LYSISTRATA, MULIERES QUÆDAM, MYRRHINA, CINESIAS, PUER, CHORUS SENUM.
LYS.—Io, io mulieres, venite huc ad me celeriter.
MUL. I.—Quid est? dic mihi, quis est iste clamor?
LYS.—Virum, virum video accedere furibundum, Veneris percitum orgiis.
MUL. II.—O diva, Cypri, et Cytherorum, et Paphi regina, perge recta via, quam institisti.
MUL. I.—Ubi est, quisquis est?
LYS.—Apud Cereris.
MUL. I.—Ecastor, næ est aliquis. Nam quis esse possit?
LYS.—Videte. Novitne aliqua vestrûm?
MYRR.—Pol equidem novi: et est meus vir Cinesias.
LYS.—Tuum sit munus torrere et versare illum, et decipere amando et non amando, et omnia præbere, præter illa, quorum conscius est calix.
MYRR.—Ne sollicita sis: faciam ista ego.
LYS.—Quin et ego hic manens una tecum decipiam et uram istum. Vos autem abite.
CIN.—Hei mihi misero! quanta discrucior convulsione et tentigine, non secus ac si in rota torquear!
LYS.—Quis est iste, qui stat cis custodes?
CIN.—Ego.
LYS.—Vir?
CIN.—Vir utique.
LYS.—Nonne ergo hinc facesses?
CIN.—Tu vero quænam es, quæ me ejicis?
LYS.—Diurna speculatrix.
CIN.—Per deos ergo obsecro, evoca mihi Myrrhinam.
LYS.—Ecce vero! egone ut Myrrhinam tibi vocem? Tu autem, quis es?
CIN.—Vir illius, Pæonides Cinesias.
LYS.—O salve carissime: non enim obscurum apud nos est tuum nomen, nec ignobile; semper enim te in ore habet uxor tua, et si ovum aut malum sumat, Cinesiæ sit hoc, inquit.
CIN.—Dii vostram fidem!
LYS.—Ita est, per Venerem juro. Tum si de viris incidat sermo aliquis, statim dicere solet uxor tua, cetera omnia nugas esse præ Cinesia.
CIN.—Agedum voca ipsam.
LYS.—Quid? dabisne aliquid mihi?
CIN.—Equidem hercle illico si velis. Habeo autem istud: quod itaque habeo, do tibi.
LYS.—Descendam igitur, et vocabo eam tibi.
CIN.—Quam citissime ergo. Nam prorsus ingrata mihi vita est, ex quo exivit illa domo: atque intrare tædet: desolata mihi videntur omnia: neque unquam quicquam me juvat quod edo: nam riget mihi nervus.
MYRR.—Amo equidem, amo illum: sed non vult a me amari. Proinde ne me ad hunc vocaveris.
CIN.—O dulcissima Myrrhinula, cur istæc agis? descende huc.
MYRR.—Non ecastor ego illuc descendam.
CIN.—Ne quidem me vocante, Myrrhina?
MYRR.—Nihil enim mei indigens me vocas.
CIN.—Egone nihil indigens? immo perditus.
MYRR.—Abeo.
CIN.—Noli, quæso: sed saltem puerulo ausculta. Heus tu, nonne vocas matrem?
PUER.—Mater, mater, mater.
CIN.—Heus tu, quid agis? nonne te miseret pueruli sextum jam diem illoti et mamma carentis?
MYRR.—Utique miseret me: sed negligens est ei pater.
CIN.—Descende, insana, pueruli gratia.
MYRR.—Hem! quale est peperisse! descendendum; quid enim agam?
CIN.—Mihi quidem junior illa videtur facta esse multo, et amabilius intueri: et quod se difficilem præbet, meique fastidit, illud ipsum nimirum est, quod me enecat desiderio.
MYRR.—O dulcissime filiole mali patris, age deosculabor te dulcissimum matri tuæ.
CIN.—Cur, ô improba, hæc facis, aliisque obsequeris mulieribus? Et me molestia, teque ipsam tædio adficis.
MYRR.—Potin' es ut abstineas manum?
CIN.—Quæ nobis autem domi sunt communia bona, perditum is.
MYRR.—Parvi pendo illa.
CIN.—An parvi pendis, quod tramam differunt gallinæ.
MYRR.—Ita ecastor.
CIN.—Veneris orgia non celebrasti tanto tempore. Nonne redibis?
MYRR.—Haud pol ego, nisi pacem faciatis inter vos, et desinatis belligerare.
CIN.—Ergo, si tibi ita placet, id etiam faciemus.
MYRR.—Ergo, si tibi ita placet, domum redibo: nunc autem quin redeam sacramento teneor.
CIN.—Saltem aliquantisper mecum decumbe.
MYRR.—Non sane: etsi non possim negare te a me amari.
CIN.—Amas? cur ergo non decumbis, ô Myrrhina?
MYRR.—O ridende, num præsente puerulo?
CIN.—Non hercle. Sed tu, ô Manes, fer eum domum. Ecce puerulus jam tibi hinc amotus: tu vero non decumbes?
MYRR.—Sed, ô perdite, ubi fieri id potest?
CIN.—Ad Panos sacellum percommode.
MYRR.—At quomodo in arcem casta redire potero?
CIN.—Facillume in Clepsydra[PG59] si laveris.
MYRR.—Scilicet, ô perdite, jurata pejerabo.
CIN.—In caput meum vertat. De jurejurando ne sis sollicita.
