Magistrate Timeline and Summary

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• Shortly after the conflict erupts between the Chorus of Women and the Chorus of Men, the Magistrate shows up on the scene.
• The Magistrate delivers a sexist speech, saying that women are always to blame for stirring up trouble.
• But then, when the Men's Leader complains about getting doused with water, the Magistrate tells him it's men's own fault for encouraging women to misbehave—by making it all too easy for them to be sexually unfaithful.
• Then the Magistrate instructs the Scythian policemen to go pry off the gates to the Acropolis with crowbars.
• Before the policemen can do their dirty work, however, Lysistrata comes out of the gates.
• The Magistrate orders the policemen to seize Lysistrata, but she stands her ground. A battle of words ensues, as one, two, three old women come to Lysistrata's defense.
• Now the Magistrate has had enough: he orders all four policemen to march forward and seize the women. But the women call up the reserves—a whole army of old women who plow their way onto the stage and beat the living daylights out of the four Scythian policemen.
• The policemen run away; the army of old women marches back into the Acropolis. Lysistrata remains onstage, still facing down the Magistrate.
• Now, the Men's Leader complains to the Magistrate about how the women have just doused him and the other members of the Men's Chorus with water. The Women's Leader speaks up, saying that he deserved it.
• The Men's Leader commands the Magistrate to interrogate the women about why they are occupying the Acropolis. The Magistrate does so.
• Lysistrata proudly replies that the women have occupied it so that they can control the treasury—and prevent the city funds from being wasted on war. Lysistrata says that the war is only being fought for money anyway.
• When the Magistrate asks Lysistrata how she thinks she, a woman, can manage the city's funds, she points out that women manage the household finances anyway.
• The Magistrate can't muster much of a comeback to that. After a testy exchange between himself and Lysistrata, he demands to know why the women have suddenly become interested in political affairs.
• Lysistrata explains that, for a long time, women have listened in silence as their men explained to them how business went in the democratic assembly. Even though the women thought the men were making stupid decisions, they only asked polite questions—and got told to shut up, all the same.
• Later on, as it became clearer and clearer that the men's stupidity was having a negative effect on the city, the women began criticizing their husbands. This time, their husbands threatened them with physical violence to make them be quiet.
• Finally, though, when the horrible human costs of the war became all too clear, when people could be heard in the streets complaining about how all the men of the land had been killed in war, the women decided to take matters into their own hands.
• This, explains Lysistrata, is why the women have taken control: to get the men's act together for them.
• Hearing this, the Magistrate says that he would rather die than take orders from a woman—especially a woman wearing a veil.
• So what does Lysistrata do? She takes off her own veil and puts it on the Magistrate. Then an old woman steps forward and gives the Magistrate her sewing basket. Lysistrata tells him to get sewing: women are in charge of war now.
• The Magistrate asks them what exactly they're planning.
• Lysistrata explains that the most basic thing they want is to stop people from walking around the city with all their weaponry on—because it's crazy. Then she explains the women's main goal: to put an end to the war between Athens and Sparta.
• The Magistrate doesn't believe the women will be able to do it.
• But then Lysistrata makes a long speech comparing the city to a ball of yarn: just as women wash and beat wool to clean it, then card all the wool into a big basket, then spin it into yarn and weave a robe out of it, in the same way, they should get rid of all the corruption in the city, unify everyone with friendship, and bring peace.
• The Magistrate thinks this is a bunch of hooey. He makes fun of the women for trying to run the show when (according to him) they don't bear any of the burdens of war.
• This remark provokes an angry reaction from Lysistrata. She points out that women bear plenty of burdens: they give birth to sons and send them off to war, they sleep alone because their husbands are off fighting, and many of them grow old without being able to get a husband.
• The Magistrate tries to convince them that old men have a hard time too—but the women don't listen to him. Instead, they treat him as if he were a dead body that they were dressing up for its funeral. (In Ancient Greece, preparing bodies for burial was a woman's job.)
• Covered in ribbons and wreaths, the Magistrate runs away to complain to the other magistrates.