• Play by Aristophanes
  • It is in GB Volume 5.
  • People in the play: Praxagora, Two Women, Blepyrus, husband of Praxagora, A Citizen, Chremes, A Crier, Three Hags, A Girl, A Youth, A Servant-Maid of Praxagora, Chorus of Women

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https://www.readgreatbooks.info/p/great-books-ep-104-aristophanes-the

Great Books Ep 104. Aristophanes - The Ecclesiazusae. The Constant Yearning for Utopia by Rob, a bibliophile

Idealistic systems fail in so many different ways because of the unpredictability of human nature. Still, people yearn for communal systems were everything is shared and everyone is equal.

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The Ecclesiazusae - Readwise Highlights

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Highlights

  • If we can seize upon the helm of state And trim the ship to weather through the storm; For neither sails nor oars avail it now. (View Highlight)
  • Youths that are most effeminate, they say, Are always strongest in the speaking line; And we’ve got that by nature. (View Highlight)
  • For ways and means none can excel a woman. And there’s no fear at all that they’ll be cheated When they’re in power, for they’re the cheats themselves. (View Highlight)
  • Ye are to blame for this, Athenian people, Ye draw your wages from the public purse, Yet each man seeks his private gain alone. So the State reels. (View Highlight)
  • I move that now the womankind be asked To rule the State. In our own homes, ye know, They are the managers and rule the house. (View Highlight)
  • With nothing on, as most of us supposed, But he himself insisted he was clothed. He made a popular democratic speech. (View Highlight)
  • And then the woman is, he said, a thing Stuffed full of wit and moneymaking ways. They don’t betray their Thesmophorian secrets, But you and I blab all State secrets out. (View Highlight)
  • And women lend each other, said the lad, Their dresses, trinkets, money, drinking-cups, Though quite alone, with never a witness there. And all restore the loan, and none withhold it. (View Highlight)
  • all shall be equal, and equally share All wealth and enjoyments, nor longer endure That one should be rich, and another be poor, That one should have acres, far-stretching and wide, And another not even enough to provide Himself with a grave (View Highlight)
  • All women and men will be common and free, No marriage or other restraint there will be. (View Highlight)
  • By the side of the beauty, so stately and grand, The dwarf, the deformed, and the ugly will stand; And before you’re entitled the beauty to woo, Your court you must pay to the hag and the shrew. (View Highlight)
  • Bl. Will thieves be unknown ? Pr. Why, how should they steal what is partly their own ? (View Highlight)
  • There’ll be plenty for all, and to spare. No stint and no grudging our system will know, But each will away from the revelry go, Elated and grand, with a torch in his hand And a garland of flowers in his hair. (View Highlight)
  • O grudge not the young their enjoyment. For beauty the softest and best Is breathed o’er the limbs of a maiden, And blooms on the maidenly breast. (View Highlight)
  • O God of Love, I cry to thee; Be pitiful, be merciful, And send my love to me. (View Highlight)
  • If thus ye carry out the law, erelong Ye’ll have an Oedipus in every house. (View Highlight)