Lysistrata Read online

  3

  HE ARRIVED early in the morning, before dawn, and what he had in mind was to slip into the house and have a quick bath and scent himself in the accepted fashion and then duck down to his wife’s chambers for what he’d been thinking of for a long time in Pylos and with mounting enthusiasm all the way home. After rousing a slave to fill the marble basin in the bathroom, he undressed in his quarters and went through the Proitas past the statue of Hestia. Bathed and scented, he hurried back to his room and through into the passage to Lysistrata’s boudoir.

  It was still very dark, and he carried a torch to light his way. Beside Lysistrata’s bed, he touched the flame to the wick of the terra-cotta lamp, and the light of the lamp flickered and flared and spread softly — and Lycon stood looking down at Lysistrata for a long moment — and finally he shook her gently and woke her up. When she opened her eyes and saw him bending over her, she was clearly aware at once of what he wanted, which was nothing she didn’t want herself, so far as that went. At first she thought she would participate, and then she remembered her advice to Calonice.

  “Well,” she said in a very cool voice, “if it isn’t Lycon. My husband, as I recall. Have you actually decided to come home for a change? Where in the world have you been for the last six, eight months?”

  Having naturally anticipated a more ardent welcome, Lycon was momentarily paralyzed. He stood looking at Lysistrata with a kind of stricken expression on his face, and he could in no way understand the meaning of such an incredible attitude. What he did understand, though, was that this certainly wasn’t a proper way for a wife to welcome a husband home from the wars.

  “What do you mean, where have I been?” he said finally. “You know very well where I’ve been. I’ve been off fighting the war in Pylos, that’s where I’ve been.”

  “Pylos?” she said. “Where’s Pylos?”

  “Why, Pylos is down in Messenia on the Bay of Sphacteria, that’s where it is, and you know it as well as I do. What’s the matter with you, anyhow? Why do you want to waste time asking questions about geography? Just move over a little and let me lie down.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t seem to be in the mood or something.”

  This was something he had never expected to hear, Greek women being generally eager to cooperate in matters of this kind, and Lysistrata even a little more eager than most. He finally began to understand that he was getting the treatment, and it made him feel frustrated and angry.

  “Now isn’t that just too bad!” he said. “I surely wouldn’t want to bother you if you’re not in the mood, especially since it’s only been seven months and ten days since I’ve been accommodated, and if you want to know what I think, I think it’s been a lot less since you’ve been accommodated, or you’d certainly be in the mood.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Go ahead and abuse me and accuse me of infidelity and anything else you can think of that isn’t true. It’s to be expected, I suppose, from someone who’s always off at the Bay of Sphacteria or someplace like that and never home taking care of his business like a sensible person.”

  “Well, I can’t believe it!” he said. “It’s just absolutely impossible to tell what’s going to get into the head of a woman, and that’s no lie. Maybe you don’t even think I’ve been at Pylos. Maybe you think I’ve been down at the Piraeus all this time drinking wine and having fun with the girls. Maybe you haven’t heard that there’s a war going on at all, and if you haven’t, I’m the one to assure you that there is, and I’ve been there, and I’m bound to say that this is a wonderful reception for a man to get from his wife when he’s just back from it for a few days.”

  “Oh, the war,” she said, sounding bored. “I’ve heard of the war, all right. As a matter of fact, I’ve been hearing about it all my life. It started just about the time I was born, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m sick of it and don’t ever want to hear of it again.”

  “It’s all right for you to talk this way to me,” he said, “because I’m your husband and know very well that you have surely lost your mind, but you’d better not let anyone else hear you say such crazy things. You might find yourself in more trouble than you can handle. Women, of course, are of inferior intelligence, as you are plainly demonstrating, and can’t be expected to understand masculine enterprises.”

  Lysistrata looked at him and laughed scornfully, and he was tempted for a moment to give her a beating immediately, which was his prerogative, but he didn’t do it because he still had hopes of giving her something else more satisfactory to both.

  “The superiority of men to women,” she said, “is a myth which men have developed in order to avoid exposing their own idiocy by comparison. The truth is, women are much more sensible than men, and if it had been left to the women, this silly war would have been over long ago, or never started, and everyone would be much better off as a consequence.”

  “That’s all,” he said. “I tell you I am sick of this foolish evasion. I came here for a little pleasure, which would incidentally be a pleasure to you also, and all I get are insults and an invitation to discuss the Peloponnesian War from the time of Pericles. As a husband with certain rights, I must insist that you move over and make ready.”

  “If you insist on your rights,” she said, “there’s nothing I can do about it, and I guarantee that I’ll do exactly that. Nothing, I mean. It will be a very dull performance.”

  “Perhaps a good beating would change your mind,” he said.

  “I’m quite prepared to have you beat me,” she said, “because you are a superior person and have learned to handle all problems by hitting someone with your fist or an axe, or by sticking him with a spear. There is really no reason why you should make an exception of your wife. Nevertheless I don’t wish to move over and make ready for the simple reason that I have got out of the habit. You are gone so much of the time that I have learned to amuse myself in other ways, and I may even take up philosophy in the manner of Aspasia.”

