Aristophanes, Lysistrata (411 B.C.E.)

The plays of Aristophanes (450–386 B.C.E.) are the only comedies to survive from Greece’s Golden Age. Although he was a wellborn Athenian, Aristophanes held the leaders of his city-state responsible for starting the Peloponnesian War (431–404) and refusing to make peace. He produced Acharnians, the first antiwar play, in 425. Lysistrata, Aristophanes’ most famous comedy, describes a meeting of women who come together to decide how to end the war. The play opens with the group’s Athenian leader, Lysistrata, waiting impatiently for the women to arrive. When they do, she suggests a bold strategy to convince their husbands to desist from war and make peace—a sex strike. To force the hand of Athenians in general, Lysistrata has another plan in place. As she tells the gathering, women are about to seize the Acropolis, the geographic, political, and religious center of Athens. Although the work was satiric, Aristophanes’ antiwar stance signaled increasing dissatisfaction with conditions in Athens as a result of the war. As the excerpt here reveals, his message in Lysistrata is so powerful and timeless that the play is still performed throughout the world.

From The Comedies of Aristophanes, vol. 7: Lysistrata, ed. and trans. Alan H. Sommerstein (Warminster, England: Arris & Phillips, 1990), 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 39, 41, 43.

[Lysistrata comes out of one of the flanking doors of the stage-house. She looks off to right and left, but sees no one approaching.]

LYSISTRATA [annoyed]: Now if someone had invited them to a Bacchic revel, or to Pan’s shrine, or to Genetyllis’ shrine at Colias¹—you’d never have been able to get through the crowd, what with the drums! But as it is, there’s not a woman turned up here.

[Seeing the far door open] Except that here’s my neighbour coming out.

[Calonice comes out.] Good morning, Calonice.

CALONICE: Same to you, Lysistrata. [Coming closer] What’s disturbed you so terribly? Don’t look cross, child. Knitted brows don’t look good on you.

LYSISTRATA: My heart’s burning, Calonice, and I’m feeling very sore about us women: because in men’s opinion we’re thought to be such utter rascals—

CALONICE: And so we are, by Zeus!

LYSISTRATA: But when they’ve been told to meet here to have a discussion about a far from trivial matter, they lie asleep and don’t come.

CALONICE: They’ll come, darling. For women to get out of the house is quite some trouble, you know. One of us may be hanging round her husband, another rousing a servant, another putting her baby to bed or bathing it or feeding it with titbits.

LYSISTRATA: But the point is, there were other things that should matter more to them than all those!

CALONICE: What actually is it, Lysistrata dear, that you’re calling us women together for? What is this thing? What’s the size of it?

LYSISTRATA: It’s big—

CALONICE: you don’t mean big and meaty?

LYSISTRATA:—and meaty too, I tell you.

CALONICE: Then how come we’re not all here?

LYSISTRATA: Not in that sense! We’d have assembled fast enough if it was. No, it’s something that I’ve been examining and tossing about through many a sleepless night.

CALONICE: Tossing about? Must be a dainty little thing.

LYSISTRATA: So very dainty that the salvation of all Greece is actually in the hands of her women.

CALONICE: In the hands of her women? Then it’s resting on very little!

LYSISTRATA: I tell you that the fortunes of the country depend on us. Either there will be no more Peloponnesians—²

CALONICE: Well, that would be splendid, by Zeus, for them to be no more!

LYSISTRATA:—and the Boeotians will all be utterly destroyed—

CALONICE: Oh, please not all of them—do make an exception for the eels!³

LYSISTRATA: I won’t utter any words of that kind about Athens, but you can infer my meaning. But if the wives come together here—those from Boeotia, those of the Peloponnesians, and ourselves—united we’ll save Greece.

CALONICE: But what can women achieve that is clever or glorious—we who sit at home all dolled up, wearing saffron gowns and cosmetics and Cimberic⁴ straight-liners and riverboat slippers?

