Random Stuff 2 - Greek
My other Three Weeks for Dreamwidth thing was to post some poetry to 
forkedtongues, which really meant sorting out a project that I'd vaguely started and subsequently abandoned. It involved trying to translate Aristophanes' Lysistrata in way that actually got across a bit more of the cultural implications, using another cultural context - which was basically the sort of Monty Python/Carry On/Ealing Studios school of British comedy, which is actually a better match for Aristophanes than you'd think. The problem I generally have with Lysistrata is that people seem to take it as vaguely proto-feminist (the women go on a sex-strike, thereby taking their sexual agency into their own hands and asserting their political opinions for the benefit of Athens and Greece), and, yeah, maybe that works in a modern performance, but it's not what I think follows naturally from the Greek and the Athenian context. (The play is basically full of stereotypes, and Lysistrata only really gets where she does by eschewing her femaleness; on top of that the whole play was written and performed by men for men (at least primarily), so I don't think you can really escape the ha-ha, we're-all-lads vibe.)
Of course, there's also the general problem that I don't know many translations that are actually funny, which, by the bye, Aristophanes is...
So, anyway, this is something like the first 'scene', translated in a way that hopefully is possible to follow without footnotes, gets across some of the frown-making aspects and attempts to actually be amusing. Under the first cut is the Greek (edition N.G. Wilson, Aristophanis Fabulae, Tomus II. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007]) and a slightly more literal translation (A.H. Sommerstein, Aristophanes Lysistrata. [Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1990]), which takes a couple of liberties for sense, but keeps everything culturally located in ancient Athens and gives a good impression of what the Greek says. Under the second is my playscript prose translation.
Greek and Literal-ish Translation.
ΛΥΣΙΣΤΡΑΤΗLYSISTRATA
[ΛΥΣΙΣΤΡΑΤΗ] Ἀλλ’ εἴ τις εἰς Βακχεῖον αὐτὰς ἐκάλεσεν,LYSISTRATA [annoyed]: Now if someone had invited them to a Bacchic revel, or to Pan's shrine, or to Genetyllis' shrine at Colias - you'd never have been able to get through the crowd, what with the drums! But as it is, there's not a woman turned up here.
ἢ ’ς Πανὸς ἢ ’πὶ Κωλιάδ’ εἰς Γενετυλλίδος,
οὐδ’ ἂν διελθεῖν ἦν ἂν ὑπὸ τῶν τυμπάνων.
νῦν δ’ οὐδεμία πάρεστιν ἐνταυθοῖ γυνή•
πλὴν ἥ γ’ ἐμὴ κωμῆτις ἥδ’ ἐξέρχεται.5[Seeing the far door open] Except that here's my neighbour coming out.
χαῖρ’, ὦ Καλονίκη.[Calonice comes out.] Good morning, Calonice.
[ΚΑΛΟΝΙΚΗ] καὶ σύ γ’, ὦ Λυσιστράτη.CALONICE: Same to you, Lysistrata.
τί συντετάραξαι; μὴ σκυθρώπαζ’, ὦ τέκνον.[Coming closer] What's disturbed you so terribly? Don't look cross, child. Knitted brows don't look good on you.
οὐ γὰρ πρέπει σοι τοξοποιεῖν τὰς ὀφρῦς.
[Λυ.] ἀλλ’, ὦ Καλονίκη, κάομαι τὴν καρδίαν,LYSISTRATA: My heart's burning, Calonice, and I'm feeling very sore about us women: because in men's opinion we're thought to be such rascals -
καὶ πόλλ’ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τῶν γυναικῶν ἄχθομαι,10
ὁτιὴ παρὰ μὲν τοῖς ἀνδράσιν νενομίσμεθα
εἶναι πανοῦργοι-
[Κα.] καὶ γάρ ἐσμεν νὴ Δία.CALONICE: And so we are, by Zeus!
[Λυ] εἰρημένον δ’ αὐταῖς ἀπαντᾶν ἐνθάδεLYSISTRATA: But when they've been told to meet here to have a discussion about a far from trivial matter, they lie asleep and don't come.
βουλευσομέναισιν οὐ περὶ φαύλου πράγματος,
εὕδουσι κοὐχ ἥκουσιν.
