Lysistrata: Lines 706 – 979 Summary & Analysis

A distraught Lysistrata emerges from the Acropolis. In a lofty speech more suitable for a tragedy than a comedy, she reveals that the women are losing their resolve. “We want to get laid,” she says, and indeed the girls are going wild. They’re trying to escape by tunnel and rope. One woman pretends she’s going home to save her wool from the moths, another so that she can “pluck the fibers” of her flax. Another woman stuffs Athena’s sacred helmet in her clothing so that she appears pregnant, the better to sneak off from the Acropolis and rendezvous with her lover. Lysistrata orders them all to get back inside.

The other women begin to crowd around Lysistrata. Kleonike complains of “those goddamned holy owls” in the Acropolis who hoot all night long. But Lysistrata understands that the women are really bothered by being away from their men. The women nod shamefacedly to acknowledge it. In response, Lysistrata pulls out a scroll on which is written a prophecy: when the swallows leave their accustomed perch, then the great god Zeus will end their suffering, but if the swallows return to their perch prematurely, their flocks will dissolve. Understanding the oracle’s message, the women troop back inside the Acropolis.

The two Choruses assemble. The Chorus of Old Men sing proudly of a huntsman called Melanion who learned to live without women, “sustained by rabbit meat and hate.” One of them attempts to kiss an old woman nonetheless, but then she threatens him with her fist. He tries to kick her but misses, “exposing an overgrown underbrush.” The Chorus of Old Women then sing about a local grouch named Timon who hated only men and befriended women; he is the women’s “antidote” for Melanion. An old woman, for her part, now tries to kick an old man, but she misses, “brazenly baring the mantrap below.” At least it’s clean and smooth, she says.

Lysistrata mounts a platform and scans the horizon. Then she stops suddenly, and orders her women to their battle stations: a man is approaching, and he’s enflamed with love (as we later learn, “in erection and considerable pain”). Myrrhine identifies this man as her husband, Kinesias. Lysistrata reminds Myrrhine that her duty is to sexually excite her husband without breaking the Oath, and Lysistrata herself offers to stay and help “poke up the fire.” All the other women exit, and Myrrhine hides from her husband’s view. Kinesias staggers onstage, followed by a male slave who carries a baby boy.

“WHO PENETRATES OUR POSITIONS,” asks Lysistrata. Kinesias identifies himself, and Lysistrata pretends to be overcome. The name “Kinesias,” she says, is famous among the women of Athens, and they even have a nickname for his incomparable member. Kinesias demands to speak to Myrrhine, but Lysistrata asks what she herself would get out of it. “I’ll raise whatever I can,” he says. Goodness, says Lysistrata, that’s really something for his wife to do.

Lysistrata moves to where Myrrhine is hidden and the two have a conversation in voices designed to be overheard. Myrrhine says that she’s mad about her husband, but that he doesn’t want her love. Kinesias calls her, and she appears at the wall. He begs her to come down, going so far as to take up their baby boy in his arms and fiercely order it to call to its mother. The child cries for his mommy (he hasn’t been washed or fed for a week, so says the father), and Myrrhine pityingly descends at last. Kinesias says he doesn’t think his wife has ever looked so hot.

Myrrhine takes her baby in her arms. Kinesias says she ought to be ashamed of herself because the household is falling apart without her. Myrrhine responds that she’ll come home only once the Athenians agree to a truce and stop the war. Desperate, Kinesias asks his wife to lie down with him for a minute. “We’ll talk,” he says. Myrrhine says it would be disgusting to do it in front of the baby, so Kinesias sends the baby home with the slave. He then begins to persuade his wife to break the Oath.

Myrrhine seems to acquiesce, but she says she can’t make love on the ground. She goes off to get a cot from the Acropolis. She returns—but, she just remembered, the couple will need a mattress, too. Kinesias says he doesn’t want a mattress, but off his wife goes to get one, giving him the lightest of kisses to tide him over. Myrrhine returns with a mattress, only to play a similar game of prolongation by fetching a pillow, a blanket, and not one but two bottles of perfume.

Myrrhine then begins to undress, and she asks Kinesias whether he’ll remember to vote for the truce. When he gives a noncommittal response, however, Myrrhine runs off for good. Kinesias mourns her departure in a parody of tragic lamentation. He asks that Zeus reduce the throbbing of his erect member. The Male Koryphaios prays that the god unleash his thunder on Kinesias’ sluttish wife, pick her up in a strong wind, and drop her right onto her husband’s member. Kinesias exits left.