Part 3

CHOR. SEN. Male pereatis, ut estis ingenio ad blandiendum composito! et est vetus illud verbum vere et non perperam dictum: _Neque cum perniciosissimis, neque sine perniciosissimis._

CHOR. MUL. Sed nunc tecum paciscor, me deinceps nec facturam amplius vobis, nec passuram a vobis quicquam mali: sed jam cœtu facto incipiamus una canticum. Ita nos, ô viri comparamus, ut nulli civium ne minimum quidem male dicamus: sed contra potius omnia bona et dicamus et faciamus: etenim sufficiunt præsentia hæc mala. Sed profiteatur quicunque vir aut femina pecunia eget, et accipere vult minas duas aut tres:[PG67] nam plurimum est intus, nosque habemus cruminas: et si aliquando Pax exoriatur, quicunque nunc mutuabitur, is quæ a nobis acceperit nunquam reddet. Convivio autem excepturæ sumus hospites quosdam Carystios,[PG68] viros bonos et fortes: et est nonnihil pultis: et porcellus erat mihi, quem mactavi: sicque carnes habebitis teneras et bonas. Venite ergo in domum meam hodie: tempori autem oportet hoc facere lotos, vos ipsos et liberos vestros; deinde intro ire, nec quemquam interrogare: sed recta ingredi, tanquam in domos vestras, strenue. Fortassis autem janua erit clausa.[PG69]

CHOR. SEN. Sed e Sparta isti legati, trahentes barbas, adveniunt, quasi paxillum, cui porcelli adligantur,[PG70] circa femora habentes.[25]

CHORUS SENUM, LEGATI, LACEDÆMONIORUM, POLYCHARIDES, LYSISTRATA, CHORUS MULIERUM, CIRCUMFORANEI QUIDAM, FAMULUS, ATHENIENSIS QUIDAM.

CHOR. SEN. Primum quidem, ô Lacones, salvete: deinde dicite nobis quo in statu huc veneritis.

LEG. Cur vobis rem multis verbis narremus? cernere licet, quo in statu venerimus.

CHOR. SEN. Papæ! huic malo intenduntur nervi perquam vehementer; gliscitque fervor pejorem in modum.

LEG. Res verbis adumbrari nequit: quid verbis opus est? sed veniat quis, et quo tandem pacto voluerit, pacem nobis constituat.

CHOR. SEN. Atqui et istos conspicor indigenas, tanquam luctatores pueros, a ventre rejicientes vestes, ita ut athleticum quid hic morbus videatur.

POL. Quis indicet nobis Lysistratam, ubi sit? nam viri adsumus et nos hujuscemodi.

CHOR. SEN. Et alter hic morbus alteri congruit. Numquid mane tentigo vos capit?

POL. Immo perimus, dum hoc experimur. Quare, nisi pacem quis inter nos ocius conciliet, fieri non poterit, quin Clisthenem futuamus.[PG71]

CHOR. SEN. Si sapitis, vestes sumetis, ut ne quis eorum, qui Hermas[PG72] truncant, vos videat.

POL. Recte, ita me Jupiter amet, autumas.

LEG. Ita me Castores, recte omnino. Agedum amiciamur.

POL. Salvete, ô Lacones: turpe est, quod nobis accidit.

LEG. O Polycharida, male utique nobis fuisset, si vidissent isti viri mentulas nostras[26] erectas.

POL. Agite, Lacones, aperte profitendum est: quare huc advenistis?

LEG. De pace legati.

POL. Recte dicitis; et nos ob eam rem. Quidni ergo vocamus Lysistratam, quæ sola nos conciliare possit?

LEG. Ita edepol, et, si vultis, Lysistratum.

CHOR. SEN. Sed nihil opus est, ut videtur, a vobis eam evocarier: ipsa enim, re audita, egreditur.

POL. Salve mulier omnium fortissima: nunc te decet esse formidabilem, probam, simplicem, gravem, mitem, callidam. Nam primarii Græciæ viri, tuis illecebris capti, tibi permiserunt, et communi consilio commiserunt querelas suas.

