How we cite our quotes: Line
Quote #7
Magistrate: "So how will you women be able to put a stop to such a complicated international mess, and sort it all out?"
Lysistrata: "Very easily."
Magistrate: "How? Show me."
Lysistrata: (taking the sewing blanket from the Magistrate and using its contents to illustrate) "It's rather like a ball of yarn when it gets tangled up. We hold it this way, and carefully wind out the strands on our spindles, now this way, now that way. That's how we'll wind up this war, if we're allowed: unsnarling it by sending embassies, now this way, now that way." (565-570)
In these lines, Lysistrata responds to the Magistrate's accusation that women simply lack the necessary skill and experience to run the city. Lysistrata begs to differ, and explains how the women's skills acquired through spinning yarn can be transferred to untangling the knotty problems of the city. And from the way Lysistrata describes it, it sure sounds like untangling yarn requires a lot of patience—another name for perseverance. Could she be suggesting that this type of patience/perseverance is something that women are good at (perhaps because they have had to practice it for so long), and something that men could use an extra dose of?
Quote #8
Lysistrata: "What are you raving about?"
Third Wife: "I'm about to deliver a child!"
Lysistrata: "But you weren't pregnant yesterday."
Third Wife: "But today I am. Please, Lysistrata, send me home to the midwife, right away!"
Lysistrata: "What's the story? What's this thing you've got under there? It's hard."
Third Wife: "It's a boy."
Lysistrata: "By Aphrodite, it's obvious you've got something metallic and hollow under there. Let's have a look. Ridiculous girl! You're big with the sacred helmet, not with child!"
Third Wife: "But I am with child, I swear!"
Lysistrata: "Then what were you doing with this?"
Third Wife: "Well, if I began to deliver here in the citadel, I could get into the helmet and have my baby there, like a pigeon." (744-755)
In these lines, we see a lack of perseverance and a type of perseverance wrapped up together in the same person. The Third Wife is lacking in perseverance because she is trying to sneak away from the sex-strike and go have sex her husband. On the other hand, she is showing perseverance through her steadfast insistence that she actually is pregnant, even as her claims become more and more ridiculous.
Quote #9
Lysistrata: "There's an oracle predicting victory for us, but only if we stick together. (produces a scroll) Here's the oracle right here."
Third Wife: "Tell us what it says."
Lysistrata: "Be quiet, then.
Yea, when the swallows hole up in a single home,
fleeing the hoopoes and leaving the phallus alone,
then are their problems solved, and high-thundering Zeus
shall reverse what's up and what's down—"
Third Wife: "You mean we'll be lying on top?"
Lysistrata: "But:
if the swallows begin to argue and fly away
down form the citadel holy, all will say,
no bird more disgustingly horny lives today!"
Third Wife: "A pretty explicit oracle. Ye gods!" (765-777)
Do you think this is a real oracle that Lysistrata is reading, or just something she made up? Either way, we think the Third Wife is right on the money when she calls it a "pretty explicit oracle." The clear message of the oracle is that, if the women use perseverance, their strike will succeed, and they will gain glory for themselves. If not, they'll be called "horny birds." Not hard to see which one is better.