[Κα.] ἀλλ’, ὦ φιλτάτη,15CALONICE: They'll come, darling. For women to get out of the house is quite some trouble, you know. One of us may be hanging round her husband, another rousing a servant, another putting her baby to bed or bathing it or feeding it with tidbits.
ἥξουσι• χαλεπή τοι γυναικῶν ἔξοδος.
ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν περὶ τὸν ἄνδρ’ ἐκύπτασεν,
ἡ δ’ οἰκέτην ἤγειρεν, ἡ δὲ παιδίον
κατέκλινεν, ἡ δ’ ἔλουσεν, ἡ δ’ ἐψώμισεν.
[Λυ.] ἀλλ’ ἦν γὰρ ἕτερα τῶνδε προὐργιαίτερα20LYSISTRATA: But the point is, there were other things that should matter more to them than all those!
αὐταῖς.
[Κα.] τί δ’ ἐστίν, ὦ φίλη Λυσιστράτη,CALONICE: What actually is it, Lysistrata dear, that you're calling us women together for? What is this thing? What's the size of it?
ἐφ’ ὅ τι ποθ’ ἡμᾶς τὰς γυναῖκας ξυγκαλεῖς;
τί τὸ πρᾶγμα; πηλίκον τι;
[Λυ.] μέγα.LYSISTRATA: It's big -
[Κα.] μῶν καὶ παχύ;CALONICE: You don't mean big and meaty?
[Λυ.] νὴ τὸν Δία καὶ παχύ.LYSISTRATA: - and meaty too, I tell you.
[Κα.] κᾆτα πῶς οὐχ ἥκομεν;CALONICE: Then how come we're not all here?
[Λυ.] οὐχ οὗτος ὁ τρόπος• ταχὺ γὰρ ἂν ξυνήλθομεν.25LYSISTRATA: Not in that sense! We'd have assembled fast enough if it was. Not, it's something that I've been examining and tossing about through many a sleepless night.
ἀλλ’ ἔστιν ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ πρᾶγμ’ ἀνεζητημένον
πολλαῖσί τ’ ἀγρυπνίαισιν ἐρριπτασμένον.
[Κα.] ἦ πού τι λεπτόν ἐστι τοὐρριπτασμένον.CALONICE: Tossing about? Must be a dainty little thing.
[Λυ.] οὕτω γε λεπτὸν ὥσθ’ ὅλης τῆς ἙλλάδοςLYSISTRATA: So very dainty that the salvation of all Greece is autally in the hands of her women.
ἐν ταῖς γυναιξίν ἐστιν ἡ σωτηρία.30
[Κα.] ἐν ταῖς γυναιξίν; ἐπ’ ὀλίγου γ’ ἄρ’ εἴχετο.CALONICE: In the hands of her women? Then it's resting on very little!
[Λυ.] ὡς ἔστ’ ἐν ἡμῖν τῆς πόλεως τὰ πράγματα,LYSISTRATA: I tell you that the fortunes of the country depend on us. Either there will be no more Peloponnesians -
ἢ μηκέτ’ εἶναι μήτε Πελοποννησίους-
[Κα.] βέλτιστα τοίνυν μηκέτ’ εἶναι νὴ Δία.CALONICE: Well, that would be splendid, by Zeus, for them to be no more!
[Λυ.] Βοιωτίους τε πάντας ἐξολωλέναι-35LYSISTRATA: - and the Boeotians will all be utterly destroyed -
[Κα.] μὴ δῆτα πάντας γ’, ἀλλ’ ἄφελε τὰς ἐγχέλεις.CALONICE: Oh, please, not all of them - do make an exception for the eels!
[Λυ.] περὶ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν δ’ οὐκ ἐπιγλωττήσομαιLYSISTRATA: I won't utter any words of that kind about Athens, but you can infer my meaning. But if the wives come together here - those from Boeotia, those of the Peloponnesians, and ourselves - united we'll save Greece.
τοιοῦτον οὐδέν• ἀλλ’ ὑπονόησον σύ μοι.
ἢν δὲ ξυνέλθωσ’ αἱ γυναῖκες ἐνθάδε,
αἵ τ’ ἐκ Βοιωτῶν αἵ τε Πελοποννησίων 40
ἡμεῖς τε, κοινῇ σώσομεν τὴν Ἑλλάδα.
