How we cite our quotes: Line
Quote #4
Magistrate: "By Poseidon the Salty, it serves us right! When we ourselves abet our wives' misbehavior and teach them profligacy, these are the sort of schemes they bring to flower! Aren't we the ones who go to the shops and say this kind of thing: 'Goldsmith, about that choker you made me: my wife was having a ball the other night, and now the prong's slipped out of the hole. Me, I've got to cruise over to Salamis, so if you've got time, by all means visit her in the evening and fit a prong in the hole.' Another husband says this to a shoemaker, a teenager sporting no boyish cock: 'Shoemaker, about my wife's tootsy: the thong is squeezing her pinky winky, where she's tender. So why don't you drop in on her sometime and loosen it up so there's more play down there?' That's the sort of thing that's led to all this, when I, a Magistrate, have lined up timber for oars and now come to get the necessary funds, and find myself standing at the gates, locked out by women!" (403-430)
Did we mention that Aristophanes portrays women as lustful? Well, here we get some more evidence of that. This time, though, it isn't the women themselves who are providing the evidence, but the Magistrate. According to him, the women of Athens can't be trusted; the moment their husbands are out of sight, they're bound to end of having sex with some tradesman or other. And yet, the Magistrate shows a little bit of prejudice here: he thinks that the men are the ones ultimately to blame for their wives' behavior. From what we've seen already in the other quotations from this section, we think the women of Athens are perfectly capable of cheating on their hubbies all by themselves.
Quote #5
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)
Did we mention that sex isn't all fun and games? Here, once again, Lysistrata points out that their ability to turn men on gives the women of Athens tremendous power. This time around, Lysistrata goes so far as to appeal for help to the gods—Eros, the god of desire, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sex.
Quote #6
Women's Leader: "O mistress of this venture and stratagem, why come you from the palace so dour of mien?"
Lysistrata: "The deeds of ignoble women and the female heart do make me pace dispirited to and fro."
Women's Leader: "What say you? What say you?"
Lysistrata: "'Tis true, too true!"
Women's Leader: "What dire thing? Pray tell it to your friends."
Lysistrata: "'Tis shame to say and grief to leave unsaid."
Women's Leader: "Hide not from me the damage we have taken."
Lysistrata: "The story in briefest compass: we need a f***!" (706-715)
The Greek in these first lines is a parody of the fancy-pants lingo of Greek tragedy. This is what the English translation tries to capture with its weird phrasing and old-fashioned words like "O" and "venture" and "dour of mien." (Uh, yeah.) So what's the big tragedy all about? Unfortunately, we at Shmoop are far too modest to use such language—but you can read the quotation and see for yourself. These show that even though the sex strike is designed to make men change their ways, the women are suffering from it as well.