MYRR.—Agedum feram lectulum nobis.
CIN.—Nequaquam: sufficit nobis humi cubare.
MYRR.—Ita me Apollo juvet, ut ego te, quamvis turgentem libidine, non reclinaverim humi.
CIN.—Amat me valde, satis apparet, uxor.
MYRR.—En, decumbe properans, et ego exuo vestes. At, perii! teges efferenda est.
CIN.—Quæ, malum, teges? haud mihi quidem.
MYRR.—Ita mihi Diana propitia sit: turpe est enim super loris cubare.
CIN.—Sine deosculer te.
MYRR.—En.
CIN.—Papæ! revertere huc ergo quam celerrime.
MYRR.—En teges. Decumbe: jam exuo vestes. Sed, perii! cervical non habes.
CIN.—At nihil opus est mihi.
MYRR.—At ecastor mihi.
CIN.—Profecto penis hicce uti Hercules hospitio excipitur.[PG60]
MYRR.—Surge, subsulta.
CIN.—Jam omnia habeo.
MYRR.—Itane omnia?
CIN.—Agedum, ô aurea.
MYRR.—Jam strophium solvo: tu vero memento, ne, quam dedisti de pace ineunda, fidem fallas.
CIN.—Peream hercle prius.
MYRR.—Sed lodicem non habes.
CIN.—Nec hercle opus est: sed futuere volo.
MYRR.—Ne sis sollicitus, et istud facies: cito enim redeo.
CIN.—Stragulis perdet me hæc femina.
MYRR.—Erigere.
CIN.—At iste jamdudum erectus est.
MYRR.—Vin' ut te inungam?
CIN.—Ne hoc Apollo sirit.
MYRR.—Per Venerem, velis nolis, inungere.
CIN.—Utinam, ô supreme Jupiter, effusum fuisset istuc unguentum!
MYRR.—Porrige manum, sume et inungere.
CIN.—Istuc hercle unguentum minime est suave, nisi terendo bonum sit; nec concubitum olet.
MYRR.—Me miseram! Rhodium unguentum extuli.[PG61]
CIN.—Bonum est: hoc mitte, ô fatua.
MYRR.—Nugaris.
CIN.—Qui illum dii omnes perduint, qui primus coxit unguentum!
MYRR.—Cape hoc alabastrum.
CIN.—Sed aliud habeo. At tu, ô perdita, decumbe, et ne fer mihi quicquam.
MYRR.—Istuc agam, ita me Diana amabit. Calceos igitur exeo. Sed, ô carissime, vide, ut decernas aliquid de pace facienda.
CIN.—Consulam—Perdidit me et adtrivit mulier tum aliis omnibus, tum quod me excoriatum relinquens abiit. Hei mihi! quid faciam? quem futuam, postquam spe excidi potiundæ pulcherrimæ? quomodo hancce educabo? ubi Cynalopex? loca mihi mercede nutricem.[PG62]
CHOR. SEN.—In maxumis malis, ô infelix, et animi angore cruciaris; et me tui miseret. Heu! heu![22] Quinam renes possint durare? quis animus? qui colei? quis lumbus? quis penis intentus, nec mane permolens aliquam?
CIN.—O Jupiter! quam diræ convulsiones!
CHOR. SEN.—Ita de te merita est execrabilis et scelesta illa.
CIN.—Immo hercle cara et dulcissima.
CHOR. SEN.—Quid, malum, dulcissima? Scelerata, scelerata utique. O Jupiter, ô utinam ipsam, velut acervos acerum, magno venti turbine contortam et rotatam auferas, deinde dimittas: illa autem rursus feratur in terram: deinde repente in mentulam incidat et infigatur!
CADUCEATOR LACEDÆMONIORUM, PROVISOR, CHORUS SENUM, CHORUS MULIERUM.
CAD.—Ubi Athenarum est Senatus, aut ubi sunt Magistratus? Volo aliquid novi dicere.
PROV.—Tu vero quis es? utrum homo, an Conissalus?[PG63]
CAD.—Caduceator ego sum, ô stulte: testor deos geminos: veni Sparta, pacis conciliandæ gratia.
PROV.—Ergone advenisti hastam sub axilla gerens?
CAD.—Non ego hercle.
PROV.—Quo te versas? quidve prætendis sagum? an dolent tibi inguina ex itinere?
CAD.—Ineptus mecastor est hic homo.
PROV.—Sed arrigis, impurissime.
CAD.—Non ego hercle: noli nugari.
PROV.—At quid est hoc tibi?
CAD.—Scytala Laconica.[PG64]
PROV.—Sit modo hæc scytala Laconica: sed mihi, tanquam scienti, dic verum: quomodo sese res vestræ habent Lacedæmone?
CAD.—Erecta est universa Lacedæmon, et socii omnes arrigunt: Pellena[PG65] opus est.
PROV.—Undenam istud malum in vos inguit? num a Panos ira?
CAD.—Non. Principium quidem sola Lampito: deinde ceteræ simul Spartanæ mulieres uno conensu viros a cunnis abegerunt.
PROV.—Quomodo ergo habetis?
CAD.—Ærumnis conficimur: nam per urbem incurvi ambulamus, tanquam lucernas gestantes: mulieres autem ne tangi quidem sibi cunnum a nobis patiuntur, priusquam omnes unanimi consilio pacem faciamus cum Græcia.
