The Eleven Comedies Vol 1 Part 44

LYSISTRATA. But where get a white horse from?

CALONICe. Well, what oath shall we take then?

LYSISTRATA. Listen to me. Let's set a great black bowl on the ground; let's sacrifice a skin of Thasian[411] wine into it, and take oath not to add one single drop of water.

LAMPITO. Ah! that's an oath pleases me more than I can say.

LYSISTRATA. Let them bring me a bowl and a skin of wine.

CALONICe. Ah! my dears, what a n.o.ble big bowl! what a delight 'twill be to empty it!

LYSISTRATA. Set the bowl down on the ground, and lay your hands on the victim.... Almighty G.o.ddess, Persuasion, and thou, bowl, boon comrade of joy and merriment, receive this our sacrifice, and be propitious to us poor women!

CALONICe. Oh! the fine red blood! how well it flows!

LAMPITO. And what a delicious savour, by the G.o.ddesses twain!

LYSISTRATA. Now, my dears, let me swear first, if you please.

CALONICe. No, by the G.o.ddess of love, let us decide that by lot.

LYSISTRATA. Come then, Lampito, and all of you, put your hands to the bowl; and do you, Calonice, repeat in the name of all the solemn terms I am going to recite. Then you must all swear, and pledge yourselves by the same promises.-"I will have naught to do whether with lover or husband...."

CALONICe. I will have naught to do whether with lover or husband....

LYSISTRATA. Albeit he come to me with stiff and standing tool....

CALONICe. Albeit he come to me with stiff and standing tool.... Oh!

Lysistrata, I cannot bear it!

LYSISTRATA. I will live at home in perfect chast.i.ty....

CALONICe. I will live at home in perfect chast.i.ty....

LYSISTRATA. Beautifully dressed and wearing a saffron-coloured gown....

CALONICe. Beautifully dressed and wearing a saffron-coloured gown....

LYSISTRATA. To the end I may inspire my husband with the most ardent longings.

CALONICe. To the end I may inspire my husband with the most ardent longings.

LYSISTRATA. Never will I give myself voluntarily....

CALONICe. Never will I give myself voluntarily....

LYSISTRATA. And if he has me by force....

CALONICe. And if he has me by force....

LYSISTRATA. I will be cold as ice, and never stir a limb....

CALONICe. I will be cold as ice, and never stir a limb....

LYSISTRATA. I will not lift my legs in air....

CALONICe. I will not lift my legs in air....

LYSISTRATA. Nor will I crouch with bottom upraised, like carven lions on a knife-handle.

CALONICe. Nor will I crouch with bottom upraised, like carven lions on a knife-handle.

LYSISTRATA. An if I keep my oath, may I be suffered to drink of this wine.

CALONICe. An if I keep my oath, may I be suffered to drink of this wine.

LYSISTRATA. But if I break it, let my bowl be filled with water.

CALONICe. But if I break it, let my bowl be filled with water.

LYSISTRATA. Will ye all take this oath?

MYRRHINe. Yes, yes!

LYSISTRATA. Then lo! I immolate the victim. (She drinks.)

CALONICe. Enough, enough, my dear; now let us all drink in turn to cement our friendship.

LAMPITO. Hark! what do those cries mean?

LYSISTRATA. 'Tis what I was telling you; the women have just occupied the Acropolis. So now, Lampito, do you return to Sparta to organize the plot, while your comrades here remain as hostages. For ourselves, let us away to join the rest in the citadel, and let us push the bolts well home.

CALONICe. But don't you think the men will march up against us?

LYSISTRATA. I laugh at them. Neither threats nor flames shall force our doors; they shall open only on the conditions I have named.

CALONICe. Yes, yes, by the G.o.ddess of love! let us keep up our old-time repute for obstinacy and spite.

