By Aphrodite, it isn't. Your belly's hollow, And it has the feel of metal.... Well, I soon can see.

You hussy, it's Athene's sacred helm, And you said you were with child.

3RD WOMAN

And so I am.

LYSISTRATA

Then why the helm?

3RD WOMAN

So if the throes should take me Still in these grounds I could use it like a dove As a laying-nest in which to drop the child.

LYSISTRATA

More pretexts! You can't hide your clear intent, And anyway why not wait till the tenth day Meditating a brazen name for your bra.s.s brat?

WOMAN

And I can't sleep a wink. My nerve is gone Since I saw that snake-sentinel of the shrine.

WOMAN

And all those dreadful owls with their weird hooting!

Though I'm wearied out, I can't close an eye.

LYSISTRATA

You wicked women, cease from juggling lies.

You want your men. But what of them as well?

They toss as sleepless in the lonely night, I'm sure of it. Hold out awhile, hold out, But persevere a teeny-weeny longer.

An oracle has promised Victory If we don't wrangle. Would you hear the words?

WOMEN

Yes, yes, what is it?

LYSISTRATA

Silence then, you chatterboxes.

Here-- _Whenas the swallows flocking in one place from the hoopoes Deny themselves love's gambols any more, All woes shall then have ending and great Zeus the Thunderer Shall put above what was below before._

WOMEN

Will the men then always be kept under us?

LYSISTRATA _But if the swallows squabble among themselves and fly away Out of the temple, refusing to agree, Then The Most Wanton Birds in all the World They shall be named for ever. That's his decree._

WOMAN

It's obvious what it means.

LYSISTRATA

Now by all the G.o.ds We must let no agony deter from duty, Back to your quarters. For we are base indeed, My friends, if we betray the oracle.

_She goes out._

OLD MEN.

I'd like to remind you of a fable they used to employ, When I was a little boy: How once through fear of the marriage-bed a young man, Melanion by name, to the wilderness ran, And there on the hills he dwelt.

For hares he wove a net Which with his dog he set-- Most likely he's there yet.

For he never came back home, so great was the fear he felt.

I loathe the s.e.x as much as he, And therefore I no less shall be As chaste as was Melanion.

MAN

Grann'am, do you much mind men?

WOMAN

Onions you won't need, to cry.

MAN

From my foot you shan't escape.

WOMAN

What thick forests I espy.

MEN

So much Myronides' fierce beard And thundering black back were feared, That the foe fled when they were shown-- Brave he as Phormion.

WOMEN.

Well, I'll relate a rival fable just to show to you A different point of view: There was a rough-hewn fellow, Timon, with a face That glowered as through a thorn-bush in a wild, bleak place.

He too decided on flight, This very Furies' son, All the world's ways to shun And hide from everyone, Spitting out curses on all knavish men to left and right.

But though he reared this hate for men, He loved the women even then, And never thought them enemies.

WOMAN

O your jaw I'd like to break.

MAN