Aristophanes -- Translations into English; Athens (Greece) -- Drama; Comedy plays; Greek drama (Comedy) -- Translations into English
MAGISTRATE. Enough said! do not recall sad and sorry memories![430]
LYSISTRATA. Then secondly, instead of enjoying the pleasures of love and
making the best of our youth and beauty, we are left to languish far from
our husbands, who are all with the army. But say no more of ourselves;
what afflicts me is to see our girls growing old in lonely grief.
MAGISTRATE. Don't the men grow old too?
LYSISTRATA. That is not the same thing. When the soldier returns from the
wars, even though he has white hair, he very soon finds a young wife. But
a woman has only one summer; if she does not make hay while the sun
shines, no one will afterwards have anything to say to her, and she
spends her days consulting oracles, that never send her a husband.
MAGISTRATE. But the old man who can still erect his organ ...
LYSISTRATA. But you, why don't you get done with it and die? You are
rich; go buy yourself a bier, and I will knead you a honey-cake for
Cerberus. Here, take this garland. (_Drenching him with water._)
FIRST WOMAN. And this one too. (_Drenching him with water._)
SECOND WOMAN. And these fillets. (_Drenching him with water._)
LYSISTRATA. What do you lack more? Step aboard the boat; Charon is
waiting for you, you're keeping him from pushing off.
MAGISTRATE. To treat me so scurvily! What an insult! I will go show
myself to my fellow-magistrates just as I am.
LYSISTRATA. What! are you blaming us for not having exposed you according
to custom?[431] Nay, console yourself; we will not fail to offer up the
third-day sacrifice for you, first thing in the morning.[432]
CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Awake, friends of freedom; let us hold ourselves aye
ready to act. I suspect a mighty peril; I foresee another Tyranny like
Hippias'.[433] I am sore afraid the Laconians assembled here with
Cleisthenes have, by a stratagem of war, stirred up these women, enemies
of the gods, to seize upon our treasury and the funds whereby I
lived.[434] Is it not a sin and a shame for them to interfere in advising
the citizens, to prate of shields and lances, and to ally themselves with
Laconians, fellows I trust no more than I would so many famished wolves?
The whole thing, my friends, is nothing else but an attempt to
re-establish Tyranny. But I will never submit; I will be on my guard for
the future; I will always carry a blade hidden under myrtle boughs; I
will post myself in the Public Square under arms, shoulder to shoulder
with Aristogiton;[435] and now, to make a start, I must just break a few
of that cursed old jade's teeth yonder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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