A LACONIAN. No need for many words; you see what a state we are in.
CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Alas! the situation grows more and more strained! the intensity of the thing is just frightful.
LACONIAN. 'Tis beyond belief. But to work! summon your Commissioners, and let us patch up the best peace we may.
CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah! our men too, like wrestlers in the arena, cannot endure a rag over their bellies; 'tis an athlete's malady, which only exercise can remedy.
AN ATHENIAN. Can anybody tell us where Lysistrata is? Surely she will have some compassion on our condition.
CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Look! 'tis the very same complaint. (_Addressing the Athenian._) Don't you feel of mornings a strong nervous tension?
ATHENIAN. Yes, and a dreadful, dreadful torture it is! Unless peace is made very soon, we shall find no resource but to fuck Clisthenes.[460]
CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Take my advice, and put on your clothes again; one of the fellows who mutilated the Hermae[461] might see you.
LACONIAN. Quite right. There, I will slip on my tunic.
ATHENIAN. Oh! what a terrible state we are in! Greeting to you, Laconian fellow-sufferers.
LACONIAN (_addressing one of his countrymen_). Ah! my boy, what a thing it would have been if these fellows had seen us just now when our tools were on full stand!
ATHENIAN. Speak out, Laconians, what is it brings you here?
LACONIAN. We have come to treat for peace.
ATHENIAN. Well said; we are of the same mind. Better call Lysistrata then; she is the only person will bring us to terms.
LACONIAN. Yes, yes--and Lysistratus into the bargain, if you will.
CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Needless to call her; she has heard your voices, and here she comes.
ATHENIAN. Hail, boldest and bravest of womankind! The time is come to show yourself in turn uncompromising and conciliatory, exacting and yielding, haughty and condescending. Call up all your skill and artfulness. Lo! the foremost men in Hellas, seduced by your fascinations, are agreed to entrust you with the task of ending their quarrels.
LYSISTRATA. 'Twill be an easy task--if only they refrain from mutual indulgence in masculine love; if they do, I shall know the fact at once. Now, where is the gentle goddess Peace? Lead hither the Laconian Envoys. But, look you, no roughness or violence; our husbands always behaved so boorishly.[462] Bring them to me with smiles, as women should. If any refuse to give you his hand, then catch him by the penis and draw him politely forward. Bring up the Athenians too; you may take them just how you will. Laconians, approach; and you, Athenians, on my other side. Now hearken all! I am but a woman; but I have good common sense; Nature has dowered me with discriminating judgment, which I have yet further developed, thanks to the wise teachings of my father and the elders of the city. First I must bring a reproach against you that applies equally to both sides. At Olympia, and Thermopylae, and Delphi, and a score of other places too numerous to mention, you celebrate before the same altars ceremonies common to all Hellenes; yet you go cutting each other's throats, and sacking Hellenic cities, when all the while the Barbarian is yonder threatening you! That is my first point.