Fletcher Flora - Lysistrata

“Perhaps a good beating would change your mind,” he said.

“I’m quite prepared to have you beat me,” she said, “because you are a superior person and have learned to handle all problems by hitting someone with your fist or an axe, or by sticking him with a spear. There is really no reason why you should make an exception of your wife. Nevertheless I don’t wish to move over and make ready for the simple reason that I have got out of the habit. You are gone so much of the time that I have learned to amuse myself in other ways, and I may even take up philosophy in the manner of Aspasia.”

“Well, that just shows how little you know about anything at all. Aspasia was one of the hetairai, the consort of Pericles himself, and you can bet your girdle that both of them considered philosophy a poor second in the way of amusement to the habit you claim to have got out of.”

“I don’t doubt it at all, especially on the part of Pericles, for he was obviously a dunce who didn’t know the true value of anything.”

This was just something to say for an argument, for the truth was that she didn’t know or care any more about philosophy than a Boeotian eel, and she was really just as eager to move over and make ready as Lycon was to have her do it. What she planned, however, was to hold out for concessions, and she was determined on this in spite of everything.

As for Lycon, when she slandered Pericles in such a reckless fashion, he looked at her in horror, as if he expected her to be split up the middle at any second by a thunderbolt.

“Now I know you’re completely crazy,” he said, “and in no way responsible for anything you say or do or refuse to do. Everyone knows that Pericles was the greatest man who ever lived. He made Athens the greatest city in all Greece, besides which he fostered the arts and had many fine shrines built on the Acropolis.”

“All that may be true,” she said, “but he also got us into this foolish war which never ends, and no sooner had he got us into it than he died like a coward of the plague and got himself out of it. Furthermore, I believe he was really guilty of embezzling all that money from the treasury, as he was accused, even though he was later exonerated. He probably used it to buy votes with.”

“That’s absolutely the last word!” Lycon said. “What you are saying is certainly no less than treason, and you are lucky that I’m a man of patience who is inclined to overlook your insanity as an effect of excessive chastity.”

“Oh, nonsense. I’m only pointing out the palpable truth that men are idiots. It is also true that women are not, and that they would, if they could, make a favorable change in things. It pleases the men in their arrogance to mock our talents and assign us an inferior place in the pattern of affairs. This is merely a part of the sum of nonsense that men maintain. Actually, women are naturally superior and much more capable of giving matters their proper importance.”

At that, Lycon began to laugh, but it wasn’t because he saw anything funny in the situation, and the fact of the matter was, he was hysterical. After a while he quit laughing and wiped his eyes and looked at Lysistrata, and she was lying there propped up on one elbow just as she came naturally, and the juices began to boil up in him again, and he was tempted to take charge of things, but he knew it wouldn’t be satisfactory in the end.

“Well,” he said, “I am just home from the war after seven months and ten days, and I have come here like a devoted husband, and I don’t want any more evasions or lectures or general foolishness. All I want to know is, are you going to move over and make ready, or aren’t you?”

“I don’t intend to voluntarily,” Lysistrata said, “and that’s final.”

He was forced to concede that he was absolutely stymied short of violence. Frustrated and confused, he went back to his quarters, raging. After he’d had a little breakfast of bread and wine, he put on a clean chiton and got out of the house and went down to the marketplace.

The marketplace was located in the middle of the town where all the main streets crossed, which made it easy to reach from all directions. Athenians were a gregarious breed and spent a lot of time at this lively center, not because they had anything in particular to do there, but just loafing and talking with cronies and passing the time of day in one way or another.

Having reached the marketplace, Lycon wandered around the square looking at this and that, and after a while he began to feel a little better.

The farmers from the country around town had hauled in their produce to be sold, peas and lentils and other vegetables, as well as fruit and milk and honey, and all this produce was available in the stalls for anyone who had the obols to buy it. There were also wine stalls, and these were doing a brisk business, because the Greeks were very handy with a skin of wine. It was essential in shopping to watch the merchants like a hawk, for they were sharp fellows who took great pride in weighing up a thumb or slipping a customer the wrong change from a drachma.

There were very few women in the marketplace, the Greek custom being to keep the women in the home, unless they happened to be the yellow-headed whores called hetairai, who wore flowery robes and entertained the more prosperous citizens. Exceptions were the girls who sold flowers and bread, and the flower-girls established for themselves a quality of charm that was celebrated by artists and poets and other romantic people.

Pretty soon, after wandering around the square and looking things over, Lycon stopped and watched a pair of clowns cutting capers in front of a studio, but he couldn’t get much fun out of it, and decided that he simply wasn’t in the mood. Thinking of the mood he wasn’t in, he began brooding again over the mood that Lysistrata hadn’t been in, even after seven months and ten days. It didn’t seem to him in any way reasonable, and the only explanation that he could consider acceptable off-hand was that she had another lover, in which case he was bound in honor to throw her out of the house. The truth was, however, he didn’t want to do it. For his obols, when it came to stirring up the juices in a man, there wasn’t another female in Athens, hetairai or otherwise, who could come close to her. Besides, it would probably turn out that she hadn’t been unfaithful at all. It was just that she didn’t understand about how a man had to be a patriotic citizen and do his duty in the war. What he ought to do, he decided, now that he had a chance to think about it clearly with some detachment, was to beat her thoroughly and exercise his prerogatives, which was more than likely what she wanted anyhow, women being generally peculiar.

Moving along, he came to a small group that had gathered to listen to the spiel of a vendor who was selling some kind of medicine that was guaranteed to cure all known diseases. After listening for a while with the others, he went on to a lounge in which a couple of fellows were discussing the situation in Sicily, but he couldn’t get interested in it, and was bored, and just then along came Acron, the husband of Calonice.

“Well, well,” said Acron, “if it isn’t old Lycon. I thought you were in Pylos.”

“I was in Pylos,” said Lycon, “but I have come back temporarily for a rest.”

“When did you get home?”

“Just this morning, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, I’m very glad to see you. How’s everything in Pylos, by the way?”

“Pretty dull, to tell the truth.”

“Oh, that’s to be expected, of course. War’s always a dull business, when you come right down to it.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, Acron, but I doubt that it’s patriotic to admit it.”