[Κα.] τί δ’ ἂν γυναῖκες φρόνιμον ἐργασαίατοCALONICE: But what can women achieve that is clever or glorious - we who sit at home all dolled up, wearing saffron gowns and cosmetics and Cimberic straight-liners and riverboat slippers?
ἢ λαμπρόν; αἳ καθήμεθ’ ἐξηνθισμέναι,
κροκωτοφοροῦσαι καὶ κεκαλλωπισμέναι
καὶ Κιμβερίκ’ ὀρθοστάδια καὶ περιβαρίδας45
[Λυ.] ταῦτ’ αὐτὰ γάρ τοι κἄσθ’ ἃ σώσειν προσδοκῶ,LYSISTRATA:Why, that's exactly what I'm counting on to save Greece - our pretty saffron gowns and our perfumes and our riverboat slippers and our rouge and our see-through shifts.
τὰ κροκωτίδια καὶ τὰ μύρα χαἰ περιβαρίδες
χἤγχουσα καὶ τὰ διαφανῆ χιτώνια.
[Κα.] τίνα δὴ τρόπον ποθ’;CALONICE: How on earth do you mean?
[Λυ.] ὥστε τῶν νῦν μηδένα<ς>LYSISTRATA: To make it none of the men living today will take up the spear against each other -
ἀνδρῶν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισιν αἴρεσθαι δόρυ-50
[Κα.] κροκωτὸν ἄρα νὴ τὼ θεὼ ’γὼ βάψομαι.CALONICE: In that case, by the Two Goddesses, I'm going to dye a gown with saffron!
[Λυ.] μηδ’ ἀσπίδα λαβεῖν-LYSISTRATA: - or take up a shield -
[Κα.] Κιμβερικὸν ἐνδύσομαι.CALONICE: I'm going to put on a Cimberic!
[Λυ.] μηδὲ ξιφίδιον.LYISTRATA: - or even a little toy sword.
[Κα.] κτήσομαι περιβαρίδας.CALONICE: I'm going to buy riverboat slippers!
[Λυ.] ἆρ’ οὐ παρεῖναι τὰς γυναῖκας δῆτ’ ἐχρῆν;LYSISTRATA: So shouldn't the women be here now?
Lysistrata in the world of British comedy...
LYSISTRATA
To be played by men.
Scene: A row of terraces, circa 1973; a milkman has just gone by. Lysistrata appears on her doorstep, dressed like a Monty Python housewife (full on fluffy slippers, long nightdress and dressing gown, curlers in her hair). She ignores the milk, however, looking instead up and down the street, before speaking to the audience.
LYSISTRATA
Typical. You know, if you invited them to a booze-up, or an orgy, or a week at the resort, you wouldn’t be able to move for all the handbags in your face. But here we are and not a single one’s turned up.
This is ironically when next door opens and CALONICE appears. She too looks like a Monty Python housewife, but seems much more interested in the prospect of dairy products.
LYSISTRATA (cont.)
Oh, well, apart from next door’s Calonice. Morning, Calonice.
CALONICE
Morning, Lysistrata... Ooh er, what’s the matter with you? You know, you shouldn’t sulk, dear; that scowl of yours isn’t particularly ladylike.
LYSISTRATA
[Sigh.] I can’t help it, Calonice. I’m extremely miffed. And ‘women’ are really starting to get on my tits. Because you want to ignore all the men saying we’re useless…
CALONICE
Well, by Zeus, Lys, we are.
LYSISTRATA
…but then you tell everyone, be here, so we can have a meeting about the issue at hand - which isn’t exactly minor - and they sleep through it! Don’t bother to turn up!
CALONICE
Now, now, darling, they’ll get here. They’ve got lots to do before they leave the house - one’s probably sorting out her husband, another’s going to be letting in the cleaning lady, and then there’s putting the baby to sleep, giving the little one a wash, putting breakfasts together...
LYSISTRATA
Yes, yes, but they’ve got more important things to worry about than all that!
CALONICE
But what, Lysistrata dear? Why exactly did you call us all together? What’s up? … Is it something big?
LYSISTRATA
[Nods.] It’s big.
CALONICE
[Liking the sound of that.] Ooh, and hard, is it hard, too?
