Fletcher Flora - Lysistrata

After the conclusion of his ultimatum, which he considered conservative and well-spoken, a shrill cackling of derision rose from the body of women before the gates, and the shrillest and most terrifying of all was the cackling of Nausica herself. Draces paled perceptibly and took a quick step backward.

“Are you serious, Draces?” Nausica said. “Do you honestly expect us to submit meekly to a nasty old man who jumps out of his chiton at the first raising of a stick? It is clear from the way you hesitate and prod yourself with words that you are nothing but a windbag. If you wish to roast my backside with your faggot, I invite you to come forward and try, and I promise that you shall soon see what our pots of water are for.”

“I can bear no more!” cried Draces. “I absolutely can bear not another insult from this unspeakable woman who desecrates our shrines and mocks their keepers.” Raising his smoking faggot he flourished it again above his head, causing it to burst suddenly into flame. “Forward!” he cried. “Forward into the citadel!”

He had not intended to issue the command so precipitately. Goaded into a kind of frenzied indiscretion by Nausica’s mockery, as well as by his own brave words, he did not allow himself time to assume a more tactical position of command, slightly more to the rear, and he was caught in the sudden surge of old men and propelled in spite of himself toward the ferocious Nausica. Picking up her pot, she dowsed him thoroughly with hot water and was upon him in an instant with her terrible stick. To make matters worse, the shock of the water caused him to drop his faggot, thus depriving him of his only weapon, and all he could do, being prevented from running by the press behind him, was to dance wildly in a futile effort to avoid the stick, and to cry out in a shrill voice for immediate help. All around him was a welter of action, which was characterized primarily by flailing sticks and howling old men, and which was made all the more sinister in effect by a great hissing and boiling of steam and smoke as water struck the faggots.

“Cadmus!” cried Draces. “Curse me, Cadmus, if you do not rescue me from your vicious bitch this instant, you will surely suffer severely!”

But Cadmus did not hear, and he certainly would not have responded if he had. He was by that time, in fact, a substantial distance down the zig-zag path on his way to the foot of the hill. Reacting more shrewdly and promptly than Draces to the occasion, he had immediately fallen flat on his face when the impetuous command to advance had been given. He had thus avoided being trapped by the surge that had carried Draces to his unfortunate engagement with Nausica. To be sure, he was somewhat trampled by the old men, but this was, in his judgment, preferable to being beaten and scalded.

Behind him on the path, he could hear the groans and wheezing of Draces’ retreating troops. The old fools, so far as he could see, were as great a menace as the rebellious women, and they could not understand that a man with a philosophical turn of mind simply was not cut out for this sort of rude business. It was true, of course, that Socrates himself had twice performed military service, but this was clearly exceptional and could not be taken as an example of what should be expected.

He did not even wait for the others at the foot of the hill.

“Nausica,” said Lysistrata, “you have been inspirational and indispensable from the start, and I wish to commend you.”

“I seem to have a particular knack for military affairs,” said Nausica, “and that’s the truth.”

“I understand that the old men were thrown into confusion and disorder without delay. You have certainly acquitted yourself nobly, there’s no mistake about that. Do you anticipate still another attack?”

“No, I don’t, though we shall be prepared in any event. They were utterly routed and demoralized, and I consider it unlikely that they will venture again to accomplish what we have plainly demonstrated to be impossible. Oh, they were perfectly ludicrous, to tell the truth, and you would have laughed to see them coming up the hill with their chitons flapping around their spindly shanks. They waved their silly faggots and made threats against our backsides.”

“Truly? I know that I would have been greatly amused, and I regret that I was compelled to miss it by being otherwise engaged.”

“Well, I regret it, too, for you will certainly not believe me when I tell you who was in the forefront of the attackers.”

“According to my report, they were led by Draces.”

“That’s true. Draces was the leader, but at his side, obviously under some kind of compulsion, was no one but Cadmus.”

“Are you actually telling the truth? Cadmus beside Draces? That’s quite enough to make me laugh even in the telling, Nausica. I would have sworn that Cadmus was not the type to participate in anything that involved the slightest peril.”

“So he isn’t. But he was plainly present under some kind of compulsion. It would have been disgusting, if not so comical, to see how he behaved. It is no exaggeration to say that he was as white as your peplos, and he was shaking so that his teeth must have rattled like tambourines, if only it had been possible to hear them above the general confusion. Cadmus is a good provider and for the most part satisfactory as a husband, but he does not make a favorable impression under stress, and I am the first to admit it. In my opinion, he was sneaking about the outskirts and was detected and forced to do his share.”

“You threshed him soundly with your stick, of course.”

“I was unable to do it, as a matter of fact, for he miraculously disappeared in the thick of things. I have been puzzling about it ever since, and I can’t understand for the life of me how he accomplished it. First he was there, and then he simply wasn’t.”

Lysistrata, who was about to comment on this mystery, closed her mouth without speaking and stood staring intently over Nausica’s shoulder.

“Here are Calonice and Myrrhine coming in a hurry,” she said, “and it is apparent that something has occurred which requires my attention.”

Nausica turned and looked in the direction indicated by Lysistrata’s gaze.

“Yes,” she said. “They seem quite excited, for a fact, but this does not necessarily mean, in respect to Calonice and Myrrhine, that they have anything particularly significant on their minds.”

“True,” said Lysistrata. “But there is no use speculating, for we shall know at once. Calonice, whatever has prompted you and Myrrhine to come rushing at us in this alarming fashion?”

Calonice and Myrrhine, clearly convinced that they were bearing important news, however it might be evaluated in the end by Lysistrata, stopped and gasped and struggled to speak, and Calonice managed it first.

“There is a Magistrate at the gate,” Calonice said, “who demands admission.”

“Does he, indeed? And you admitted him without delay, naturally, and gave him every consideration.”

“To be truthful, I didn’t. Should I have? I was definitely under the impression, Lysistrata, that no man was to be admitted.”

“Oh, well, Calonice, I suppose it is futile to expect you to grasp the subtleties of irony. You were quite right in not admitting him.”

“I’m relieved to hear it, for we shut the gate in his face and called him names.”

“Good. What was his reaction to that?”

“He has with him a force of absolutely gigantic Scythians, and he is calling upon them to break down the gate.”

“The worse luck for them if they do. If they come inside the walls we shall certainly flay them properly with our sticks.”

“As for me,” said Nausica, “I had as soon beat a Scythian as an Athenian, and I might even prefer it, since they are not citizens.”