How we cite our quotes: Line
Quote #4
Calonice: "Well, what if we did abstain from, uh, what you say, which heaven forbid: would peace be likelier to come on that account?"
Lysistrata: "Absolutely, by the Two Goddesses. If we sat around at home all made up, and walked past them wearing only our diaphanous underwear, with our pubes all plucked in a neat triangle, and our husbands got hard and hankered to ball us, but we didn't go near them and kept away, they'd sue for peace, and pretty quick, you can count on that!"
Lampito: "Like Menelaus! As soon as he peeked at bare Helen's melons, he threw his sword away, I reckon." (146-156)
Lysistrata's point here is that, even if the war seems necessary, it's actually something the men are choosing to do. However impossible peace seems right now, it would suddenly seem a lot more possible if the men knew that they wouldn't get any more sex until they had put an end to the war. Make love not war indeed.
Quote #5
Men's Leader: "That's the way I laid siege to that fellow—savagely! We camped before the gates in ranks seventeen deep. And now shall I stand by and do nothing to put down the effrontery of these women, enemies of all the gods and of Euripides? Then my trophy in the Tetrapolis may as well disappear!" (281-285)
In these lines, the men's leader is recalling an old war he fought against the Spartan king Cleomenes. But how relevant is it to what's going on now? All the Men's Leader seems to be saying is that he fought bravely in the past, and therefore would lose self-respect if he didn't fight bravely now. These lines show that war is often waged for stupid reasons, like pride.
Quote #6
Magistrate: "We're at war on account of the money, is that it?"
Lysistrata: "Yes, and that's why everything else got messed up too. It was for opportunities to steal that Pisander and the others who aimed to hold office were always fomenting some kind of commotion. So let them keep fomenting to their hearts' content: they'll be withdrawing no more money from this place." (489-492)
In this argument with the Magistrate, Lysistrata sticks to her guns, and insists that the war isn't necessary. The way she sees it, the war is only being fought so that the powerful people in the city can become rich. History fact: one of the causes of the Peloponnesian War was the Athens wanted to maintain its domination over various other Greek cities, who were forced to pay them tribute money.