SECOND WOMAN. Oh! I swear by the goddess of light, the instant I have put it in condition I will come straight back. LYSISTRATA. You shall do nothing of the kind! If once you began, others would want to follow suit. THIRD WOMAN. Oh! goddess divine, Ilithyia, patroness of women in labour, stay, stay the birth, till I have reached a spot less hallowed than Athene's Mount! LYSISTRATA. What mean you by these silly tales? THIRD WOMAN. I am going to have a child--now, this minute. LYSISTRATA. But you were not pregnant yesterday! THIRD WOMAN. Well, I am to-day. Oh! let me go in search of the midwife, Lysistrata, quick, quick! LYSISTRATA. What is this fable you are telling me? Ah! what have you got there so hard? THIRD WOMAN. A male child. LYSISTRATA. No, no, by Aphrodité! nothing of the sort! Why, it feels like something hollow--a pot or a kettle. Oh! you baggage, if you have not got the sacred helmet of Pallas--and you said you were with child! THIRD WOMAN. And so I am, by Zeus, I am! LYSISTRATA. Then why this helmet, pray? THIRD WOMAN. For fear my pains should seize me in the Acropolis; I mean to lay my eggs in this helmet, as the doves do. LYSISTRATA. Excuses and pretences every word! the thing's as clear as daylight. Anyway, you must stay here now till the fifth day, your day of purification. THIRD WOMAN. I cannot sleep any more in the Acropolis, now I have seen the snake that guards the Temple. FOURTH WOMAN. Ah! and those confounded owls with their dismal hooting! I cannot get a wink of rest, and I'm just dying of fatigue. LYSISTRATA. You wicked women, have done with your falsehoods! You want your husbands, that's plain enough. But don't you think they want you just as badly? They are spending dreadful nights, oh! I know that well enough. But hold out, my dears, hold out! A little more patience, and the victory will be ours. An Oracle promises us success, if only we remain united. Shall I repeat the words? FIRST WOMAN. Yes, tell us what the Oracle declares. LYSISTRATA. Silence then! Now--"Whenas the swallows, fleeing before the hoopoes, shall have all flocked together in one place, and shall refrain them from all amorous commerce, then will be the end of all the ills of life; yea, and Zeus, which doth thunder in the skies, shall set above what was erst below...." CHORUS OF WOMEN. What! shall the men be underneath? LYSISTRATA. "But if dissension do arise among the swallows, and they take wing from the holy Temple, 'twill be said there is never a more wanton bird in all the world." CHORUS OF WOMEN. Ye gods! the prophecy is clear. Nay, never let us be cast down by calamity! let us be brave to bear, and go back to our posts. 'Twere shameful indeed not to trust the promises of the Oracle.