As I told you,The women have appropriated the citadel.So, Lampito, dash off to your own landAnd raise the rebels there. These will serve as hostages,While we ourselves take our places in the ranksAnd drive the bolts right home.