PROV.—In hanc rem undique conjurarunt mulieres: nunc demum intelligo.[23] Sed quamprimum renuntia, ut de pace legatos plena cum potestate huc mittant: ego vero Senatui dicam, ut alios hinc lectos mittant legatos, ostendens hunc penem.
CAD.—Volabo: nam optime prorsus autumas.
CHOR. SEN.—Nulla est bestia muliere inexpugnabilior, nec ignis, nec ulla pardalis tam impudens.
CHOR. MUL.—Hæc vero ita esse intelligis,[24] et bellum geris, dic mihi, quum tibi nunc, ô improbe, liceat certam me habere amicam.
CHOR. SEN.—Equidem mulieres odisse non desinam.
CHOR. MUL.—Sed quando voles, desines: nunc autem non patiar te nudum sic esse: video enim, quam sis ridiculus. Verum accedam, et tibi hanc exomidem induam.
CHOR. SEN.—Istuc quidem hercle non perperam facitis: verum præ iracundia illam modo exui.
CHOR. MUL.—Primo quidem vir videris: deinde non es ridiculus: et nisi mihi molestus fuisses, ego tibi hanc bestiolam, quæ oculo tuo nunc insidet, prehensam exemissem.
CHOR. SEN.—Hoc nimirum erat, quod me cruciabat, mordaculus ille. Erue id: et ubi detraxeris, ostende mihi. Nam dudum hercle oculum mihi morsicat.
CHOR. MUL.—Sed faciam id, etsi homo sis morosus. O Jupiter! ingens utique aspectu culex inest tibi. Nonne vides? annon iste culex est Tricorysius?[PG66]
CHOR. SEN.—Edepol me beasti. Nam dudum me fodiebat, quasi puteum faceret: itaque, postquam exemtus est, fluit mihi lacrima largiter.
CHOR. MUL.—Sed detergam ego te, etsi valde sis malus; et osculabor.
CHOR. SEN.—Ne osculeris.
CHOR. MUL.—Velis nolis, tamen.
CHOR. SEN.—Male pereatis, ut estis ingenio ad blandiendum composito! et est vetus illud verbum vere et non perperam dictum: Neque cum perniciosissimis, neque sine perniciosissimis.
CHOR. MUL.—Sed nunc tecum paciscor, me deinceps nec facturam amplius vobis, nec passuram a vobis quicquam mali: sed jam cœtu facto incipiamus una canticum. Ita nos, ô viri comparamus, ut nulli civium ne minimum quidem male dicamus: sed contra potius omnia bona et dicamus et faciamus: etenim sufficiunt præsentia hæc mala. Sed profiteatur quicunque vir aut femina pecunia eget, et accipere vult minas duas aut tres:[PG67] nam plurimum est intus, nosque habemus cruminas: et si aliquando Pax exoriatur, quicunque nunc mutuabitur, is quæ a nobis acceperit nunquam reddet. Convivio autem excepturæ sumus hospites quosdam Carystios,[PG68] viros bonos et fortes: et est nonnihil pultis: et porcellus erat mihi, quem mactavi: sicque carnes habebitis teneras et bonas. Venite ergo in domum meam hodie: tempori autem oportet hoc facere lotos, vos ipsos et liberos vestros; deinde intro ire, nec quemquam interrogare: sed recta ingredi, tanquam in domos vestras, strenue. Fortassis autem janua erit clausa.[PG69]
CHOR. SEN.—Sed e Sparta isti legati, trahentes barbas, adveniunt, quasi paxillum, cui porcelli adligantur,[PG70] circa femora habentes.[25]
CHORUS SENUM, LEGATI, LACEDÆMONIORUM, POLYCHARIDES, LYSISTRATA, CHORUS MULIERUM, CIRCUMFORANEI QUIDAM, FAMULUS, ATHENIENSIS QUIDAM.
CHOR. SEN.—Primum quidem, ô Lacones, salvete: deinde dicite nobis quo in statu huc veneritis.
LEG.—Cur vobis rem multis verbis narremus? cernere licet, quo in statu venerimus.
CHOR. SEN.—Papæ! huic malo intenduntur nervi perquam vehementer; gliscitque fervor pejorem in modum.
LEG.—Res verbis adumbrari nequit: quid verbis opus est? sed veniat quis, et quo tandem pacto voluerit, pacem nobis constituat.
CHOR. SEN.—Atqui et istos conspicor indigenas, tanquam luctatores pueros, a ventre rejicientes vestes, ita ut athleticum quid hic morbus videatur.
POL.—Quis indicet nobis Lysistratam, ubi sit? nam viri adsumus et nos hujuscemodi.
CHOR. SEN.—Et alter hic morbus alteri congruit. Numquid mane tentigo vos capit?
POL.—Immo perimus, dum hoc experimur. Quare, nisi pacem quis inter nos ocius conciliet, fieri non poterit, quin Clisthenem futuamus.[PG71]
CHOR. SEN.—Si sapitis, vestes sumetis, ut ne quis eorum, qui Hermas[PG72] truncant, vos videat.
POL.—Recte, ita me Jupiter amet, autumas.
LEG.—Ita me Castores, recte omnino. Agedum amiciamur.
POL.—Salvete, ô Lacones: turpe est, quod nobis accidit.
LEG.—O Polycharida, male utique nobis fuisset, si vidissent isti viri mentulas nostras[26] erectas.
POL.—Agite, Lacones, aperte profitendum est: quare huc advenistis?
LEG.—De pace legati.
