Hail O my fellow-sufferers, hail Spartans.

SPARTANS

O hinnie darling, what a waefu' thing!

If they had seen us wi' our lunging waddies!

ATHENIANS

Tell us then, Spartans, what has brought you here?

SPARTANS

We come to treat o' Peace.

ATHENIANS

Well spoken there!

And we the same. Let us callout Lysistrata Since she alone can settle the Peace-terms.

SPARTANS

Callout Lysistratus too if ye don't mind.

CHORUS

No indeed. She hears your voices and she comes.

_Enter LYSISTRATA_

Hail, Wonder of all women! Now you must be in turn Hard, shifting, clear, deceitful, n.o.ble, crafty, sweet, and stern.

The foremost men of h.e.l.las, smitten by your fascination, Have brought their tangled quarrels here for your sole arbitration.

LYSISTRATA

An easy task if the love's raging home-sickness Doesn't start trying out how well each other Will serve instead of us. But I'll know at once If they do. O where's that girl, Reconciliation?

Bring first before me the Spartan delegates, And see you lift no rude or violent hands-- None of the churlish ways our husbands used.

But lead them courteously, as women should.

And if they grudge fingers, guide them by other methods, And introduce them with ready tact. The Athenians Draw by whatever offers you a grip.

Now, Spartans, stay here facing me. Here you, Athenians. Both hearken to my words.

I am a woman, but I'm not a fool.

And what of natural intelligence I own Has been filled out with the remembered precepts My father and the city-elders taught me.

First I reproach you both sides equally That when at Pylae and Olympia, At Pytho and the many other shrines That I could name, you sprinkle from one cup The altars common to all h.e.l.lenes, yet You wrack h.e.l.lenic cities, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.las With deaths of her own sons, while yonder clangs The gathering menace of barbarians.

ATHENIANS

We cannot hold it in much longer now.

LYSISTRATA

Now unto you, O Spartans, do I speak.

Do you forget how your own countryman, Pericleidas, once came hither suppliant Before our altars, pale in his purple robes, Praying for an army when in Messenia Danger growled, and the Sea-G.o.d made earth quaver.

Then with four thousand hoplites Cimon marched And saved all Sparta. Yet base ingrates now, You are ravaging the soil of your preservers.

ATHENIANS

By Zeus, they do great wrong, Lysistrata.

SPARTANS

Great wrong, indeed. O! What a luscious wench!

LYSISTRATA

And now I turn to the Athenians.

Have you forgotten too how once the Spartans In days when you wore slavish tunics, came And with their spears broke a Thessalian host And all the partisans of Hippias?

They alone stood by your shoulder on that day.

They freed you, so that for the slave's short skirt You should wear the trailing cloak of liberty.

SPARTANS

I've never seen a n.o.bler woman anywhere.

ATHENIANS

Nor I one with such prettily jointing hips.

LYSISTRATA

Now, brethren twined with mutual benefactions, Can you still war, can you suffer such disgrace?

Why not be friends? What is there to prevent you?

SPARTANS

We're agreed, gin that we get this tempting Mole.

LYSISTRATA

Which one?

SPARTANS

That ane we've wanted to get into, O for sae lang.... Pylos, of course.

ATHENIANS

By Poseidon, Never!

LYSISTRATA