CHORUS OF OLD MEN.[412] Go easy, Draces, go easy; why, your shoulder is all chafed by these plaguey heavy olive stocks. But forward still, forward, man, as needs must. What unlooked-for things do happen, to be sure, in a long life! Ah! Strymodorus, who would ever have thought it? Here we have the women, who used, for our misfortune, to eat our bread and live in our houses, daring nowadays to lay hands on the holy image of the G.o.ddess, to seize the Acropolis and draw bars and bolts to keep any from entering! Come, Philurgus man, let's hurry thither; let's lay our f.a.ggots all about the citadel, and on the blazing pile burn with our hands these vile conspiratresses, one and all-and Lycon's wife, Lysistrata, first and foremost! Nay, by Demeter, never will I let 'em laugh at me, whiles I have a breath left in my body. Cleomenes himself,[413] the first who ever seized our citadel, had to quit it to his sore dishonour; spite his Lacedaemonian pride, he had to deliver me up his arms and slink off with a single garment to his back. My word! but he was filthy and ragged! and what an unkempt beard, to be sure! He had not had a bath for six long years! Oh! but that was a mighty siege! Our men were ranged seventeen deep before the gate, and never left their posts, even to sleep. These women, these enemies of Euripides and all the G.o.ds, shall I do nothing to hinder their inordinate insolence? else let them tear down my trophies of Marathon. But look ye, to finish our toilsome climb, we have only this last steep bit left to mount. Verily 'tis no easy job without beasts of burden, and how these logs do bruise my shoulder! Still let us on, and blow up our fire and see it does not go out just as we reach our destination. Phew! phew! (blows the fire). Oh! dear! what a dreadful smoke! it bites my eyes like a mad dog. It is Lemnos[414] fire for sure, or it would never devour my eyelids like this. Come on, Laches, let's hurry, let's bring succour to the G.o.ddess; it's now or never! Phew! phew! (blows the fire). Oh! dear! what a confounded smoke!-There now, there's our fire all bright and burning, thank the G.o.ds! Now, why not first put down our loads here, then take a vine-branch, light it at the brazier and hurl it at the gate by way of battering-ram? If they don't answer our summons by pulling back the bolts, then we set fire to the woodwork, and the smoke will choke 'em. Ye G.o.ds! what a smoke! Pfaugh! Is there never a Samos general will help me unload my burden?[415]-Ah! it shall not gall my shoulder any more. (Tosses down his wood.) Come, brazier, do your duty, make the embers flare, that I may kindle a brand; I want to be the first to hurl one. Aid me, heavenly Victory; let us punish for their insolent audacity the women who have seized our citadel, and may we raise a trophy of triumph for success!

CHORUS OF WOMEN.[416] Oh! my dears, methinks I see fire and smoke; can it be a conflagration? Let us hurry all we can. Fly, fly, Nicodice, ere Calyce and Critylle perish in the fire, or are stifled in the smoke raised by these accursed old men and their pitiless laws. But, great G.o.ds, can it be I come too late? Rising at dawn, I had the utmost trouble to fill this vessel at the fountain. Oh! what a crowd there was, and what a din! What a rattling of water-pots! Servants and slave-girls pushed and thronged me! However, here I have it full at last; and I am running to carry the water to my fellow townswomen, whom our foes are plotting to burn alive. News has been brought us that a company of old, doddering greybeards, loaded with enormous f.a.ggots, as if they wanted to heat a furnace, have taken the field, vomiting dreadful threats, crying that they must reduce to ashes these horrible women. Suffer them not, oh! G.o.ddess, but, of thy grace, may I see Athens and Greece cured of their warlike folly. 'Tis to this end, oh! thou guardian deity of our city, G.o.ddess of the golden crest, that they have seized thy sanctuary. Be their friend and ally, Athene, and if any man hurl against them lighted firebrands, aid us to carry water to extinguish them.

STRATYLLIS. Let me be, I say. Oh! oh! (She calls for help.)

CHORUS OF WOMEN. What is this I see, ye wretched old men? Honest and pious folk ye cannot be who act so vilely.

CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah, ha! here's something new! a swarm of women stand posted outside to defend the gates!

CHORUS OF WOMEN. Ah! ah! we frighten you, do we; we seem a mighty host, yet you do not see the ten-thousandth part of our s.e.x.