Fletcher Flora - Lysistrata

“Why should she do such a monstrous thing? Furthermore, why should he let her get away with it? Can you answer those questions?”

“As to why he lets her, I can’t answer. But she is doing it in rebellion against the war. She will not have anything more to do with him until he refuses to do with it.”

“I’m actually beginning to believe you. Surely you could have no purpose in making up a fantastic tale like this.”

“It’s true. She’s rebelling against the war.”

“Well, I am against the war myself, since it made a slave of me, but I declare that this is carrying things too far. If I were the Master, I would know how to lay this rebellion promptly.”

“That, of course, is the exact remedy, and if you know how to accomplish it, you had better confer with the Master at once, for he apparently doesn’t.”

“I’ll mind my own business, that’s what I’ll do. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do the same.”

“I am not involved, being a slave, but my feelings are on the side of the Mistress. I agree that men have been allowed to behave like idiots in regard to this war far longer than should be essential to their silly pride.”

“What do you know about the war?”

“I know a great deal, for the Mistress has instructed me.”

“It seems to me that the Mistress has been instructing you in a good many matters, directly or indirectly.”

“That’s true. We are on good terms and frequently exchange pleasantries and even intimacies.”

“I imagine you are also her private spy and make reports on the activities of the other household slaves.”

“Do you, really? If so, perhaps you had better mend your manners.”

“If you don’t want to find yourself simmering in the pot in little pieces, you had better not peddle any tales about me.”

“I am tempted, as a matter of fact, to tell her that you pinch and pat my behind in an offensive manner.”

“In that case, I may as well give you the evidence to prove it.”

Reaching for her quickly with a strong hand, he gave her a pinch that was calculated to leave a beautiful bruise, and she fled with a squeal from the kitchen.

Lysistrata found Calonice, as Theoris had directed, waiting in the court near the statue of Hestia. It was apparent at once, even from a distance, that Calonice was truly in a state of excitement. Her dark eyes sparkled, her body seemed actually to vibrate beneath its peplos, and she looked at Lysistrata as if the latter had somehow undergone metamorphosis since the day before yesterday, becoming in the interim a strange and incredible person.

“What on earth has happened to you, Calonice?” Lysistrata said. “You look as if you were in danger of exploding at any moment.”

“I don’t believe it for an instant,” Calonice said. “I didn’t believe you were capable of it when you were advocating such a course for me, and I don’t believe it now.”

“Will you kindly be good enough to tell me what it is you don’t believe?”

“You know perfectly well what it is. Acron has told me that you refused accommodation to Lycon. Is it true? If you tell me that it is, I suppose I’ll be compelled to believe it then, but I shall find it difficult.

“May I ask how Acron happens to be informed on such a matter?”

“Why, Lycon told him, of course. Or so he claims. How else would he become informed?”

“I am astonished that he’s informed at all. In fact, it is quite distressing and is further evidence of masculine irresponsibility. Men are always accusing us of having loose tongues, but they themselves cannot retain the most delicate matters. Do you suppose it becomes a topic of conversation in the marketplace every time we make love?”

“I do wish you wouldn’t try to evade answering my question, Lysistrata. Besides, this is not a case of Lycon’s reporting that you made love, but that you refused to do so. You will have to admit that there’s a distinction.”

“The principle, I think, is the same.”

“Well, you may be as technical as you choose about it, but all I want to know is, is it true or not true?”

“It is perfectly true.”

“That was the night before last, however. I imagine that conditions have changed since then.”

“On the contrary, conditions are exactly the same.”

“It’s absolutely incredible. As I thought, I am having difficulty believing it. Could you possibly have a motive for lying about such a matter?”

“That’s something you will have to determine for yourself, although I feel obligated to say that I resent your attitude somewhat, Calonice. I advised you to adopt such a policy with Acron, and now I have adopted it with Lycon, and that’s all there is to it.”

“What, may I ask, do you hope to gain from such a policy, besides depriving yourself needlessly of simple pleasure which is available, because of the war, all too seldom at best?”

“Perhaps I hope to make it available more frequently. Regularly, as a matter of fact. At any rate, I am determined to play for all or nothing. Lycon will stay sensibly at home and be a husband, or I shall quit being a wife. This is, in my opinion, a perfectly fair position.”

“Suppose he refuses to concede.”

“Then I have no husband, and he has no wife. Since this is a state which prevails most of the time anyhow, the loss would not be nearly so great as might be at first imagined. On the other hand, the gain, if I am successful, will be considerable.”

“I see that you have thought the matter through admirably.”

“If I do say so myself, I believe I have. I have even considered the consequences if all the wives of Athens were to follow my example.”

“The first consequence, as I see it, would be to drive all the husbands into the arms of the hetairai and the pornai of the Piraeus immediately. Do you wish us to be replaced entirely by whores?”

“The hetairai and the pornai don’t have enough arms to take care of all the husbands. Besides, such women are not satisfactory indefinitely and would fail to provide adequate compensation. When a man loses a wife, he loses more than a bedmate, as you know. He loses a mother and a housekeeper and a priestess and a minor physician, and most of all he loses what he considers in his heart a piece of property. This is the hardest possible blow to his foolish pride, as well as to his sense of economy.”

“Do you really imagine that the wives of Athens would follow you in such a program?”

“It’s at least conceivable.”

“And if so, do you imagine the husbands would come to terms?”

“That’s also conceivable.”

“What then? Do the Spartans invade Attica and slaughter us all in our beds while we are making up lost time?”

“You are pursuing the same line of questioning as Lycon last night, and I will give you the same answer. It would be necessary, of course, to arrange matters so that the Spartans would be occupied at home as we would be. Also the Boeotians and all the other parties to this stupid and boring war.”

“Under the same kind of coercion?”

“Precisely.”

“A world revolution of wives?”

“All the world of immediate consequence to us, at any rate.”

“Lysistrata, I declare that you are suffering from delusions of grandeur.”

“Not at all. I conceive of women united in good sense, which is surely no more impossible than the union for twenty years of men in idiocy.”

“Do you expect the men to capitulate immediately?”

“Not immediately.”

“After how long?”

“I’ll not venture an exact prediction. Sooner than you might think, I dare say.”

“It would require organization and simultaneous action.”