POL.—Recte dicitis; et nos ob eam rem. Quidni ergo vocamus Lysistratam, quæ sola nos conciliare possit?
LEG.—Ita edepol, et, si vultis, Lysistratum.
CHOR. SEN.—Sed nihil opus est, ut videtur, a vobis eam evocarier: ipsa enim, re audita, egreditur.
POL.—Salve mulier omnium fortissima: nunc te decet esse formidabilem, probam, simplicem, gravem, mitem, callidam. Nam primarii Græciæ viri, tuis illecebris capti, tibi permiserunt, et communi consilio commiserunt querelas suas.
LYS.—Sed non difficile negotium est, si quis subantes eos offendat, et mutuo masculæ Veneris usu abstinentes. Sed mox scibo. Ubi est Pax? adduc primum Laconas prehensos manu, sed non dura, nec superba, neque, ut viri nostri solebant, invenuste;[PG73] sed, ut mulieres decet, familiariter omnino. Si tibi quis manum non dederit, mentula prehensum duc. Age tu etiam Athenienses duc istos, qua concedent parte prehensos. Vos Lacones, state huc prope me: vos autem istinc, et verba mea percipite. Mulier quidem sum: mens tamen inest mihi: et primum quidem a natura mihi inditum fuit, ut recte sentirem: tum, præceptis multis e patre meo et senioribus auditis, erudita sum non male. Volo autem vos communi argumento increpare, idque merito: qui, licet eadem aqua lustrali aras conspergatis, tanquam cognati, Olympiæ, Pylis, Delphis, (Quot alia memorarem loca, si vellem esse prolixior?) quum non desint barbari hostes, tamen infestis exercitibus Græcos et eorum urbes pessundatis. Communis quidem ista oratio hactenus mihi finitur.
POL.—At ego tentigine pereo.
LYS.—Deinde vos Lacones, nam ad vos me convertam, nonne scitis, ut olim huc veniens Periclides Laco,[PG74] Atheniensibus supplex, ad aras sedit, pallidus, in purpureo amictu, auxiliares copias petens? nam tunc vos urgebat Messena, et una Neptunus terram quatiens. At Cimon cum quatuor millibus armatis profectus universam servavit Lacedæmonem. His ab Atheniensibus acceptis beneficiis, vastatis terram, cujus talia sunt in vos merita.
POL.—Injurii sunt isti hercle, ô Lysistrata.
LEG.—Injurii sumus: sed vix dici potest, quam pulcher sit hujus culus.
LYS.—At putasne me vos Athenienses absoluturam culpa? nonne meministis, ut vicissim Lacones, quando servilibus tunicis induti eratis, venientes armati, multos occiderunt Thessalos, multosque Hippiæ amicos et socios, soli suppetias vobis ferentes illo die, et restituta vobis libertate, pro servili tunica populum vestrum pallio amicierunt denuo?
LEG.—Nondum vidi mulierem præstantiorem.
POL.—At ego cunnum nunquam pulchriorem.
LYS.—Cur ergo, quum tam multa et præclara merita vestra exstent, pugnatis, et non desistis a malitia? cur non reconciliamini? age, quid obstat?
LEG.—Nos quidem volumus, si quis nobis encyclum istud reddere velit.
LYS.—Quodnam, ô bone?
LEG.—Pylum, ut dudum eam flagitamus et captamus.
POL.—Illud quidem vobis nunquam eveniet, per Neptunum juro.
LYS.—Concedite illis, ô boni.
POL.—Postea quamnam movebimus?
LYS.—Aliud reposcite pro isto castellum.
POL.—Perii! date igitur nobis hunc Echinuntem primo, et Maliensem sinum pone adjacentem, et Megarica Crura.[PG75]
LEG.—Non edepol omnia, ô insane.
LYS.—Sinite, ne contende de Cruribus.
POL.—Jam exuta veste nudus arare volo.
LEG.—At pol ego stercus convehere quamprimum.
LYS.—Ubi pax vobis reconciliata fuerit, istuc facietis. Sed si de pace vobis constat sententia, deliberate, et socios adeuntes rem cum iis communicate.
POL.—Nam quos, ô bona, socios? arrigimus. Annon idem nostris sociis videbitur, omnibus futuendum esse?
LEG.—Sic edepol meis.
POL.—Immo hercle Carystiis.
LYS.—Recte dicitis. Nunc curate ut puri sitis, ut nos mulieres in arce convivio vos excipiamus de illis quæ in cistis habemus. Jusjurandum et fidem illic invicem date, deinde uxore sua accepta, vestrûm unusquisque abibit.
POL.—Sed eamus quam citissime.
LEG.—Duc quo tu vis.
POL.—Ita hercle, quam celerrime.
CHOR. MUL.—Stragulas vestes et lænas, et xystidas, et aurea vasa, quidquid est mihi, sine invidia volo omnibus præbere, ut ferant suis liberis, si quando alicujus filia canistrum in sacris gestet. Omnibus vobis dico, ut sumatis nunc de meis opibus e domo mea, et nihil tam bene obsignatum esse, quin ceram revellatis, et quæ intus condita sunt auferatis. Sed qui omnia circumspexerit, nihil videbit, nisi quis vestrûm acutius cernit, quam ego.[PG76] Si vero alicui cibus deest, quo vernas et parvulam sobolem numerosam pascat, licet a me sumere contritas fruges: at est panis unius chœnicis, aspectu valde magnus. Quisquis igitur vult pauperum, eat in domum meam saccos habens et peras, accepturus fruges: Manes autem servus meus eis indet. Verumtamen ad januam meam ne quis accedat, prædico: sed caveat canem.[PG77]
CIRC.—Aperi januam.
