CHORUS OF WOMEN. By the blessed goddesses, if you anger me, I will let loose the beast of my evil passions, and a very hailstorm of blows will set you yelling for help. Come, dames, off tunics, and quick's the word; women must scent the savour of women in the throes of passion.... Now just you dare to measure strength with me, old greybeard, and I warrant you you'll never eat garlic or black beans more. No, not a word! my anger is at boiling point, and I'll do with you what the beetle did with the eagle's eggs.[443] I laugh at your threats, so long as I have on my side Lampito here, and the noble Theban, my dear Ismenia.... Pass decree on decree, you can do us no hurt, you wretch abhorred of all your fellows. Why, only yesterday, on occasion of the feast of Hecaté, I asked my neighbours of Boeotia for one of their daughters for whom my girls have a lively liking--a fine, fat eel to wit; and if they did not refuse, all along of your silly decrees! We shall never cease to suffer the like, till someone gives you a neat trip-up and breaks your neck for you! CHORUS OF WOMEN (_addressing Lysistrata_). You, Lysistrata, you who are leader of our glorious enterprise, why do I see you coming towards me with so gloomy an air? LYSISTRATA. 'Tis the behaviour of these naughty women, 'tis the female heart and female weakness so discourages me. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Tell us, tell us, what is it? LYSISTRATA. I only tell the simple truth. CHORUS OF WOMEN. What has happened so disconcerting; come, tell your friends. LYSISTRATA. Oh! the thing is so hard to tell--yet so impossible to conceal. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Nay, never seek to hide any ill that has befallen our cause. LYSISTRATA. To blurt it out in a word--we are in heat! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Oh! Zeus, oh! Zeus! LYSISTRATA. What use calling upon Zeus? The thing is even as I say. I cannot stop them any longer from lusting after the men. They are all for deserting. The first I caught was slipping out by the postern gate near the cave of Pan; another was letting herself down by a rope and pulley; a third was busy preparing her escape; while a fourth, perched on a bird's back, was just taking wing for Orsilochus' house,[444] when I seized her by the hair. One and all, they are inventing excuses to be off home. Look! there goes one, trying to get out! Halloa there! whither away so fast? FIRST WOMAN. I want to go home; I have some Miletus wool in the house, which is getting all eaten up by the worms. LYSISTRATA. Bah! you and your worms! go back, I say! FIRST WOMAN. I will return immediately, I swear I will by the two goddesses! I only have just to spread it out on the bed. LYSISTRATA. You shall not do anything of the kind! I say, you shall not go. FIRST WOMAN. Must I leave my wool to spoil then? LYSISTRATA. Yes, if need be. SECOND WOMAN. Unhappy woman that I am! Alas for my flax! I've left it at home unstript! LYSISTRATA. So, here's another trying to escape to go home and strip her flax forsooth!