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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]

 

Ah, here’s my neighbour—at least she’s come.1

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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