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Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Dramatis Personae
LYSISTRATA: a young Athenian wife
CALONICE: a mature married woman
MYRRHINE: a teenage wife
LAMPITO: a young country wife from Sparta
ISMENIA: a woman from Thebes
SCYTHIAN GIRL: one of Lysistrata’s slaves
MAGISTRATE: an elderly Athenian official
CINESIAS: husband of Myrrhine
CHILD: infant son of Myrrhine and Cinesias
MANES: servant nurse of the Child
HERALD: A Spartan envoy
CHORUS OF OLD MEN
CHORUS OF OLD WOMEN
ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR
SPARTAN AMBASSADOR
WOMAN A: one of the wives following Lysistrata
WOMAN B: one of the wives following Lysistrata
WOMAN C: one of the wives following Lysistrata
ARMED GUARDS: police officials attending on the Magistrate
WOMEN: followers of Lysistrata
RECONCILIATION: a goddess of harmony and peace
ATHENIAN DELEGATES
SPARTAN DELEGATES
SLAVES AND ATTENDANTS
[The action of the play takes place in a street in Athens, with the
citadel on the Acropolis in the back, its doors facing the audience]
LYSISTRATA
If they’d called a Bacchic celebration
or some festival for Pan or Colias
or for Genetyllis, you’d not be able
to move around through all the kettle drums.
But as it is, there are no women here.
[Calonice enters, coming to meet Lysistrata]
1Ah, here’s my neighbour—at least she’s come.
Hello, Calonice.
CALONICE
Hello, Lysistrata.
What’s bothering you, child? Don’t look so annoyed.
It doesn’t suit you. Your eyes get wrinkled.
LYSISTRATA
My heart’s on fire, Calonice—I’m so angry 10
at married women, at us, because, [10]
although men say we’re devious characters . . .
CALONICE [interrupting]
Because by god we are!
LYSISTRATA [continuing]
. . . when I call them all
to meet here to discuss some serious business,
they just stay in bed and don’t show up.
CALONICE
Ah, my dear, they’ll come. It’s not so easy
for wives to get away. We’ve got to fuss
about our husbands, wake up the servants,
calm and wash the babies, then give them food . . .
LYSISTRATA
But there are other things they need to do— 20 [20]
more important issues.
CALONICE
My dear Lysistrata,
why have you asked the women to meet here?
What’s going on? Is it something big?
LYSISTRATA
It’s huge.
CALONICE
And hard as well?
LYSISTRATA
Yes, by god, really hard.
CALONICE
Then why aren’t we all here?
LYSISTRATA
I don’t mean that!
If that were it, they’d all be charging here so fast.
No. It’s something I’ve been playing with—
wrestling with for many sleepless nights.
CALONICE
If you’ve been working it like that, by now
it must have shrivelled up.
LYSISTRATA
Yes, so shrivelled up 30
that the salvation of the whole of Greece [30]
is now in women’s hands.
CALONICE
In women’s hands?
Then it won’t be long before we done for.
LYSISTRATA
It’s up to us to run the state’s affairs—
the Spartans would no longer be around.
CALONICE
If they weren’t there, by god, not any more,
that would be good news.
LYSISTRATA
And then if all Boeotians
were totally destroyed!
CALONICE
Not all of them—
Lysistrata by Aristophanes - an excerpt
1. . . at least she’s come: Lysistrata is complaining that if the city had called a major festival all the women would be in the streets enjoying themselves. But none of them, it seems, has answered her invitation to a meeting (as we find out a few lines further on).
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