LYSISTRATA: Why, that’s exactly what I’m counting on to save Greece—our pretty saffron gowns and our perfumes and our riverboat slippers and our rouge and our see-through shifts.

CALONICE: How on earth do you mean?

LYSISTRATA: To make it that none of the men living today will take up the spear against each other—

CALONICE: In that case, by the Two Goddesses,⁵ I’m going to dye a gown with saffron!

LYSISTRATA:—or take up a shield—

CALONICE: I’m going to put on a Cimberic!

LYSISTRATA:—or even a little toy sword.

CALONICE: I’m going to buy riverboat slippers!

LYSISTRATA: So shouldn’t the women be here now?

CALONICE: Not now, in heaven’s name—they should have taken wing and been here long ago!

LYSISTRATA: Ah, I tell you, my good friend, you’ll see they’re thoroughly Athenian—everything they do is too late. Why, there isn’t even a single woman here from the Paralia, nor from Salamis.⁶

CALONICE: Oh, as for them, they’ll have been working over on their pinnaces well before daylight.

LYSISTRATA: And the Acharnian⁷ women too, whom I was expecting and counting on their being first here, they haven’t come.

CALONICE: Well, at any rate Theogenes’⁸ wife was putting on all sail to come here. [Pointing offstage] But look, here you are, some of them are arriving now.

LYSISTRATA: [looking in the other direction]: And here come some others.

CALONICE [recoiling as if from a foul smell]: Ugh! where are they from?

LYSISTRATA: ?Lousia.

CALONICE: Dead right; seems to me we’ve opened a real can of lice!

[During this dialogue women have been coming on from both sides, and a fair-sized group has now gathered. One of them is Myrrhine.]

MYRRHINE: We haven’t come late, Lysistrata, have we? [Lysistrata ignores the question.] What do you say? Why don’t you speak?

LYSISTRATA [severely]: Myrrhine, I don’t thank anyone for only arriving now, on a matter of this importance.

MYRRHINE: The thing was, I had trouble finding my waistband in the dark. But if it really is vital, speak to those of us who are here.

LYSISTRATA: No, no; let’s wait—it’s only a matter of a few minutes—for the women from Boeotia and the Peloponnese to come.

MYRRHINE: Yours is a much better idea. [Looking off] And look, here comes Lampito now.

[Enter Lampito, accompanied by a Theban woman (Ismenia) and a Corinthian woman, and followed by several other Spartan women. Their garments, unlike those of the Athenian women, are open at the side in the Doric fashion.]

LYSISTRATA: Welcome, Lampito, my very dear Laconian⁹ friend! Darling, what beauty you display! What a fine colour, and what a robust frame you’ve got! You could throttle a bull.

LAMPITO [in Laconian dialect]: Yes, indeed, I reckon, by the Two Gods;¹⁰ at any rate I do gymnastics and jump heel-to-buttocks.

CALONICE [feeling Lampito’s breasts]: What a splendid pair of tits you’ve got!

LAMPITO [annoyed]: Really, you’re feeling me over like a victim for sacrifice!

LYSISTRATA: And where does this other young lady come from [indicating Ismenia]?

LAMPITO: She’s come to you, don’t you know, by the Two Gods, as a representative of Boeotia.

MYRRHINE [looking inside Ismenia’s revealing costume]: Yes, she represents Boeotia all right, with that fine lowland region she’s got!

CALONICE: And, by Zeus, with the mint shoots very neatly plucked out!

LYSISTRATA: And who’s the other girl?

LAMPITO: A lady of noble line, by the Two Gods, a Corinthian.

CALONICE: Yes, it’s certainly obvious she does have noble lines—here and here [pointing to the Corinthian’s belly and buttocks]!

LAMPITO: Now who has convened this gathering of women?

LYSISTRATA: Here I am; I did.

LAMPITO: Tell us, pray, what you wish of us.