LYSISTRATA
[Long-suffering.] Things will be hard, by Zeus, yes they will.
Pause.
CALONICE
Why on earth aren’t we all here then?
LYSISTRATA is not impressed by this.
LYSISTRATA
Not like that! That would have brought everyone running! No, this is something I’ve been turning over for many a sleepless night, just trying to get a grip on it.
CALONICE
Can’t have been very big if you couldn’t get a grip on it…
LYSISTRATA
Oh, no, not big at all! It’s only the delicate matter of us women holding the fate of all Greece in our hands.
Pause.
CALONICE
Us women? In our hands? That’s not very safe, is it?
LYSISTRATA
That’s how it is. We bear the burden on the country’s fate on our shoulders, and if we fail there’ll be no more Peloponnesians -
CALONICE
Ooh, actually, it’d be rather good if they went...
LYSISTRATA
The people of Boeotia will be eradicated from the face of the earth -
CALONICE
Oh. Does it have to be all of them? Can’t you keep some of them to cook that nice eel thing they do?
LYSISTRATA
As for Athens, well, I’d rather not let that sort of thing pass my lips, but I’m sure you can guess what I might say if I could. Still, if all us women get together, here today, if all of us from Boeotia and from the Peloponnese come here and unite, we shall save Greece!
Pause.
CALONICE
Um, but what can women actually do? You know, in terms of saving - heroism or cunning plans? We just sit around at home, looking nice, with our silk dressing gowns, and our make-up, our negligees and slippers…
LYSISTRATA
Aha! But it’s those things, I reckon, that will save Greece: silk dressing gowns, perfume, slippers, make-up and see-through nighties.
CALONICE
How, in heaven’s name?
LYSISTRATA
I’ll make it so that no man ever again points a gun at another -
CALONICE
[Looking at her raggedy dressing gown.] Well, by Demeter and Persephone, I’d better get to the shops...
LYSISTRATA
That they never put on armour -
CALONICE
I’ll need a new negligee...
LYSISTRATA
Or even wield a vegetable knife!
CALONICE
And I’ll buy those new slippers!
Pause.
LYSISTRATA
Yes, you’d have thought the others would have been here by now.
.
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forkedtongues, which really meant sorting out a project that I'd vaguely started and subsequently abandoned. It involved trying to translate Aristophanes' Lysistrata in way that actually got across a bit more of the cultural implications, using another cultural context - which was basically the sort of Monty Python/Carry On/Ealing Studios school of British comedy, which is actually a better match for Aristophanes than you'd think. The problem I generally have with Lysistrata is that people seem to take it as vaguely proto-feminist (the women go on a sex-strike, thereby taking their sexual agency into their own hands and asserting their political opinions for the benefit of Athens and Greece), and, yeah, maybe that works in a modern performance, but it's not what I think follows naturally from the Greek and the Athenian context. (The play is basically full of stereotypes, and Lysistrata only really gets where she does by eschewing her femaleness; on top of that the whole play was written and performed by men for men (at least primarily), so I don't think you can really escape the ha-ha, we're-all-lads vibe.)
Of course, there's also the general problem that I don't know many translations that are actually funny, which, by the bye, Aristophanes is...
So, anyway, this is something like the first 'scene', translated in a way that hopefully is possible to follow without footnotes, gets across some of the frown-making aspects and attempts to actually be amusing. Under the first cut is the Greek (edition N.G. Wilson, Aristophanis Fabulae, Tomus II. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007]) and a slightly more literal translation (A.H. Sommerstein, Aristophanes Lysistrata. [Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1990]), which takes a couple of liberties for sense, but keeps everything culturally located in ancient Athens and gives a good impression of what the Greek says. Under the second is my playscript prose translation.
Greek and Literal-ish Translation.
ΛΥΣΙΣΤΡΑΤΗLYSISTRATA
[ΛΥΣΙΣΤΡΑΤΗ] Ἀλλ’ εἴ τις εἰς Βακχεῖον αὐτὰς ἐκάλεσεν,LYSISTRATA [annoyed]: Now if someone had invited them to a Bacchic revel, or to Pan's shrine, or to Genetyllis' shrine at Colias - you'd never have been able to get through the crowd, what with the drums! But as it is, there's not a woman turned up here.