FAM.—Nonne vis loco cedere? Vos, quid sedetis? Num vultis, ut ego lampade hac vos comburam? molesta est hæc statio.
CIRC.—Non recedam.
FAM.—Sed si omnino id faciendum est, ut vobis gratificemur, durabimus.
CIRC.—Et nos tecum una durabimus.
FAM.—Nonne abitis? Male erit vestris capillis et flebitis largiter. Non abitis, ut Lacones ex ædibus quiete abeant rerum omnium saturi?
ATH. QUID.—Nunquam equidem vidi tale convivium. Faceti utique erant Lacones: nos autem in vino convivæ sapientissimi.
CHOR. SEN.—Recte autumas, quia sobrii insanimus. Quod si Athenienses me audient, madidi semper obibimus legationes ubicunque.[27] Nunc enim si quando Lacedæmonem venimus sicci, statim circumspicimus, ecquid turbare possimus. Itaque quid dicant, non audimus: quæ vero non dicunt, hæc suspicamur perperam: et nuntiamus non eadem de iisdem rebus. At nunc omnia placuerunt, ut si quis cantaret Telamonis,[PG78] quum cantare debuisset scolion Clitagoræ, tamen laudaremus, et insuper pejeraremus.
FAM.—Sed isti rursus huc conveniunt. Nonne facessitis, verberones?
CIRC.—Ita hercle: jam enim intus egrediuntur convivæ.
LEG.—O Polycharida, cape tibias, ut ego tripudiem et canam lepide in Athenienses et nos simul.
POL.—Quin tu cape tibias, per deos obsecro: nam nihil me magis oblectat, quam si vos saltantes conspicer.
LEG.—Excita, ô Mnemosyne, juvenes hosce, et meam Musam, quæ nostra et Atheniensium præclara facta novit: quando hi quidem ad Artemisium,[PG79] diis similes, impetum fecerunt in naves hostiles, et Medos vicerunt. Nos vero Leonidas[PG80] ducebat, tanquam apros, exacuentes dentem: plurima autem circa ora spuma efflorescebat, plurimaque simul defluebat cruribus. Erant enim viri Persæ numero non pauciores, quam arena. Silvarum potens Diana venatrix, huc ades, virgo diva, ad fœdus nostrum, ut concordiam nostram diu tuearis, utque jam deinceps amicitia permaneat facilis, inito fœdere; et astutiam vulpinam missam faciamus: ô huc ades, ô venatrix virgo.
LYS.—Agite nunc rebus bene peractis ceteris, abducite istas, ô Lacones; has autem, vos: vir apud mulierem, et mulier stet apud virum. Et deinde ob felicem rerum successum, choreis in deorum honorem ductis, caveamus deinceps rursus peccare.
CHOR. ATHEN.—Adduc chorum, adduc etiam Gratias: præterea Dianam advoca; advoca etiam geminum Dianæ, chori ducem, Pæanem benignum: advoca Nysium, cui cum Mænadibus oculi sunt flagrantes: Jovemque igni coruscum, et conjugem venerandam advoca beatam: deinde vero deos, quibus testibus utemur non obliviosis circa magnanimam pacem, quam fecit diva Cypris. Alalæ io Pæan, tollite vos sublimes, io! tanquam victoria potiti, io! Euœ, euœ; Euæ, euæ. Lacon, tu jam profer cantilenam novam post novam.
CHOR. LAC.—Taygetum amabilem relinquens, rursus veni Musa Lacæna, venerandum nobis celebrans Amyclarum deum, et Chalciœcam Minervam, Tyndaridasque fortes, qui ad Eurotam ludunt.[PG81] Eia naviter ingredere, levem pallii quatiens institam, ut Spartam celebremus, cui deorum chori sunt curæ, et pedum strepitus: puellæ vero propter Eurotam, ut pulli equini, subsultant, crebro pedum pulsu festinantes, comasque quassant, tanquam Bacchæ thyrsis ludentes. Præit autem Ledæ filia casta, dux chori pulchra. Sed age manu fluxos capillos implica vittæ, et pedibus salta, salta ut cerva: plausum simul fac choreis utilem, et divarum fortissimam Chalciœcam celebra, bellatricem.
FINIS.
Transcriber's Footnotes
The following notes list typos in the "Oxford"-text that have been eliminated as well as differences between the "Oxford" and the "Leipzig"-versions.
[1] Leipzig: "existumant"
[2] Leipzig: "optumum"
[3] Leipzig: "De Athenis autem nil tale ominabor: aliud te suspicari velim.
[4] Missing in Leipzig-ed.
[5] Missing in Leipzig-ed.
[6] Typo in Oxford: "perpitam". Leipzig has "perditam".
[7] Leipzig: "et iuremus in calicem nos non infusuras."
[8] Leizpig: "Flocci eos facio."
[9] Leipzig: "festinandum et ocius"
[10] Leipzig: "mulierum examen foris succurrit."
[11] Leipzig: "an ut humanum exuras tibi?"
[12] Leipzig: "et ei glandem inseras."
[13] Leipzig: "Per Dianam iuro, extremam mihi si manum admoverit, quum sit publicus minister, flebit."
