Chorus of Old Men.
Alas! the situation grows more and more strained! the intensity of the thing is just frightful.
Laconian.
’Tis beyond belief. But to work! summon your Commissioners, and let us patch up the best peace we may.
Chorus of Old Men.
Ah! our men too, like wrestlers in the arena, cannot endure a rag over their bellies; ’tis an athlete’s malady, which only exercise can remedy.
An Athenian.
Can anybody tell us where Lysistrata is? Surely she will have some compassion on our condition.
Chorus of Old Men.
Look! ’tis the very same complaint. (Addressing the Athenian.) Don’t you feel of mornings a strong nervous tension?
An Athenian.
Yes, and a dreadful, dreadful torture it is! Unless peace is made very soon, we shall find no resource but to fuck Clisthenes.[1]
Chorus of Old Men.
Take my advice, and put on your clothes again; one of the fellows who mutilated the Hermæ[2] might see you.
- ↑ An effeminate, a pathic; failing women, they will have to resort to pederasty.
- ↑ These Hermæ were half-length figures of the god Hermes, which stood at the corners of streets and in public places at Athens. One night, just before the sailing of the Sicilian Expedition, they were all mutilated—to the consternation of the inhabitants. Alcibiades and his wild companions were suspected of the outrage.