CALONICE: Yes, indeed, dear lady, do tell us what this important business of yours is.

LYSISTRATA: I will tell you now. But before doing so, I will ask you this one small question.

CALONICE: Whatever you like.

LYSISTRATA: Don’t you miss the fathers of your children badly, when they’re away on campaign? I know that every one of you has a man away from home.

CALONICE: My husband, my dear, anyway, has been off on the Thracian Coast for five months, keeping a watch on Eucrates.¹¹

MYRRHINE: And mine’s been seven solid months at Pylos.¹²

LAMPITO: And mine, even when he does ever come home from his active service, right away he’s fastened on his shield-band and gone flying off again.

LYSISTRATA: Why, there isn’t even a lover left us now—not the least glimmer of one. Since the Milesians¹³ deserted us, I haven’t even seen a six-inch dildo that might have given us some slender comfort. If I were to find a plan, then, would you be willing to join me in bringing the war to an end?

CALONICE: By the Two Goddesses, I would, for one, even if I had to pawn this mantle and drink my purse dry all in one day!

MYRRHINE: And I think I’d even be ready to slice myself in two like a flounder and donate half of my body!

LAMPITO: And I would climb right to the top of Mount Taÿgetum,¹⁴ if I was going to be able to see peace from there.

LYSISTRATA: I will say it: there’s no need for the idea to stay hidden. What we must do, women, if we mean to compel the men to live in peace, is to abstain—

CALONICE: From what? Tell us.

LYSISTRATA: You’ll do it, then?

CALONICE: We’ll do it, even if we have to give our lives. [The others indicate enthusiastic agreement.]

LYSISTRATA: Well then: we must abstain from—cock and balls. [Strong murmurs of dissent; some of the women seem on the point of quitting the meeting.] Why are you turning your backs on me? Where are you going? I ask you, why are you pursing your lips and tossing your heads? “Why pales your colour, why this flow of tears?” Will you do it or will you not? or why do you hesitate?

CALONICE: I won’t do it. Let the war carry on.

MYRRHINE: By Zeus, nor will I. Let the war carry on.

LYSISTRATA: You say that, Madam Flounder? Why, a moment ago you were saying you’d be ready to slice off half of your body!

CALONICE: Anything else you want—anything! And if need be, I’m willing to walk through fire—rather that than cock and balls! There is nothing, Lysistrata dear, nothing like it!

LYSISTRATA [turning to another of the women]: And what about you?

WOMAN: I’d rather go through fire too!

LYSISTRATA: What an absolute race of nymphomaniacs we are, the lot of us! No wonder the tragedies get written round us: we’re nothing but Poseidon and a tub. [To Lampito] Look, my dear Laconian friend, if you, just you, join with me, we can still save the situation. Do cast your vote on my side.

LAMPITO: Well, by the Two Gods, it’s a hard thing for women to sleep alone without Big Red. But all the same, yes; we do need peace back again.

LYSISTRATA: Oh my darling, you’re the only real woman here!

CALONICE: But suppose we abstained as much as you like from . . . what you said—which heaven forbid—would that make peace any more likely to happen?

LYSISTRATA: It very much would, by the Two Goddesses. If we sat there at home in our make-up, and came into their rooms wearing our lawn shifts and nothing else and plucked down below delta-style, and our husbands got all horny and eager for the old spleck-spleck, but we kept away and didn’t come to them—they’d make peace fast enough, I know for sure.

CALONICE: But, my dear girl, what if our husbands just ignore us?

LYSISTRATA: In the words of Pherecrates—skin the skinned dog.

CALONICE: Those imitation things are just sheer garbage. And what if they take us and drag us into the bedroom by force?

LYSISTRATA: You should cling to the door.

CALONICE: And if they beat us?

LYSISTRATA: You should submit in the grudgingest way—there’s no pleasure in it when it’s done by force—and you should vex them generally; and have no fear, they’ll tire of it very quickly. For no man is ever going to get any gratification unless it suits the woman that he should.