  “Well, that just shows how little you know about anything at all. Aspasia was one of the hetairai, the consort of Pericles himself, and you can bet your girdle that both of them considered philosophy a poor second in the way of amusement to the habit you claim to have got out of.”

  “I don’t doubt it at all, especially on the part of Pericles, for he was obviously a dunce who didn’t know the true value of anything.”

  This was just something to say for an argument, for the truth was that she didn’t know or care any more about philosophy than a Boeotian eel, and she was really just as eager to move over and make ready as Lycon was to have her do it. What she planned, however, was to hold out for concessions, and she was determined on this in spite of everything.

  As for Lycon, when she slandered Pericles in such a reckless fashion, he looked at her in horror, as if he expected her to be split up the middle at any second by a thunderbolt.

  “Now I know you’re completely crazy,” he said, “and in no way responsible for anything you say or do or refuse to do. Everyone knows that Pericles was the greatest man who ever lived. He made Athens the greatest city in all Greece, besides which he fostered the arts and had many fine shrines built on the Acropolis.”

  “All that may be true,” she said, “but he also got us into this foolish war which never ends, and no sooner had he got us into it than he died like a coward of the plague and got himself out of it. Furthermore, I believe he was really guilty of embezzling all that money from the treasury, as he was accused, even though he was later exonerated. He probably used it to buy votes with.”

  “That’s absolutely the last word!” Lycon said. “What you are saying is certainly no less than treason, and you are lucky that I’m a man of patience who is inclined to overlook your insanity as an effect of excessive chastity.”

  “Oh, nonsense. I’m only pointing out the palpable truth that men are idiots. It is also true that women are not, and that they would, if they could, make a favorab
le change in things. It pleases the men in their arrogance to mock our talents and assign us an inferior place in the pattern of affairs. This is merely a part of the sum of nonsense that men maintain. Actually, women are naturally superior and much more capable of giving matters their proper importance.”

  At that, Lycon began to laugh, but it wasn’t because he saw anything funny in the situation, and the fact of the matter was, he was hysterical. After a while he quit laughing and wiped his eyes and looked at Lysistrata, and she was lying there propped up on one elbow just as she came naturally, and the juices began to boil up in him again, and he was tempted to take charge of things, but he knew it wouldn’t be satisfactory in the end.

  “Well,” he said, “I am just home from the war after seven months and ten days, and I have come here like a devoted husband, and I don’t want any more evasions or lectures or general foolishness. All I want to know is, are you going to move over and make ready, or aren’t you?”

  “I don’t intend to voluntarily,” Lysistrata said, “and that’s final.”

  He was forced to concede that he was absolutely stymied short of violence. Frustrated and confused, he went back to his quarters, raging. After he’d had a little breakfast of bread and wine, he put on a clean chiton and got out of the house and went down to the marketplace.

  4

  THE MARKETPLACE was located in the middle of the town where all the main streets crossed, which made it easy to reach from all directions. Athenians were a gregarious breed and spent a lot of time at this lively center, not because they had anything in particular to do there, but just loafing and talking with cronies and passing the time of day in one way or another.

  Having reached the marketplace, Lycon wandered around the square looking at this and that, and after a while he began to feel a little better.

  The farmers from the country around town had hauled in their produce to be sold, peas and lentils and other vegetables, as well as fruit and milk and honey, and all this produce was available in the stalls for anyone who had the obols to buy it. There were also wine stalls, and these were doing a brisk business, because the Greeks were very handy with a skin of wine. It was essential in shopping to watch the merchants like a hawk, for they were sharp fellows who took great pride in weighing up a thumb or slipping a customer the wrong change from a drachma.

  There were very few women in the marketplace, the Greek custom being to keep the women in the home, unless they happened to be the yellow-headed whores called hetairai, who wore flowery robes and entertained the more prosperous citizens. Exceptions were the girls who sold flowers and bread, and the flower-girls established for themselves a quality of charm that was celebrated by artists and poets and other romantic people.

  Pretty soon, after wandering around the square and looking things over, Lycon stopped and watched a pair of clowns cutting capers in front of a studio, but he couldn’t get much fun out of it, and decided that he simply wasn’t in the mood. Thinking of the mood he wasn’t in, he began brooding again over the mood that Lysistrata hadn’t been in, even after seven months and ten days. It didn’t seem to him in any way reasonable, and the only explanation that he could consider acceptable off-hand was that she had another lover, in which case he was bound in honor to throw her out of the house. The truth was, however, he didn’t want to do it. For his obols, when it came to stirring up the juices in a man, there wasn’t another female in Athens, hetairai or otherwise, who could come close to her. Besides, it would probably turn out that she hadn’t been unfaithful at all. It was just that she didn’t understand about how a man had to be a patriotic citizen and do his duty in the war. What he ought to do, he decided, now that he had a chance to think about it clearly with some detachment, was to beat her thoroughly and exercise his prerogatives, which was more than likely what she wanted anyhow, women being generally peculiar.