LYS. Sed non difficile negotium est, si quis subantes eos offendat, et mutuo masculæ Veneris usu abstinentes. Sed mox scibo. Ubi est Pax? adduc primum Laconas prehensos manu, sed non dura, nec superba, neque, ut viri nostri solebant, invenuste;[PG73] sed, ut mulieres decet, familiariter omnino. Si tibi quis manum non dederit, mentula prehensum duc. Age tu etiam Athenienses duc istos, qua concedent parte prehensos. Vos Lacones, state huc prope me: vos autem istinc, et verba mea percipite. Mulier quidem sum: mens tamen inest mihi: et primum quidem a natura mihi inditum fuit, ut recte sentirem: tum, præceptis multis e patre meo et senioribus auditis, erudita sum non male. Volo autem vos communi argumento increpare, idque merito: qui, licet eadem aqua lustrali aras conspergatis, tanquam cognati, Olympiæ, Pylis, Delphis, (Quot alia memorarem loca, si vellem esse prolixior?) quum non desint barbari hostes, tamen infestis exercitibus Græcos et eorum urbes pessundatis. Communis quidem ista oratio hactenus mihi finitur.

POL. At ego tentigine pereo.

LYS. Deinde vos Lacones, nam ad vos me convertam, nonne scitis, ut olim huc veniens Periclides Laco,[PG74] Atheniensibus supplex, ad aras sedit, pallidus, in purpureo amictu, auxiliares copias petens? nam tunc vos urgebat Messena, et una Neptunus terram quatiens. At Cimon cum quatuor millibus armatis profectus universam servavit Lacedæmonem. His ab Atheniensibus acceptis beneficiis, vastatis terram, cujus talia sunt in vos merita.

POL. Injurii sunt isti hercle, ô Lysistrata.

LEG. Injurii sumus: sed vix dici potest, quam pulcher sit hujus culus.

LYS. At putasne me vos Athenienses absoluturam culpa? nonne meministis, ut vicissim Lacones, quando servilibus tunicis induti eratis, venientes armati, multos occiderunt Thessalos, multosque Hippiæ amicos et socios, soli suppetias vobis ferentes illo die, et restituta vobis libertate, pro servili tunica populum vestrum pallio amicierunt denuo?

LEG. Nondum vidi mulierem præstantiorem.

POL. At ego cunnum nunquam pulchriorem.

LYS. Cur ergo, quum tam multa et præclara merita vestra exstent, pugnatis, et non desistis a malitia? cur non reconciliamini? age, quid obstat?

LEG. Nos quidem volumus, si quis nobis encyclum istud reddere velit.

LYS. Quodnam, ô bone?

LEG. Pylum, ut dudum eam flagitamus et captamus.

POL. Illud quidem vobis nunquam eveniet, per Neptunum juro.

LYS. Concedite illis, ô boni.

POL. Postea quamnam movebimus?

LYS. Aliud reposcite pro isto castellum.

POL. Perii! date igitur nobis hunc Echinuntem primo, et Maliensem sinum pone adjacentem, et Megarica Crura.[PG75]

LEG. Non edepol omnia, ô insane.

LYS. Sinite, ne contende de Cruribus.

POL. Jam exuta veste nudus arare volo.

LEG. At pol ego stercus convehere quamprimum.

LYS. Ubi pax vobis reconciliata fuerit, istuc facietis. Sed si de pace vobis constat sententia, deliberate, et socios adeuntes rem cum iis communicate.

POL. Nam quos, ô bona, socios? arrigimus. Annon idem nostris sociis videbitur, omnibus futuendum esse?

LEG. Sic edepol meis.

POL. Immo hercle Carystiis.

LYS. Recte dicitis. Nunc curate ut puri sitis, ut nos mulieres in arce convivio vos excipiamus de illis quæ in cistis habemus. Jusjurandum et fidem illic invicem date, deinde uxore sua accepta, vestrûm unusquisque abibit.

POL. Sed eamus quam citissime.

LEG. Duc quo tu vis.

POL. Ita hercle, quam celerrime.