[14] Leipzig: "si hanc digito attigeris"
[15] Leipzig: "Tam vir"
[16] Leipzig: "Maxume"
[17] Leipzig: "lupides"
[18] Leipzig: "maxume"
[19] Leipzig: "Primam quidem deprehendi foramen repurgantem"
[20] Leipzig: "Et edepol prægnas sum."
[21] Leipzig: "tutubantium"
[22] Typo in Oxford: "Heu! hen!". Leipzig has "Heu! heu!".
[23] Leipzig: "intellego"
[24] Leipzig: "intellegis"
[25] Leipzig: "adveniunt tanquam suile vimineum circa femora adligatum habentes."
[26] Typo in Oxford: "mentulas nostas". Leipzig has "mentulas nostras".
[27] Leipzig: "ubicumque"
Footnotes (ex PG #8688)
[PG1] At Athens more than anywhere the festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus) were celebrated with the utmost pomp—and also with the utmost licence, not to say licentiousness.
Pan—the rustic god and king of the Satyrs; his feast was similarly an occasion of much coarse self-indulgence.
Aphrodité Colias—under this name the goddess was invoked by courtesans as patroness of sensual, physical love. She had a temple on the promontory of Colias, on the Attic coast—whence the surname.
The Genetyllides were minor deities, presiding over the act of generation, as the name indicates. Dogs were offered in sacrifice to them—presumably because of the lubricity of that animal.
At the festivals of Dionysus, Pan and Aphrodité women used to perform lascivious dances to the accompaniment of the beating of tambourines. Lysistrata implies that the women she had summoned to council cared really for nothing but wanton pleasures.
[PG2] An obscene double entendre; Calonicé understands, or pretends to understand, Lysistrata as meaning a long and thick "membrum virile"!
[PG3] The eels from Lake Copaïs in Boeotia were esteemed highly by epicures.
[PG4] This is the reproach Demosthenes constantly levelled against his Athenian fellow-countrymen—their failure to seize opportunity.
[PG5] An island of the Saronic Gulf, lying between Magara and Attica. It was separated by a narrow strait—scene of the naval battle of Salamis, in which the Athenians defeated Xerxes—only from the Attic coast, and was subject to Athens.
[PG6] A deme, or township, of Attica, lying five or six miles north of Athens. The Acharnians were throughout the most extreme partisans of the warlike party during the Peloponnesian struggle. See 'The Acharnians.'
[PG7] The precise reference is uncertain, and where the joke exactly comes in. The Scholiast says Theagenes was a rich, miserly and superstitious citizen, who never undertook any enterprise without first consulting an image of Hecaté, the distributor of honour and wealth according to popular belief; and his wife would naturally follow her husband's example.
[PG8] A deme of Attica, a small and insignificant community—a 'Little Pedlington' in fact.
[PG9] In allusion to the gymnastic training which was de rigueur at Sparta for the women no less than the men, and in particular to the dance of the Lacedaemonian girls, in which the performer was expected to kick the fundament with the heels—always a standing joke among the Athenians against their rivals and enemies the Spartans.
[PG10] The allusion, of course, is to the 'garden of love,' the female parts, which it was the custom with the Greek women, as it is with the ladies of the harem in Turkey to this day, to depilate scrupulously, with the idea of making themselves more attractive to men.
[PG11] Corinth was notorious in the Ancient world for its prostitutes and general dissoluteness.
[PG12] An Athenian general strongly suspected of treachery; Aristophanes pretends his own soldiers have to see that he does not desert to the enemy.
[PG13] A town and fortress on the west coast of Messenia, south-east part of Peloponnese, at the northern extremity of the bay of Sphacteria—the scene by the by of the modern naval battle of Navarino—in Lacedaemonian territory; it had been seized by the Athenian fleet, and was still in their possession at the date, 412 B.C., of the representation of the 'Lysistrata,' though two years later, in the twenty-second year of the War, it was recovered by Sparta.
[PG14] The Athenian women, rightly or wrongly, had the reputation of being over fond of wine. Aristophanes, here and elsewhere, makes many jests on this weakness of theirs.
[PG15] The lofty range of hills overlooking Sparta from the west.
[PG16] In the original "we are nothing but Poseidon and a boat"; the allusion is to a play of Sophocles, now lost, but familiar to Aristophanes' audience, entitled 'Tyro,' in which the heroine, Tyro, appears with Poseidon, the sea-god, at the beginning of the tragedy, and at the close with the two boys she had had by him, whom she exposes in an open boat.
[PG17] "By the two goddesses,"—a woman's oath, which recurs constantly in this play; the two goddesses are always Demeter and Proserpine.
[PG18] One of the Cyclades, between Naxos and Cos, celebrated, like the latter, for its manufacture of fine, almost transparent silks, worn in Greece, and later at Rome, by women of loose character.
[PG19] The proverb, quoted by Pherecrates, is properly spoken of those who go out of their way to do a thing already done—"to kill a dead horse," but here apparently is twisted by Aristophanes into an allusion to the leathern 'godemiche' mentioned a little above; if the worst comes to the worst, we must use artificial means. Pherecrates was a comic playwright, a contemporary of Aristophanes.
[PG20] Literally "our Scythian woman." At Athens, policemen and ushers in the courts were generally Scythians; so the revolting women must have their Scythian "Usheress" too.
[PG21] In allusion to the oath which the seven allied champions before Thebes take upon a buckler, in Aeschylus' tragedy of 'The Seven against Thebes,' v. 42.
[PG22] A volcanic island in the northern part of the Aegaean, celebrated for its vineyards.
