Aristophanes, Lysistrata
Jack Lindsay, Ed.

I love him O so much! but he won't have it.
Don't call me down to him.

CINESIAS
Sweet little Myrrhine!
What do you mean? Come here.

MYRRHINE
O no I won't.
Why are you calling me? You don't want me.

CINESIAS
Not want you! with this week-old strength of love.

MYRRHINE
Farewell.

CINESIAS
Don't go, please don't go, Myrrhine.
At least you'll hear our child. Call your mother, lad.

CHILD
Mummy ... mummy ... mummy!

CINESIAS
There now, don't you feel pity for the child?
He's not been fed or washed now for six days.

MYRRHINE
I certainly pity him with so heartless a father.

CINESIAS
Come down, my sweetest, come for the child's sake.

MYRRHINE
A trying life it is to be a mother!
I suppose I'd better go.
She comes down.

CINESIAS
How much younger she looks,
How fresher and how prettier! Myrrhine,
Lift up your lovely face, your disdainful face;
And your ankle ... let your scorn step out its worst;
It only rubs me to more ardor here.
MYRRHINE (playing with the child)

You're as innocent as he's iniquitous.
Let me kiss you, honey-petling, mother's darling.

CINESIAS
How wrong to follow other women's counsel
And let loose all these throbbing voids in yourself
As well as in me. Don't you go throb-throb?

MYRRHINE
Take away your hands.

CINESIAS
Everything in the house
Is being ruined.

MYRRHINE
I don't care at all.

CINESIAS
The roosters are picking all your web to rags.
Do you mind that?

MYRRHINE
Not I.

CINESIAS
What time we've wasted
We might have drenched with Paphian laughter, flung
On Aphrodite's Mysteries. O come here.

MYRRHINE
Not till a treaty finishes the war.

CINESIAS
If you must have it, then we'll get it done.

MYRRHINE
Do it and I'll come home. Till then I am bound.

CINESIAS
Well, can't your oath perhaps be got around?

MYRRHINE
No ... no ... still I'll not say that I don't love you.

CINESIAS
You love me! Then dear girl, let me also love you.

MYRRHINE
You must be joking. The boy's looking on.

CINESIAS
Here, Manes, take the child home!... There, he's gone.
There's nothing in the way now. Come to the point.

MYRRHINE
Here in the open! In plain sight?

CINESIAS
In Pan's cave.
A splendid place.

MYRRHINE
Where shall I dress my hair again
Before returning to the citadel?

CINESIAS
You can easily primp yourself in the Clepsydra.

MYRRHINE
But how can I break my oath?