How we cite our quotes: Line
Quote #4
Lysistrata: "How could he be right, you sorry fool, when we were forbidden to offer advice even when your policy was wrong? But then, when we began to hear you in the streets openly crying, 'There isn't a man left in the land,' and someone else saying, 'God knows, there isn't, not a one,' after that we women decided to lose no more time, and to band together to save Greece. What was the point of waiting any longer? So, if you're ready to listen in your turn as we give you good advice, and to shut up as we had to, we can put you on the right track." (522-528)
With these words, Lysistrata winds up her lecture on the stupidity of male dominance in Athens. Now, we're not blaming the men in her story from reacting badly to the news that many young men of the city have been killed in war; after all, Lysistrata and her fellow women are largely motivated by grief at these senseless deaths, too. But doesn't it show just a little self-centeredness that men only come to realize their mistakes when lots of other men have been killed, even though their neglected wives have been warning them about the truth all along?
Quote #5
Magistrate: "Me shut up for you? A damned woman, with a veil on your face no less? I'd rather die!"
Lysistrata. "If the veil is a problem for you, here, take mine, it's yours, put it on your head, and then shut up!"
First Old Woman: "And take this sewing basket too."
Lysistrata: "Now hitch up your clothes and start sewing; chew some beans while you work. War shall be the business of womenfolk!" (530-538)
Clearly, women aren't the only ones in this play who have their priorities screwed up. Back in lines 119-130, we saw some women initially react to Lysistrata's plan by saying they would rather die than give up sex. Well, now we see that the men—or, one man, at least, the Magistrate—would rather die than take advice from a woman. Which of the two is stupider? We don't know about you, but we have our money on the Magistrate.
Quote #6
Lysistrata: "If Eros of the sweet soul and Cyprian Aphrodite imbue our thighs and breasts with desire, and infect the men with sensuous rigidity and bouts of truncheonitis, then I believe all Greece will one day call us Disbanders of Battles." (551-554)
Throughout history, one of the main symbols of masculine authority has been, well, men's "manhood." Doesn't this make it all the more ironic that Lysistrata and her fellow women's plan is to turn the very source of men's symbolic power into a weapon against them? Even the man who's proudest of his potency wouldn't want to endure "bouts of truncheonitis," would he? From Ancient Athens to the present day, the message of those Viagra commercials rings true: "If erection lasts more than 4 hours, consult your doctor." Aristophanes says pretty much the same thing—but with a lot more pizzazz.