CHOR. MUL. Stragulas vestes et lænas, et xystidas, et aurea vasa, quidquid est mihi, sine invidia volo omnibus præbere, ut ferant suis liberis, si quando alicujus filia canistrum in sacris gestet. Omnibus vobis dico, ut sumatis nunc de meis opibus e domo mea, et nihil tam bene obsignatum esse, quin ceram revellatis, et quæ intus condita sunt auferatis. Sed qui omnia circumspexerit, nihil videbit, nisi quis vestrûm acutius cernit, quam ego.[PG76] Si vero alicui cibus deest, quo vernas et parvulam sobolem numerosam pascat, licet a me sumere contritas fruges: at est panis unius chœnicis, aspectu valde magnus. Quisquis igitur vult pauperum, eat in domum meam saccos habens et peras, accepturus fruges: Manes autem servus meus eis indet. Verumtamen ad januam meam ne quis accedat, prædico: sed caveat canem.[PG77]

CIRC. Aperi januam.

FAM. Nonne vis loco cedere? Vos, quid sedetis? Num vultis, ut ego lampade hac vos comburam? molesta est hæc statio.

CIRC. Non recedam.

FAM. Sed si omnino id faciendum est, ut vobis gratificemur, durabimus.

CIRC. Et nos tecum una durabimus.

FAM. Nonne abitis? Male erit vestris capillis et flebitis largiter. Non abitis, ut Lacones ex ædibus quiete abeant rerum omnium saturi?

ATH. QUID. Nunquam equidem vidi tale convivium. Faceti utique erant Lacones: nos autem in vino convivæ sapientissimi.

CHOR. SEN. Recte autumas, quia sobrii insanimus. Quod si Athenienses me audient, madidi semper obibimus legationes ubicunque.[27] Nunc enim si quando Lacedæmonem venimus sicci, statim circumspicimus, ecquid turbare possimus. Itaque quid dicant, non audimus: quæ vero non dicunt, hæc suspicamur perperam: et nuntiamus non eadem de iisdem rebus. At nunc omnia placuerunt, ut si quis cantaret Telamonis,[PG78] quum cantare debuisset scolion Clitagoræ, tamen laudaremus, et insuper pejeraremus.

FAM. Sed isti rursus huc conveniunt. Nonne facessitis, verberones?

CIRC. Ita hercle: jam enim intus egrediuntur convivæ.

LEG. O Polycharida, cape tibias, ut ego tripudiem et canam lepide in Athenienses et nos simul.

POL. Quin tu cape tibias, per deos obsecro: nam nihil me magis oblectat, quam si vos saltantes conspicer.

LEG. Excita, ô Mnemosyne, juvenes hosce, et meam Musam, quæ nostra et Atheniensium præclara facta novit: quando hi quidem ad Artemisium,[PG79] diis similes, impetum fecerunt in naves hostiles, et Medos vicerunt. Nos vero Leonidas[PG80] ducebat, tanquam apros, exacuentes dentem: plurima autem circa ora spuma efflorescebat, plurimaque simul defluebat cruribus. Erant enim viri Persæ numero non pauciores, quam arena. Silvarum potens Diana venatrix, huc ades, virgo diva, ad fœdus nostrum, ut concordiam nostram diu tuearis, utque jam deinceps amicitia permaneat facilis, inito fœdere; et astutiam vulpinam missam faciamus: ô huc ades, ô venatrix virgo.

LYS. Agite nunc rebus bene peractis ceteris, abducite istas, ô Lacones; has autem, vos: vir apud mulierem, et mulier stet apud virum. Et deinde ob felicem rerum successum, choreis in deorum honorem ductis, caveamus deinceps rursus peccare.

CHOR. ATHEN. Adduc chorum, adduc etiam Gratias: præterea Dianam advoca; advoca etiam geminum Dianæ, chori ducem, Pæanem benignum: advoca Nysium, cui cum Mænadibus oculi sunt flagrantes: Jovemque igni coruscum, et conjugem venerandam advoca beatam: deinde vero deos, quibus testibus utemur non obliviosis circa magnanimam pacem, quam fecit diva Cypris. Alalæ io Pæan, tollite vos sublimes, io! tanquam victoria potiti, io! Euœ, euœ; Euæ, euæ. Lacon, tu jam profer cantilenam novam post novam.

CHOR. LAC. Taygetum amabilem relinquens, rursus veni Musa Lacæna, venerandum nobis celebrans Amyclarum deum, et Chalciœcam Minervam, Tyndaridasque fortes, qui ad Eurotam ludunt.[PG81] Eia naviter ingredere, levem pallii quatiens institam, ut Spartam celebremus, cui deorum chori sunt curæ, et pedum strepitus: puellæ vero propter Eurotam, ut pulli equini, subsultant, crebro pedum pulsu festinantes, comasque quassant, tanquam Bacchæ thyrsis ludentes. Præit autem Ledæ filia casta, dux chori pulchra. Sed age manu fluxos capillos implica vittæ, et pedibus salta, salta ut cerva: plausum simul fac choreis utilem, et divarum fortissimam Chalciœcam celebra, bellatricem.