  Moving along, he came to a small group that had gathered to listen to the spiel of a vendor who was selling some kind of medicine that was guaranteed to cure all known diseases. After listening for a while with the others, he went on to a lounge in which a couple of fellows were discussing the situation in Sicily, but he couldn’t get interested in it, and was bored, and just then along came Acron, the husband of Calonice.

  “Well, well,” said Acron, “if it isn’t old Lycon. I thought you were in Pylos.”

  “I was in Pylos,” said Lycon, “but I have come back temporarily for a rest.”

  “When did you get home?”

  “Just this morning, as a matter of fact.”

  “Well, I’m very glad to see you. How’s everything in Pylos, by the way?”

  “Pretty dull, to tell the truth.”

  “Oh, that’s to be expected, of course. War’s always a dull business, when you come right down to it.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you, Acron, but I doubt that it’s patriotic to admit it.”

  “That depends on which day it is. I understand that Alcibiades, after betraying us to the Spartans, is returning to Athens. Yesterday, therefore, it was treasonous to admire him, and tomorrow it will be expected.”

  “Oh, well. Alcibiades always was a wild one. Even when he was a kid running around the streets, you never could tell from one day to the next what he’d be up to. A juvenile delinquent was what he was, to tell the truth, and in my opinion he was guilty of knocking the phalli off all the statues of Hermes, just as he was accused.”

  “You’re probably right. You have to admit, though, that he had a way about him. The hetairai were crazy about him, and it’s common knowledge that the Queen of Sparta went to bed with him, and even had a bastard by him, and everyone can remember when he slapped the face of old Hipponicus and then had the nerve to talk him out of his daughter and a big dowry of twenty talents besides.”

  “I admit that he was successful with the girls, and I only wish he’d been half as successful with the Syracusans.”

  “He wasn’t in the campaign against Syracuse, and you know it perfectly well. Before he could get started, he was snatched back to Athens to stand trial for mimicking the Eleusinian Mysteries.”

  “They used his plan of campaign, just the same, and where did it get them? Everyone wound up dead or in the stone quarries, that’s where it got them. If you want to know what I think, I think it’s too bad they didn’t get him on that Eleusinian Mysteries business, instead of letting him escape and run off to Sparta.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You have to admire him in a way. I guess it’s true that he offered to help Sparta beat us in the war, which is certainly treason, but he didn’t last long down there after all, and nothing came of it.”

  “Of course he didn’t last long. How could you expect anyone to last long anywhere when he’s all the time crawling in and out of bed with someone else’s wife? The minute old King Agis heard he’d tumbled with the Queen, he was a dead pigeon so far as his chances in Sparta were concerned.”

  “But he certainly was successful with the girls, all right.” Acron laughed. There was an envious expression on his face, and it was easy to see that this accomplishment was one that he admired. “Do you remember when poor old Hipparete, his wife, went before the archon for a divorce on the grounds that he’d been sleeping around with the hetairai? Well, he didn’t do a thing but snatch her right out from under the old archon’s nose and haul her off home. He carried her right through this marketplace, and I can testify to it, because I was right here when it happened.”

  “Well,” he said bitterly, “I don’t make any excuse for most of the silliness that Alcibiades was always up to, but I can see how he might have been justified in sleeping around with the hetairai, and if things don’t pick up around my house pretty fast, I may take it up myself.”

  Acron looked at him with interest, smelling something juicy.

  “What’s the matter, old boy? You run into something unexpected when you got home? Personally, I make a special point of never coming home unexpectedly at night or early in the morning
. It prevents a lot of unnecessary trouble, you know.”

  “It’s not anything like that.”

  “No? What’s the trouble, then? It might do you good to get it off your chest.”

  “Well, the truth is, Lysistrata seems to be on a strike.”

  “Strike? What kind of strike?”

  “To come right out with it, the first thing I did when I got home this morning was to duck down to her bed chamber.”

  “Naturally.”

  “But Lysistrata refused to move over and make ready.”

  “Really? That’s incredible.”

  “It’s worse than that. It’s dereliction of duty, to say the least.”

  “Of course you beat her and made her get ready just the same.”

  “I didn’t, as a matter of fact. I was so surprised that I just couldn’t do anything.”

  “Oh, that was a bad mistake. You certainly should have beaten her. I’ve never had precisely the same situation arise, but I’ve frequently been compelled to beat Calonice for other reasons having to do with pigheadedness. The results are always very satisfactory.”

  “I don’t know. Somehow I got the idea that beating Lysistrata wouldn’t accomplish much in this case.”

  “Did she give you a reason for not making ready? Is she ill or anything like that?”

  “No. The best I can understand it, she’s annoyed because I spend too much time in the war and not enough at home.”

  “Is that all? That’s common among wives, Lycon, old boy. Surely you realize that. Calonice is always bitching about the war, especially when it creates a shortage of Boeotian eels. You just don’t pay any attention to it, that’s all.”

  “How can you help paying attention to it if your wife refuses absolutely to make ready?”

  “Well, that complicates the problem, and I admit it. Did she declare openly that she was on strike because of the war and all?”

  “Not exactly, but that’s what’s behind it, I’m certain. She just said she didn’t seem to be in the mood.”