ἢ ’ς Πανὸς ἢ ’πὶ Κωλιάδ’ εἰς Γενετυλλίδος,
οὐδ’ ἂν διελθεῖν ἦν ἂν ὑπὸ τῶν τυμπάνων.
νῦν δ’ οὐδεμία πάρεστιν ἐνταυθοῖ γυνή•
πλὴν ἥ γ’ ἐμὴ κωμῆτις ἥδ’ ἐξέρχεται.5[Seeing the far door open] Except that here's my neighbour coming out.
χαῖρ’, ὦ Καλονίκη.[Calonice comes out.] Good morning, Calonice.
[ΚΑΛΟΝΙΚΗ] καὶ σύ γ’, ὦ Λυσιστράτη.CALONICE: Same to you, Lysistrata.
τί συντετάραξαι; μὴ σκυθρώπαζ’, ὦ τέκνον.[Coming closer] What's disturbed you so terribly? Don't look cross, child. Knitted brows don't look good on you.
οὐ γὰρ πρέπει σοι τοξοποιεῖν τὰς ὀφρῦς.
[Λυ.] ἀλλ’, ὦ Καλονίκη, κάομαι τὴν καρδίαν,LYSISTRATA: My heart's burning, Calonice, and I'm feeling very sore about us women: because in men's opinion we're thought to be such rascals -
καὶ πόλλ’ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τῶν γυναικῶν ἄχθομαι,10
ὁτιὴ παρὰ μὲν τοῖς ἀνδράσιν νενομίσμεθα
εἶναι πανοῦργοι-
[Κα.] καὶ γάρ ἐσμεν νὴ Δία.CALONICE: And so we are, by Zeus!
[Λυ] εἰρημένον δ’ αὐταῖς ἀπαντᾶν ἐνθάδεLYSISTRATA: But when they've been told to meet here to have a discussion about a far from trivial matter, they lie asleep and don't come.
βουλευσομέναισιν οὐ περὶ φαύλου πράγματος,
εὕδουσι κοὐχ ἥκουσιν.
[Κα.] ἀλλ’, ὦ φιλτάτη,15CALONICE: They'll come, darling. For women to get out of the house is quite some trouble, you know. One of us may be hanging round her husband, another rousing a servant, another putting her baby to bed or bathing it or feeding it with tidbits.
ἥξουσι• χαλεπή τοι γυναικῶν ἔξοδος.
ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν περὶ τὸν ἄνδρ’ ἐκύπτασεν,
ἡ δ’ οἰκέτην ἤγειρεν, ἡ δὲ παιδίον
κατέκλινεν, ἡ δ’ ἔλουσεν, ἡ δ’ ἐψώμισεν.
[Λυ.] ἀλλ’ ἦν γὰρ ἕτερα τῶνδε προὐργιαίτερα20LYSISTRATA: But the point is, there were other things that should matter more to them than all those!
αὐταῖς.
[Κα.] τί δ’ ἐστίν, ὦ φίλη Λυσιστράτη,CALONICE: What actually is it, Lysistrata dear, that you're calling us women together for? What is this thing? What's the size of it?
ἐφ’ ὅ τι ποθ’ ἡμᾶς τὰς γυναῖκας ξυγκαλεῖς;
τί τὸ πρᾶγμα; πηλίκον τι;
[Λυ.] μέγα.LYSISTRATA: It's big -
[Κα.] μῶν καὶ παχύ;CALONICE: You don't mean big and meaty?
[Λυ.] νὴ τὸν Δία καὶ παχύ.LYSISTRATA: - and meaty too, I tell you.
[Κα.] κᾆτα πῶς οὐχ ἥκομεν;CALONICE: Then how come we're not all here?
[Λυ.] οὐχ οὗτος ὁ τρόπος• ταχὺ γὰρ ἂν ξυνήλθομεν.25LYSISTRATA: Not in that sense! We'd have assembled fast enough if it was. Not, it's something that I've been examining and tossing about through many a sleepless night.
ἀλλ’ ἔστιν ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ πρᾶγμ’ ἀνεζητημένον
πολλαῖσί τ’ ἀγρυπνίαισιν ἐρριπτασμένον.
[Κα.] ἦ πού τι λεπτόν ἐστι τοὐρριπτασμένον.CALONICE: Tossing about? Must be a dainty little thing.
