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Lysistrata was a comedic play written in 411 BC by author Aristophanes. The Peloponnesian War took place between 431 B.C. and 404 B.C. nearly 30 years of war, between Athens and Sparta. The idea of this play is fascinating to think women can end a war simply off of the premise of there sexulity. Lysistrata isn’t just about a sex strike to end the war it battles with femininity and masculinity throughout the text. Lysistrata is more than an average housewife, she conjures up a great plan to switch the power to benefit women and there children and ends the war.
The play opens with Lysistrata alone at home with the Propylaea behind her.
She impatiently wait for assumingly the women she has invited to for a meeting. She appears frustrated and insists that if it were some feast or appointment they would be on time. She states, “the tambourines would block the rowdy streets, But now there's not a woman to be seen.” In the beginning Lysistrata portrays the women to have a negative stereotype, like the women only care for parties.
A woman finally does appear and it’s Lysistrata’s neighbor Calonice.
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She enters the home and immediately notices Lysistrata's’ appearance “Good day Lysistrata. But what has vexed you so? Tell me, child. What are these black looks for? It doesn't suit you To knit your eyebrows up glumly like that.” It is now where she begins to explain the plan she has without completely exposing it. She discusses with Calonice how the women can save Greece apous to the men who have been fighting this war for so long.
Unlike Calonice or the other women we will be introduced to Lysistrata isn’t the typical housewife who’s willing to just sit back and obey the way of life made from the men in power. Lysistrata is not the submissive type, she doesn’t feel the need to stay home and take care of the house she’s more politically driven, she’s determined to do better for not only herself but for the women around her as well. Calonice is the opposites she doesn’t believe at first that women can even do anything to besides be a housewife she jokes in the beginning about what a women is there for, she is okay with conforming to Athenian’s gender role and “knows her place.’
Lysistrata explains how her plan will work “But if the women join us From Peloponnesus and Bœotia, then Hand in hand we'll rescue Greece.” Calonice describes herself and the women as if there are timid in a back room with gowns on. Lysistrata understands the women need to band together in order to be taken seriously by the men and as well as there own peers. As she gets more into her plan it is down played due to Calonice, she begins describing all her fancy and sexy clothing and lysistrata knows it’ll just help them with their plan. The women finally show up one after the other friend Myrrhine who enters with her excuse ready. Spartan girl with a delightful face names Lampito enters as well, a Boeotian lady then a Corinthian women. As each of them enter Lysistrata greats them with compliments about there beauty.
The women who join this meeting seem to be a diverse group of women throughout Greece from both sides of the war. They are eager to learn why they have been invited and Lysistrata asks a question instead of directly saying why “Are you not sad your children's fathers Go endlessly off soldiering afar In this plodding war? I am willing to wager There's not one here whose husband is at home.” The women begin to answer and say how long there husbands have been gone. She begins to unfold her plan but informs that if they want peace the must refrain. Myrrhine eagerly agrees “We will, we will, if we must die for it.” Lysistrata then states that they must refrain from every depth of love. She describes the women to be shaking their heads no, biting their lip, and turn their backs to her. Calonice and Myrrhine both state they will not comply and the war can proceed. It was a continuous back and forth and Lampito even references the Illiad “just as Menelaus, they say, Seeing the bosom of his naked Helen Flang down the sword.” The women finally comply and decide to take an oath on a white horse and symbolise themselves and the oath with a bowl of wine and swearing to not add a drop of water.
Lampito hears a noise and it’s the women in the Acropolis. Lysistrata sends her off to the Spartans to gather rebels. The chorus of old men enter and try to attack the Acropolis. The old men struggle to go up hills with there torches and the smoke chokes them and burns there eyes, so there are coughing throughout the journey to get there. There is even a moment were the Gods are thanked and asked for victory “Aid me, Lady Victory, that a triumph-trophy may tell How we did anciently this insane audacity quell!” There was emphasis on the chorus of men being old, Aristophanes capitalized the fact that there were OLD MEN in the text. The description of them struggling to reach the reach the Acropolis, it does make sense because the younger men are out fighting in the war. The chorus of women come out with buckets of water ready to drench the men with hot water. The men and women go back and forth with funny puns at one another when the woman throws hot water on the men she says a comedic pun “Watered, perhaps you'll bloom again--why not?” The fire being extinguished can symbolize the fire men have for intercourse and the water symbolizes the women putting it out until there is peace. The threat of domestic violence towards the women is in the entire text I assume because of the time.
Lysistrata appear “Stop this banging.I'm coming of my own accord.... Why bars? It is not bars we need but common sense.” she appears cool and collective and ready to speak with the commissioner who has shown up with an officer ready to arrest her. A second officer appears to assist with the arrest and Calonice threatens “By Pandrosos I if your hand touches her I'll spread you out and trample on your guts.” In the short time from the oath to this text it showed she gained so much courage by realizing that women are more powerful together then apart. The commissioner Magistrate demands to know why they barricaded the temple gate Lysistrata simply answers “To take first the treasury out of your management, and so stop the war through the absence of gold” indicating that the gold is needed to help supply the war.
The two of the discuss what happens if they need it for emergencies or to save someone Lysistrata says they’ll make it due and the commissioners states he doesn’t want to be saved and get annoyed with women meddling in things that does not concern them. For a comedic play Lysistrata gives a great monologue how they’ve held their tongues and sat in silence while chaos was all around them. The women begin to dress the commissioner as the lengthy monologues continuous about the faith of Greece and peach. I seen this part in the text as a way silence him the way they do women hence why they dress him up as women while talking circles around him that he slowly understands. He was able to see it through the eyes of a women.
As all this occurs Lampito and the rebels she has gathered have sent the men into a craze sense of lust. A spartan emerges holding his cloak to hide his erection. Magistrate notices “Then why do you turn aside and hold your cloak So far out from your body? Is your groin swollen With stress of travelling?” he finally admits it because the women have denied themselves to them. He does expose himself as well as the commissioner as a joke. The spartan is here agree to peace and to stop the battle. The men speak that is something does not happen they will explode. It’s more so towards to the end you remember this a comedic play. The men finally agree and hurry off to gather there allies and agree to peace and to come back for a feast then they may go home to there wives and then have them as they wish. The play then ends with a song with the Spartans.
The no sex strike of the women was a success. It affects all the men of Greece because they were unable to control their basic human wants of sex with their wives. It shows that lust was so powerful it created a shift of power to the women who were in charge for a short while but I believe that there were seen as equal towards to end. This was a comedic play but the comedy didn’t show until the end there were moments here and there. This play seems to silly ant that this could not possibly ever happen but ultimately it has and is possible, it shows that a woman's’ sexuality holds a lot in today's word as well as those time.
Image of Women in Comedic Play Lysistrata. (2021, Dec 03). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/image-of-women-in-comedic-play-lysistrata-essay
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