FINIS.

Transcriber's Footnotes:

The following notes list typos in the "Oxford"-text that have been eliminated as well as differences between the "Oxford" and the "Leipzig"-versions.

[1] Leipzig: "existumant"

[2] Leipzig: "optumum"

[3] Leipzig: "De Athenis autem nil tale ominabor: aliud te suspicari velim.

[4] Missing in Leipzig-ed.

[5] Missing in Leipzig-ed.

[6] Typo in Oxford: "perpitam". Leipzig has "perditam".

[7] Leipzig: "et iuremus in calicem nos non infusuras."

[8] Leizpig: "Flocci eos facio."

[9] Leipzig: "festinandum et ocius"

[10] Leipzig: "mulierum examen foris succurrit."

[11] Leipzig: "an ut humanum exuras tibi?"

[12] Leipzig: "et ei glandem inseras."

[13] Leipzig: "Per Dianam iuro, extremam mihi si manum admoverit, quum sit publicus minister, flebit."

[14] Leipzig: "si hanc digito attigeris"

[15] Leipzig: "Tam vir"

[16] Leipzig: "Maxume"

[17] Leipzig: "lupides"

[18] Leipzig: "maxume"

[19] Leipzig: "Primam quidem deprehendi foramen repurgantem"

[20] Leipzig: "Et edepol prægnas sum."

[21] Leipzig: "tutubantium"

[22] Typo in Oxford: "Heu! hen!". Leipzig has "Heu! heu!".

[23] Leipzig: "intellego"

[24] Leipzig: "intellegis"

[25] Leipzig: "adveniunt tanquam suile vimineum circa femora adligatum habentes."

[26] Typo in Oxford: "mentulas nostas". Leipzig has "mentulas nostras".

[27] Leipzig: "ubicumque"

Footnotes (ex Project Gutenberg #8688):

[PG1] At Athens more than anywhere the festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus) were celebrated with the utmost pomp--and also with the utmost licence, not to say licentiousness.

Pan---the rustic god and king of the Satyrs; his feast was similarly an occasion of much coarse self-indulgence.

Aphrodité Colias--under this name the goddess was invoked by courtesans as patroness of sensual, physical love. She had a temple on the promontory of Colias, on the Attic coast--whence the surname.

The Genetyllides were minor deities, presiding over the act of generation, as the name indicates. Dogs were offered in sacrifice to them--presumably because of the lubricity of that animal.

At the festivals of Dionysus, Pan and Aphrodité women used to perform lascivious dances to the accompaniment of the beating of tambourines. Lysistrata implies that the women she had summoned to council cared really for nothing but wanton pleasures.

[PG2] An obscene _double entendre_; Calonicé understands, or pretends to understand, Lysistrata as meaning a long and thick "membrum virile"!

[PG3] The eels from Lake Copaïs in Boeotia were esteemed highly by epicures.

[PG4] This is the reproach Demosthenes constantly levelled against his Athenian fellow-countrymen--their failure to seize opportunity.

[PG5] An island of the Saronic Gulf, lying between Magara and Attica. It was separated by a narrow strait--scene of the naval battle of Salamis, in which the Athenians defeated Xerxes--only from the Attic coast, and was subject to Athens.

[PG6] A deme, or township, of Attica, lying five or six miles north of Athens. The Acharnians were throughout the most extreme partisans of the warlike party during the Peloponnesian struggle. See 'The Acharnians.'

[PG7] The precise reference is uncertain, and where the joke exactly comes in. The Scholiast says Theagenes was a rich, miserly and superstitious citizen, who never undertook any enterprise without first consulting an image of Hecaté, the distributor of honour and wealth according to popular belief; and his wife would naturally follow her husband's example.

[PG8] A deme of Attica, a small and insignificant community--a 'Little Pedlington' in fact.