[Λυ.] οὕτω γε λεπτὸν ὥσθ’ ὅλης τῆς ἙλλάδοςLYSISTRATA: So very dainty that the salvation of all Greece is autally in the hands of her women.
ἐν ταῖς γυναιξίν ἐστιν ἡ σωτηρία.30
[Κα.] ἐν ταῖς γυναιξίν; ἐπ’ ὀλίγου γ’ ἄρ’ εἴχετο.CALONICE: In the hands of her women? Then it's resting on very little!
[Λυ.] ὡς ἔστ’ ἐν ἡμῖν τῆς πόλεως τὰ πράγματα,LYSISTRATA: I tell you that the fortunes of the country depend on us. Either there will be no more Peloponnesians -
ἢ μηκέτ’ εἶναι μήτε Πελοποννησίους-
[Κα.] βέλτιστα τοίνυν μηκέτ’ εἶναι νὴ Δία.CALONICE: Well, that would be splendid, by Zeus, for them to be no more!
[Λυ.] Βοιωτίους τε πάντας ἐξολωλέναι-35LYSISTRATA: - and the Boeotians will all be utterly destroyed -
[Κα.] μὴ δῆτα πάντας γ’, ἀλλ’ ἄφελε τὰς ἐγχέλεις.CALONICE: Oh, please, not all of them - do make an exception for the eels!
[Λυ.] περὶ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν δ’ οὐκ ἐπιγλωττήσομαιLYSISTRATA: I won't utter any words of that kind about Athens, but you can infer my meaning. But if the wives come together here - those from Boeotia, those of the Peloponnesians, and ourselves - united we'll save Greece.
τοιοῦτον οὐδέν• ἀλλ’ ὑπονόησον σύ μοι.
ἢν δὲ ξυνέλθωσ’ αἱ γυναῖκες ἐνθάδε,
αἵ τ’ ἐκ Βοιωτῶν αἵ τε Πελοποννησίων 40
ἡμεῖς τε, κοινῇ σώσομεν τὴν Ἑλλάδα.
[Κα.] τί δ’ ἂν γυναῖκες φρόνιμον ἐργασαίατοCALONICE: But what can women achieve that is clever or glorious - we who sit at home all dolled up, wearing saffron gowns and cosmetics and Cimberic straight-liners and riverboat slippers?
ἢ λαμπρόν; αἳ καθήμεθ’ ἐξηνθισμέναι,
κροκωτοφοροῦσαι καὶ κεκαλλωπισμέναι
καὶ Κιμβερίκ’ ὀρθοστάδια καὶ περιβαρίδας45
[Λυ.] ταῦτ’ αὐτὰ γάρ τοι κἄσθ’ ἃ σώσειν προσδοκῶ,LYSISTRATA:Why, that's exactly what I'm counting on to save Greece - our pretty saffron gowns and our perfumes and our riverboat slippers and our rouge and our see-through shifts.
τὰ κροκωτίδια καὶ τὰ μύρα χαἰ περιβαρίδες
χἤγχουσα καὶ τὰ διαφανῆ χιτώνια.
[Κα.] τίνα δὴ τρόπον ποθ’;CALONICE: How on earth do you mean?
[Λυ.] ὥστε τῶν νῦν μηδένα<ς>LYSISTRATA: To make it none of the men living today will take up the spear against each other -
ἀνδρῶν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισιν αἴρεσθαι δόρυ-50
[Κα.] κροκωτὸν ἄρα νὴ τὼ θεὼ ’γὼ βάψομαι.CALONICE: In that case, by the Two Goddesses, I'm going to dye a gown with saffron!
[Λυ.] μηδ’ ἀσπίδα λαβεῖν-LYSISTRATA: - or take up a shield -
[Κα.] Κιμβερικὸν ἐνδύσομαι.CALONICE: I'm going to put on a Cimberic!
[Λυ.] μηδὲ ξιφίδιον.LYISTRATA: - or even a little toy sword.
[Κα.] κτήσομαι περιβαρίδας.CALONICE: I'm going to buy riverboat slippers!
[Λυ.] ἆρ’ οὐ παρεῖναι τὰς γυναῖκας δῆτ’ ἐχρῆν;LYSISTRATA: So shouldn't the women be here now?