[PG23] The old men are carrying faggots and fire to burn down the gates of the Acropolis, and supply comic material by their panting and wheezing as they climb the steep approaches to the fortress and puff and blow at their fires. Aristophanes gives them names, purely fancy ones—Draces, Strymodorus, Philurgus, Laches.
[PG24] Cleomenes, King of Sparta, had in the preceding century commanded a Lacedaemonian expedition against Athens. At the invitation of the Alcmaeonidae, enemies of the sons of Peisistratus, he seized the Acropolis, but after an obstinately contested siege was forced to capitulate and retire.
[PG25] Lemnos was proverbial with the Greeks for chronic misfortune and a succession of horrors and disasters. Can any good thing come out of Lemnos?
[PG26] That is, a friend of the Athenian people; Samos had just before the date of the play re-established the democracy and renewed the old alliance with Athens.
[PG27] A second Chorus enters—of women who are hurrying up with water to extinguish the fire just started by the Chorus of old men. Nicodicé, Calycé, Crityllé, Rhodippé, are fancy names the poet gives to different members of the band. Another, Stratyllis, has been stopped by the old men on her way to rejoin her companions.
[PG28] Bupalus was a celebrated contemporary sculptor, a native of Clazomenae. The satiric poet Hipponax, who was extremely ugly, having been portrayed by Bupalus as even more unsightly-looking than the reality, composed against the artist so scurrilous an invective that the latter hung himself in despair. Apparently Aristophanes alludes here to a verse in which Hipponax threatened to beat Bupalus.
[PG29] The Heliasts at Athens were the body of citizens chosen by lot to act as jurymen (or, more strictly speaking, as judges and jurymen, the Dicast, or so-called Judge, being merely President of the Court, the majority of the Heliasts pronouncing sentence) in the Heliaia, or High Court, where all offences liable to public prosecution were tried. They were 6000 in number, divided into ten panels of 500 each, a thousand being held in reserve to supply occasional vacancies. Each Heliast was paid three obols for each day's attendance in court.
[PG30] Women only celebrated the festivals of Adonis. These rites were not performed in public, but on the terraces and flat roofs of the houses.
[PG31] The Assembly, or Ecclesia, was the General Parliament of the Athenian people, in which every adult citizen had a vote. It met on the Pnyx hill, where the assembled Ecclesiasts were addressed from the Bema, or speaking-block.
[PG32] An orator and statesman who had first proposed the disastrous Sicilian Expedition, of 415-413 B.C. This was on the first day of the festival of Adonis—ever afterwards regarded by the Athenians as a day of ill omen.
[PG33] An island in the Ionian Sea, on the west of Greece, near Cephalenia, and an ally of Athens during the Peloponnesian War.
[PG34] Cholozyges, a nickname for Demostratus.
[PG35] The State treasure was kept in the Acropolis, which the women had seized.
[PG36] The second (mythical) king of Athens, successor of Cecrops.
[PG37] The leader of the Revolution which resulted in the temporary overthrow of the Democracy at Athens (413, 412 B.C.), and the establishment of the Oligarchy of the Four Hundred.
[PG38] Priests of Cybelé, who indulged in wild, frenzied dances, to the accompaniment of the clashing of cymbals, in their celebrations in honour of the goddess.
[PG39] Captain of a cavalry division; they were chosen from amongst the Hippeis, or 'Knights' at Athens.
[PG40] In allusion to a play of Euripides, now lost, with this title. Tereus was son of Ares and king of the Thracians in Daulis.
[PG41] An allusion to the disastrous Sicilian Expedition (415-413 B.C.), in which many thousands of Athenian citizens perished.
[PG42] The dead were laid out at Athens before the house door.
[PG43] An offering made to the Manes of the deceased on the third day after the funeral.
[PG44] Hippias and Hipparchus, the two sons of Pisistratus, known as the Pisistratidae, became Tyrants of Athens upon their father's death in 527 B.C. In 514 the latter was assassinated by the conspirators, Harmodius and Aristogiton, who took the opportunity of the Panathenaic festival and concealed their daggers in myrtle wreaths. They were put to death, but four years later the surviving Tyrant Hippias was expelled, and the young and noble martyrs to liberty were ever after held in the highest honour by their fellow-citizens. Their statues stood in the Agora or Public Market-Square.
[PG45] That is, the three obols paid for attendance as a Heliast at the High Court.
[PG46] See above, under note 3 [Transcriber: "PG44"].
[PG47] The origin of the name was this: in ancient days a tame bear consecrated to Artemis, the huntress goddess, it seems, devoured a young girl, whose brothers killed the offender. Artemis was angered and sent a terrible pestilence upon the city, which only ceased when, by direction of the oracle, a company of maidens was dedicated to the deity, to act the part of she-bears in the festivities held annually in her honour at the Brauronia, her festival so named from the deme of Brauron in Attica.
[PG48] The Basket-Bearers, Canephoroi, at Athens were the maidens who, clad in flowing robes, carried in baskets on their heads the sacred implements and paraphernalia in procession at the celebrations in honour of Demeter, Dionysus and Athené.
[PG49] A treasure formed by voluntary contributions at the time of the Persian Wars; by Aristophanes' day it had all been dissipated, through the influence of successive demagogues, in distributions and gifts to the public under various pretexts.