CALONICE: Well, if that’s what you both think, then we agree. [The others indicate assent.]

LAMPITO: And we’ll see to it that our menfolk keep the peace with complete honesty and sincerity. But your Athenians—how is one going to persuade that riffraff not to act barmy?

LYSISTRATA: Don’t you worry, we’ll do our part of the persuading all right.

LAMPITO: Not while your warships still have feet, and while there’s that bottomless store of money in the house of your Goddess.¹⁵

LYSISTRATA: Ah, that’s also been thoroughly provided for. We’re going to occupy the Acropolis today. The over-age women have instructions to do that: while we get our act together, they’re to seize the Acropolis under pretence of making a sacrifice.

LAMPITO: That should be absolutely fine—another good idea of yours.

LYSISTRATA: Well then, Lampito, why don’t we bind ourselves together straight away by an oath, so as to make our resolution unbreakable?

LAMPITO: Present us with the oath, then; we are ready to swear.

LYSISTRATA: Let one of you, on behalf of all, repeat the exact words that I say, and the rest will swear to them afterwards in confirmation. No man whatever, neither lover nor husband—

CALONICE: No man whatever, neither lover nor husband—

LYSISTRATA:—shall come near me with his cock up. [Calonice hesitates.] Say it.

CALONICE:—shall come near me with his cock up. [Swaying as if about to swoon] Help, help, Lysistrata, my knees are buckling!

LYSISTRATA: And I will pass my life at home, pure and chaste—

CALONICE [recovering]: And I will pass my life at home, pure and chaste—

LYSISTRATA:—in make-up and saffron gown—

CALONICE:—in make-up and saffron gown—

LYSISTRATA:—so that my husband may be greatly inflamed with desire for me—

CALONICE:—so that my husband may be greatly inflamed with desire for me—

LYSISTRATA:—and will never of my free will yield myself to my husband.

CALONICE:—and will never of my free will yield myself to my husband.

LYSISTRATA: And if he force me by force against my will—

CALONICE: And if he force me by force against my will—

LYSISTRATA:—I will submit grudgingly and will not thrust back.

CALONICE:—I will submit grudgingly and will not thrust back.

LYSISTRATA: I will not raise up my Persian slippers ceilingwards.

CALONICE: I will not raise up my Persian slippers ceilingwards.

LYSISTRATA: I will not stand in the lioness-on-a-cheesegrater position.

CALONICE: I will not stand in the lioness-on-a-cheesegrater position.

LYSISTRATA: If I fulfil all this, may I drink from this cup.

CALONICE: If I fulfil all this, may I drink from this cup.

LYSISTRATA: But if I transgress it, may the cup be filled with water.

CALONICE: But if I transgress it, may the cup be filled with water.

LYSISTRATA [to the others]: Do all of you join in swearing this oath?

ALL: We do.

LYSISTRATA: Here, let me consecrate this. [She is about to drink off the cup.]

CALONICE [interposing]: Only your share, my friend; we want to be friends with each other, right from the start.

[As Lysistrata is about to drink from the cup and pass it round, a women’s cry of joy is heard from backstage.]

LAMPITO: What’s that shout for?

LYSISTRATA: It’s the very thing I told you about: the women have now seized the Citadel of the Goddess. So now, Lampito, you go and arrange everything at your end, but leave these others here with us as hostages. [Exit Lampito.] And for ourselves, let’s go inside and join the other women on the Acropolis in barring the doors.

CALONICE: But don’t you expect the men to make a united counter-attack on us straight away?

LYSISTRATA: They don’t bother me. There are no menaces, no fire, that they can bring against us, strong enough to get these gates open, except on the conditions that we have laid down.

CALONICE: No, by Aphrodite, never! Otherwise it would be for nothing that all we women are called villains whom there’s “no getting the better of.”

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS