People in the play: Lysistrata, Calonice, Myrrhina, Lampito, Magistrates, Stratyllis, Cinesias, A Child of Cinesias, A Herald of the Laconians, Laconian Ambassadors, Athenian Ambassadors, Idlers, A Porter, Chorus of Men, Chorus of Women
I grieve for sake of womankind, Because the men account us all to be Sly, shifty rogues, (View Highlight)
And I would cleave my very self in twain Like a cleft turbot, and give half for Peace. (View Highlight)
We must abstain—each —from the joys of Love. (View Highlight)
I’d walk through fire: only, not give up Love. There’s nothing like it, dear Lysistrata. (View Highlight)
O women women O our frail, frail sex !
No wonder tragedies are made from us.
Always the same: nothing but loves and cradles. (View Highlight)
Scant joy a husband gets Who finds himself at discord with his wife. (View Highlight)
I will abstain from Love and Love’s delights.
And take no pleasure though my lord invites.
And sleep a vestal all alone at nights.
And live a stranger to all nuptial rites.
I will abjure the very name of Love.
So help me Zeus, and all the Powers above.
If I do this, my cup be filled with wine.
But if I fail, a water draught be mine. (View Highlight)
We’ll slay (Like those Seven Chiefs in Aeschylus) a lamb Over a shield.
Ca. Nay, when our object’s Peace, Don’t use a shield, Lysistrata, my dear. (View Highlight)
They will not bring or threats or fire enough To awe our woman hearts, and make us open These gates again, save on the terms we mentioned. (View Highlight)
O dear, how many things in life belie one’s expectations (View Highlight)
Ay, by Poseidon, and it serves us right. ‘Tis all our fault: they’ll never know their place, These pampered women, whilst we spoil them so. (View Highlight)
why do the rest of our officers feel Always a pleasure in strife and disturbances ?
Simply to gain an occasion to steal. (View Highlight)
Just as a woman, with nimble dexterity, thus with her hands disentangles a skein, Hither and thither her spindles unravel it, drawing it out, and pulling it plain. So would this weary Heljenic entanglement soon be resolved by our womanly care, (View Highlight)
Only let Love, the entrancing, the fanciful, only let Queen Aphrodite to-day Breathe on our persons a charm and a tenderness, lend us their own irresistible sway, Drawing the men to admire us and long for us; then shall the war everlastingly cease, Then shall the people revere us and honour us, givers of Joy, and givers of Peace. (View Highlight)
Grey though he be when he comes from the battle- field, still if he wishes to marry, he can.
Brief is the spring and the flower of our womanhood, once let it slip, and it comes not again; (View Highlight)
Ye want your husbands. And do you suppose They don’t want us} Full wearisome, I know, Their nights without us. (View Highlight)
There is nothing so resistless as a woman in her ire. She is wilder than a leopard, she is fiercer than a fire. (View Highlight)
Bring those Laconians hither, not with rude Ungenial harshness hurrying them along, Not in the awkward style our husbands used, But with all tact, as only women can. (View Highlight)