Lysistrata Part 6

CALONICE

_I'll give him reason for a long remorse._

LYSISTRATA

I'll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,

CALONICE

_I'll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,_

LYSISTRATA

Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.

CALONICE

_Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling._

LYSISTRATA

If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.

CALONICE

_If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine._

LYSISTRATA

If not, to nauseous water change this wine.

CALONICE _If not, to nauseous water change this wine._

LYSISTRATA

Do you all swear to this?

MYRRHINE

We do, we do.

LYSISTRATA

Then I shall immolate the victim thus.

_She drinks._

CALONICE

Here now, share fair, haven't we made a pact?

Let's all quaff down that friends.h.i.+p in our turn.

LAMPITO

Hark, what caterwauling hubbub's that?

LYSISTRATA

As I told you, The women have appropriated the citadel.

So, Lampito, dash off to your own land And raise the rebels there. These will serve as hostages, While we ourselves take our places in the ranks And drive the bolts right home.

CALONICE

But won't the men March straight against us?

LYSISTRATA

And what if they do?

No threat shall creak our hinges wide, no torch Shall light a fear in us; we will come out To Peace alone.

CALONICE

That's it, by Aphrodite!

As of old let us seem hard and obdurate.

LAMPITO _and some go off; the others go up into the Acropolis._

_Chorus of_ OLD MEN _enter to attack the captured Acropolis_.

Make room, Draces, move ahead; why your shoulder's chafed, I see, With lugging uphill these lopped branches of the olive-tree.

How upside-down and wrong-way-round a long life sees things grow.

Ah, Strymodorus, who'd have thought affairs could tangle so?

The women whom at home we fed, Like witless fools, with fostering bread, Have impiously come to this-- They've stolen the Acropolis, With bolts and bars our orders flout And shut us out.

Come, Philurgus, bustle thither; lay our f.a.ggots on the ground, In neat stacks beleaguering the insurgents all around; And the vile conspiratresses, plotters of such mischief dire, Pile and burn them all together in one vast and righteous pyre: Fling with our own hands Lycon's wife to fry in the thickest fire.

By Demeter, they'll get no brag while I've a vein to beat!

Cleomenes himself was hurtled out in sore defeat.

His stiff-backed Spartan pride was bent.

Out, stripped of all his arms, he went: A pigmy cloak that would not stretch To hide his rump (the draggled wretch), Six sprouting years of beard, the spilth Of six years' filth.

That was a siege! Our men were ranged in lines of seventeen deep Before the gates, and never left their posts there, even to sleep.

Shall I not smite the rash presumption then of foes like these, Detested both of all the G.o.ds and of Euripides-- Else, may the Marathon-plain not boast my trophied victories!

Ah, now, there's but a little s.p.a.ce To reach the place!

A deadly climb it is, a tricky road With all this b.u.mping load: A pack-a.s.s soon would tire....

How these logs bruise my shoulders! further still Jog up the hill, And puff the fire inside, Or just as we reach the top we'll find it's died.

Ough, phew!

I choke with the smoke.