[PG9] In allusion to the gymnastic training which was _de rigueur_ at Sparta for the women no less than the men, and in particular to the dance of the Lacedaemonian girls, in which the performer was expected to kick the fundament with the heels--always a standing joke among the Athenians against their rivals and enemies the Spartans.

[PG10] The allusion, of course, is to the 'garden of love,' the female parts, which it was the custom with the Greek women, as it is with the ladies of the harem in Turkey to this day, to depilate scrupulously, with the idea of making themselves more attractive to men.

[PG11] Corinth was notorious in the Ancient world for its prostitutes and general dissoluteness.

[PG12] An Athenian general strongly suspected of treachery; Aristophanes pretends his own soldiers have to see that he does not desert to the enemy.

[PG13] A town and fortress on the west coast of Messenia, south-east part of Peloponnese, at the northern extremity of the bay of Sphacteria--the scene by the by of the modern naval battle of Navarino-- in Lacedaemonian territory; it had been seized by the Athenian fleet, and was still in their possession at the date, 412 B.C., of the representation of the 'Lysistrata,' though two years later, in the twenty-second year of the War, it was recovered by Sparta.

[PG14] The Athenian women, rightly or wrongly, had the reputation of being over fond of wine. Aristophanes, here and elsewhere, makes many jests on this weakness of theirs.

[PG15] The lofty range of hills overlooking Sparta from the west.

[PG16] In the original "we are nothing but Poseidon and a boat"; the allusion is to a play of Sophocles, now lost, but familiar to Aristophanes' audience, entitled 'Tyro,' in which the heroine, Tyro, appears with Poseidon, the sea-god, at the beginning of the tragedy, and at the close with the two boys she had had by him, whom she exposes in an open boat.

[PG17] "By the two goddesses,"--a woman's oath, which recurs constantly in this play; the two goddesses are always Demeter and Proserpine.

[PG18] One of the Cyclades, between Naxos and Cos, celebrated, like the latter, for its manufacture of fine, almost transparent silks, worn in Greece, and later at Rome, by women of loose character.

[PG19] The proverb, quoted by Pherecrates, is properly spoken of those who go out of their way to do a thing already done--"to kill a dead horse," but here apparently is twisted by Aristophanes into an allusion to the leathern 'godemiche' mentioned a little above; if the worst comes to the worst, we must use artificial means. Pherecrates was a comic playwright, a contemporary of Aristophanes.

[PG20] Literally "our Scythian woman." At Athens, policemen and ushers in the courts were generally Scythians; so the revolting women must have _their_ Scythian "Usheress" too.

[PG21] In allusion to the oath which the seven allied champions before Thebes take upon a buckler, in Aeschylus' tragedy of 'The Seven against Thebes,' v. 42.

[PG22] A volcanic island in the northern part of the Aegaean, celebrated for its vineyards.

[PG23] The old men are carrying faggots and fire to burn down the gates of the Acropolis, and supply comic material by their panting and wheezing as they climb the steep approaches to the fortress and puff and blow at their fires. Aristophanes gives them names, purely fancy ones-- Draces, Strymodorus, Philurgus, Laches.

[PG24] Cleomenes, King of Sparta, had in the preceding century commanded a Lacedaemonian expedition against Athens. At the invitation of the Alcmaeonidae, enemies of the sons of Peisistratus, he seized the Acropolis, but after an obstinately contested siege was forced to capitulate and retire.

[PG25] Lemnos was proverbial with the Greeks for chronic misfortune and a succession of horrors and disasters. Can any good thing come out of _Lemnos_?

[PG26] That is, a friend of the Athenian people; Samos had just before the date of the play re-established the democracy and renewed the old alliance with Athens.

[PG27] A second Chorus enters--of women who are hurrying up with water to extinguish the fire just started by the Chorus of old men. Nicodicé, Calycé, Crityllé, Rhodippé, are fancy names the poet gives to different members of the band. Another, Stratyllis, has been stopped by the old men on her way to rejoin her companions.

[PG28] Bupalus was a celebrated contemporary sculptor, a native of Clazomenae. The satiric poet Hipponax, who was extremely ugly, having been portrayed by Bupalus as even more unsightly-looking than the reality, composed against the artist so scurrilous an invective that the latter hung himself in despair. Apparently Aristophanes alludes here to a verse in which Hipponax threatened to beat Bupalus.

