go spin!”[25] But they will put up with it no longer. As they have always had wit enough to clear the tangled threads in their work, so they have no doubt of settling all these difficulties and complications in international disputes, if it is left to them. But what concern, her opponent asks, can women have with war, who contribute nothing to its dangers and hardships? “Contribute, indeed!” says the lady--“we contribute the sons who carry it on.” And she throws down to her adversary her hood, her basket, and her spindle, and bids him “go home and card wool,”--it is all such old men are fit for; henceforth the proverb (of the men’s making) shall be reversed,--“War shall be the care of the women.” The magistrate retires, not having got the best of it, very naturally, in an encounter of words; and the Chorus of elders raise the cry--well known as a popular partisan-cry at Athens, and sure to call forth a hearty laugh in such juxtaposition--that the women are designing to “set up a Tyranny!” But poor Lysistrata soon has her troubles. Her unworthy recruits are fast deserting her. They are going off to their husbands in the most sneaking manner--creeping out through the little hole under the citadel which led to the celebrated cave of Pan, and letting themselves down from the walls by ropes at the risk of breaking their necks. Those who are caught all have excellent excuses. One has some fleeces of fine Milesian wool at home which _must_ be seen to,--she is sure the moths are eating them. Another has urgent occasion for the doctor; a third cannot sleep alone for fear of the owls--of which, as every one knows, there were really a great many at Athens. The husbands, too, are getting uncomfortable without their housekeepers; there is no one to cook their victuals; and one poor soul comes and humbly entreats his wife at least to come home to wash and dress the baby. It is becoming plain that either the war or the wives’ resolution will soon give way, when there arrives an embassy from Sparta. _They_ cannot stand this general strike of the wives. They are agreed already with their enemies the Athenians on one point--as to the women--that the old Greek comedian’s[26] proverb, which we have borrowed and translated freely, is true,-- There is no living with ’em--or without ’em.