Lysistrata in the world of British comedy...
LYSISTRATA
To be played by men.
Scene: A row of terraces, circa 1973; a milkman has just gone by. Lysistrata appears on her doorstep, dressed like a Monty Python housewife (full on fluffy slippers, long nightdress and dressing gown, curlers in her hair). She ignores the milk, however, looking instead up and down the street, before speaking to the audience.
LYSISTRATA
Typical. You know, if you invited them to a booze-up, or an orgy, or a week at the resort, you wouldn’t be able to move for all the handbags in your face. But here we are and not a single one’s turned up.
This is ironically when next door opens and CALONICE appears. She too looks like a Monty Python housewife, but seems much more interested in the prospect of dairy products.
LYSISTRATA (cont.)
Oh, well, apart from next door’s Calonice. Morning, Calonice.
CALONICE
Morning, Lysistrata... Ooh er, what’s the matter with you? You know, you shouldn’t sulk, dear; that scowl of yours isn’t particularly ladylike.
LYSISTRATA
[Sigh.] I can’t help it, Calonice. I’m extremely miffed. And ‘women’ are really starting to get on my tits. Because you want to ignore all the men saying we’re useless…
CALONICE
Well, by Zeus, Lys, we are.
LYSISTRATA
…but then you tell everyone, be here, so we can have a meeting about the issue at hand - which isn’t exactly minor - and they sleep through it! Don’t bother to turn up!
CALONICE
Now, now, darling, they’ll get here. They’ve got lots to do before they leave the house - one’s probably sorting out her husband, another’s going to be letting in the cleaning lady, and then there’s putting the baby to sleep, giving the little one a wash, putting breakfasts together...
LYSISTRATA
Yes, yes, but they’ve got more important things to worry about than all that!
CALONICE
But what, Lysistrata dear? Why exactly did you call us all together? What’s up? … Is it something big?
LYSISTRATA
[Nods.] It’s big.
CALONICE
[Liking the sound of that.] Ooh, and hard, is it hard, too?
LYSISTRATA
[Long-suffering.] Things will be hard, by Zeus, yes they will.
Pause.
CALONICE
Why on earth aren’t we all here then?
LYSISTRATA is not impressed by this.
LYSISTRATA
Not like that! That would have brought everyone running! No, this is something I’ve been turning over for many a sleepless night, just trying to get a grip on it.
CALONICE
Can’t have been very big if you couldn’t get a grip on it…
LYSISTRATA
Oh, no, not big at all! It’s only the delicate matter of us women holding the fate of all Greece in our hands.
Pause.
CALONICE
Us women? In our hands? That’s not very safe, is it?
LYSISTRATA
That’s how it is. We bear the burden on the country’s fate on our shoulders, and if we fail there’ll be no more Peloponnesians -
CALONICE
Ooh, actually, it’d be rather good if they went...
LYSISTRATA
The people of Boeotia will be eradicated from the face of the earth -
CALONICE
Oh. Does it have to be all of them? Can’t you keep some of them to cook that nice eel thing they do?
LYSISTRATA
As for Athens, well, I’d rather not let that sort of thing pass my lips, but I’m sure you can guess what I might say if I could. Still, if all us women get together, here today, if all of us from Boeotia and from the Peloponnese come here and unite, we shall save Greece!
Pause.
CALONICE
Um, but what can women actually do? You know, in terms of saving - heroism or cunning plans? We just sit around at home, looking nice, with our silk dressing gowns, and our make-up, our negligees and slippers…
LYSISTRATA
Aha! But it’s those things, I reckon, that will save Greece: silk dressing gowns, perfume, slippers, make-up and see-through nighties.
CALONICE
How, in heaven’s name?
LYSISTRATA
I’ll make it so that no man ever again points a gun at another -
CALONICE
[Looking at her raggedy dressing gown.] Well, by Demeter and Persephone, I’d better get to the shops...
LYSISTRATA
That they never put on armour -
CALONICE
I’ll need a new negligee...
LYSISTRATA
Or even wield a vegetable knife!
CALONICE
And I’ll buy those new slippers!
Pause.
LYSISTRATA
Yes, you’d have thought the others would have been here by now.
.
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