[PG29] The Heliasts at Athens were the body of citizens chosen by lot to act as jurymen (or, more strictly speaking, as judges and jurymen, the Dicast, or so-called Judge, being merely President of the Court, the majority of the Heliasts pronouncing sentence) in the Heliaia, or High Court, where all offences liable to public prosecution were tried. They were 6000 in number, divided into ten panels of 500 each, a thousand being held in reserve to supply occasional vacancies. Each Heliast was paid three obols for each day's attendance in court.

[PG30] Women only celebrated the festivals of Adonis. These rites were not performed in public, but on the terraces and flat roofs of the houses.

[PG31] The Assembly, or Ecclesia, was the General Parliament of the Athenian people, in which every adult citizen had a vote. It met on the Pnyx hill, where the assembled Ecclesiasts were addressed from the Bema, or speaking-block.

[PG32] An orator and statesman who had first proposed the disastrous Sicilian Expedition, of 415-413 B.C. This was on the first day of the festival of Adonis--ever afterwards regarded by the Athenians as a day of ill omen.

[PG33] An island in the Ionian Sea, on the west of Greece, near Cephalenia, and an ally of Athens during the Peloponnesian War.

[PG34] Cholozyges, a nickname for Demostratus.

[PG35] The State treasure was kept in the Acropolis, which the women had seized.

[PG36] The second (mythical) king of Athens, successor of Cecrops.

[PG37] The leader of the Revolution which resulted in the temporary overthrow of the Democracy at Athens (413, 412 B.C.), and the establishment of the Oligarchy of the Four Hundred.

[PG38] Priests of Cybelé, who indulged in wild, frenzied dances, to the accompaniment of the clashing of cymbals, in their celebrations in honour of the goddess.

[PG39] Captain of a cavalry division; they were chosen from amongst the _Hippeis_, or 'Knights' at Athens.

[PG40] In allusion to a play of Euripides, now lost, with this title. Tereus was son of Ares and king of the Thracians in Daulis.

[PG41] An allusion to the disastrous Sicilian Expedition (415-413 B.C.), in which many thousands of Athenian citizens perished.

[PG42] The dead were laid out at Athens before the house door.

[PG43] An offering made to the Manes of the deceased on the third day after the funeral.

[PG44] Hippias and Hipparchus, the two sons of Pisistratus, known as the Pisistratidae, became Tyrants of Athens upon their father's death in 527 B.C. In 514 the latter was assassinated by the conspirators, Harmodius and Aristogiton, who took the opportunity of the Panathenaic festival and concealed their daggers in myrtle wreaths. They were put to death, but four years later the surviving Tyrant Hippias was expelled, and the young and noble martyrs to liberty were ever after held in the highest honour by their fellow-citizens. Their statues stood in the Agora or Public Market-Square.

[PG45] That is, the three obols paid for attendance as a Heliast at the High Court.

[PG46]] See above, under note 3 [Transcriber: "PG44"].

[PG47] The origin of the name was this: in ancient days a tame bear consecrated to Artemis, the huntress goddess, it seems, devoured a young girl, whose brothers killed the offender. Artemis was angered and sent a terrible pestilence upon the city, which only ceased when, by direction of the oracle, a company of maidens was dedicated to the deity, to act the part of she-bears in the festivities held annually in her honour at the _Brauronia_, her festival so named from the deme of Brauron in Attica.

[PG48] The Basket-Bearers, Canephoroi, at Athens were the maidens who, clad in flowing robes, carried in baskets on their heads the sacred implements and paraphernalia in procession at the celebrations in honour of Demeter, Dionysus and Athené.

[PG49] A treasure formed by voluntary contributions at the time of the Persian Wars; by Aristophanes' day it had all been dissipated, through the influence of successive demagogues, in distributions and gifts to the public under various pretexts.

[PG50] A town and fortress of Southern Attica, in the neighbourhood of Marathon, occupied by the Alcmaeonidae--the noble family or clan at Athens banished from the city in 595 B.C., restored 560, but again expelled by Pisistratus--in the course of their contest with that Tyrant. Returning to Athens on the death of Hippias (510 B.C.), they united with the democracy, and the then head of the family, Cleisthenes, gave a new constitution to the city.

[PG51] Queen of Halicarnassus, in Caria; an ally of the Persian King Xerxes in his invasion of Greece; she fought gallantly at the battle of Salamis.