[PG50] A town and fortress of Southern Attica, in the neighbourhood of Marathon, occupied by the Alcmaeonidae—the noble family or clan at Athens banished from the city in 595 B.C., restored 560, but again expelled by Pisistratus—in the course of their contest with that Tyrant. Returning to Athens on the death of Hippias (510 B.C.), they united with the democracy, and the then head of the family, Cleisthenes, gave a new constitution to the city.
[PG51] Queen of Halicarnassus, in Caria; an ally of the Persian King Xerxes in his invasion of Greece; she fought gallantly at the battle of Salamis.
[PG52] A double entendre—with allusion to the posture in sexual intercourse known among the Greeks as ἵππος, in Latin 'equus,' the horse, where the woman mounts the man in reversal of the ordinary position.
[PG53] Micon, a famous Athenian painter, decorated the walls of the Poecilé Stoa, or Painted Porch, at Athens with a series of frescoes representing the battles of the Amazons with Theseus and the Athenians.
[PG54] To avenge itself on the eagle, the beetle threw the former's eggs out of the nest and broke them. See the Fables of Aesop.
[PG55] Keeper of a house of ill fame apparently.
[PG56] "As chaste as Melanion" was a Greek proverb. Who Melanion was is unknown.
[PG57] Myronides and Phormio were famous Athenian generals. The former was celebrated for his conquest of all Boeotia, except Thebes, in 458 B.C.; the latter, with a fleet of twenty triremes, equipped at his own cost, defeated a Lacedaemonian fleet of forty-seven sail, in 429.
[PG58] Timon, the misanthrope; he was an Athenian and a contemporary of Aristophanes. Disgusted by the ingratitude of his fellow-citizens and sickened with repeated disappointments, he retired altogether from society, admitting no one, it is said, to his intimacy except the brilliant young statesman Alcibiades.
[PG59] A spring so named within the precincts of the Acropolis.
[PG60] The comic poets delighted in introducing Heracles (Hercules) on the stage as an insatiable glutton, whom the other characters were for ever tantalizing by promising toothsome dishes and then making him wait indefinitely for their arrival.
[PG61] The Rhodian perfumes and unguents were less esteemed than the Syrian.
[PG62] 'Dog-fox,' nickname of a certain notorious Philostratus, keeper of an Athenian brothel of note in Aristophanes' day.
[PG63] The god of gardens—and of lubricity; represented by a grotesque figure with an enormous penis.
[PG64] A staff in use among the Lacedaemonians for writing cipher despatches. A strip of leather or paper was wound round the 'skytalé,' on which the required message was written lengthwise, so that when unrolled it became unintelligible; the recipient abroad had a staff of the same thickness and pattern, and so was enabled by rewinding the document to decipher the words.
[PG65] A city of Achaia, the acquisition of which had long been an object of Lacedaemonian ambition. To make the joke intelligible here, we must suppose Pellené was also the name of some notorious courtesan of the day.
[PG66] A deme of Attica, abounding in woods and marshes, where the gnats were particularly troublesome. There is very likely also an allusion to the spiteful, teasing character of its inhabitants.
[PG67]] A mina was a little over £4; 60 minas made a talent.
[PG68] Carystus was a city of Euboea notorious for the dissoluteness of its inhabitants; hence the inclusion of these Carystian youths in the women's invitation.
[PG69] A παρὰ προσδοκίαν; i.e. exactly the opposite of the word expected is used to conclude the sentence—to move the sudden hilarity of the audience as a finale to the scene.
[PG70] A wattled cage or pen for pigs.
[PG71] An effeminate, a pathic; failing women, they will have to resort to pederasty.
[PG72] These Hermae were half-length figures of the god Hermes, which stood at the corners of streets and in public places at Athens. One night, just before the sailing of the Sicilian Expedition, they were all mutilated—to the consternation of the inhabitants. Alcibiades and his wild companions were suspected of the outrage.
[PG73] They had repeatedly dismissed with scant courtesy successive Lacedaemonian embassies coming to propose terms of peace after the notable Athenian successes at Pylos, when the Island of Sphacteria was captured and 600 Spartan citizens brought prisoners to Athens. This was in 425 B.C., the seventh year of the War.
[PG74] Chief of the Lacedaemonian embassy which came to Athens, after the earthquake of 464 B.C., which almost annihilated the town of Sparta, to invoke the help of the Athenians against the revolted Messenians and helots.
[PG75] Echinus was a town on the Thessalian coast, at the entrance to the Maliac Gulf, near Thermopylae and opposite the northern end of the Athenian island of Euboea. By the "legs of Megara" are meant the two "long walls" or lines of fortification connecting the city of Megara with its seaport Nisaea—in the same way as Piraeus was joined to Athens.
[PG76] Example of παρὰ προσδοκίαν again; see above.
[PG77] Example of παρὰ προσδοκίαν again; see above.
[PG78] Clitagoras was a composer of drinking songs, Telamon of war songs.
[PG79] Here, off the north coast of Euboea, the Greeks defeated the Persians in a naval battle, 480 B.C.
[PG80] The hero of Thermopylae, where the 300 Athenians arrested the advance of the invading hosts of Xerxes in the same year.
[PG81] Amyclae, an ancient town on the Eurotas within two or three miles of Sparta, the traditional birthplace of Castor and Pollux; here stood a famous and magnificent Temple of Apollo.
"Of the Brazen House," a surname of Athené, from the Temple dedicated to her worship at Chalcis in Euboea, the walls of which were covered with plates of brass.
Sons of Tyndarus, that is, Castor and Pollux, "the great twin brethren," held in peculiar reverence at Sparta.