LYSISTRATA. Oh! Calonicé, my heart is on fire; I blush for our sex. Men _will_ have it we are tricky and sly.... CALONICÉ. And they are quite right, upon my word! LYSISTRATA. Yet, look you, when the women are summoned to meet for a matter of the last importance, they lie abed instead of coming. CALONICÉ. Oh! they will come, my dear; but 'tis not easy, you know, for women to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep, or washing the brat or feeding it. LYSISTRATA. But I tell you, the business that calls them here is far and away more urgent. CALONICÉ. And why _do_ you summon us, dear Lysistrata? What is it all about? LYSISTRATA. About a big affair.[391] CALONICÉ. And is it thick too? LYSISTRATA. Yes indeed, both big and great. CALONICÉ. And we are not all on the spot! LYSISTRATA. Oh! if it were what you suppose, there would be never an absentee. No, no, it concerns a thing I have turned about and about this way and that of many sleepless nights. CALONICÉ. It must be something mighty fine and subtle for you to have turned it about so! LYSISTRATA. So fine, it means just this, Greece saved by the women! CALONICÉ. By women! Why, its salvation hangs on a poor thread then! LYSISTRATA. Our country's fortunes depend on us--it is with us to undo utterly the Peloponnesians.... CALONICÉ. That would be a noble deed truly! LYSISTRATA. To exterminate the Boeotians to a man! CALONICÉ. But surely you would spare the eels.[392] LYSISTRATA. For Athens' sake I will never threaten so fell a doom; trust me for that. However, if the Boeotian and Peloponnesian women join us, Greece is saved. CALONICÉ. But how should women perform so wise and glorious an achievement, we women who dwell in the retirement of the household, clad in diaphanous garments of yellow silk and long flowing gowns, decked out with flowers and shod with dainty little slippers? LYSISTRATA. Nay, but those are the very sheet-anchors of our salvation--those yellow tunics, those scents and slippers, those cosmetics and transparent robes. CALONICÉ. How so, pray? LYSISTRATA. There is not a man will wield a lance against another ... CALONICÉ. Quick, I will get me a yellow tunic from the dyer's. LYSISTRATA. ... or want a shield. CALONICÉ. I'll run and put on a flowing gown. LYSISTRATA. ... or draw a sword. CALONICÉ. I'll haste and buy a pair of slippers this instant. LYSISTRATA. Now tell me, would not the women have done best to come? CALONICÉ. Why, they should have _flown_ here! LYSISTRATA. Ah! my dear, you'll see that like true Athenians, they will do everything too late[393].... Why, there's not a woman come from the shoreward parts, not one from Salamis.[394] CALONICÉ. But I know for certain they embarked at daybreak. LYSISTRATA. And the dames from Acharnae![395] why, I thought they would have been the very first to arrive.