Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Lysistrata
    Lysistrata
    Lysistrata
    Ebook67 pages51 minutes

    Lysistrata

    By Aristophanes

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Lysistrata (/laɪˈsɪstrətə/ or /ˌlɪsəˈstrɑːtə/; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, "Army Disbander") is a comedy by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society. The dramatic structure represents a shift away from the conventions of Old Comedy, a trend typical of the author's career. It was produced in the same year as the Thesmophoriazusae, another play with a focus on gender-based issues, just two years after Athens' catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian Expedition (font: Wikipedia)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAristophanes
    Release dateApr 11, 2016
    ISBN9788892594203
    Author

    Aristophanes

    Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete.

    Read more from Aristophanes

    Related authors

    Related to Lysistrata

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      My 21st-century Touchstone Play: Theatre Stars Share The Shows That Shook Them To The Core

      Feb 19, 2021

      Here at the Evening Standard, we recently tried to pull together the 21st-century’s greatest plays (read our list and see if you agree). But what about those plays that impact us more personally, that seem to speak to us directly and leave us getting

      7 min read

    • Article

      “Where Did You Laugh?”

      Dec 14, 2019

      “Where Did You Laugh?”
      4 min read

    • Article

      Small Is Beautiful

      Sep 25, 2019

      Small Is Beautiful
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Poetry of Subversion: On ‘Shakespeare in Swahililand’

      Aug 25, 2017

      Shakespeare was often handmaid to the subjugation of people by English colonialists, who used the playwright as evidence of British superiority, while at the same time he was used by people across Africa in their own striving for national self-determ

      7 min read

    • Article

      Polly Stenham

      Jun 4, 2016

      Polly Stenham
      1 min read

    • Article

      Pain And Love In The Backyard

      Feb 25, 2020

      In Will Arbery’s new play, five conservative Catholics in Wyoming gather late at night by a fire pit to argue, commiserate, and face the uncertain future of their faith and their country. Danya Taymor, who directed the play’s premiere at New York Cit

      8 min read

    • Article

      On Stage

      Apr 14, 2020

      On Stage
      1 min read

    • Article

      Carrie Coon Has Drawn Acclaim for Her TV Work, but Her Return to Theater in 'Mary Jane' Brings a Welcome Clarity of Character

      Oct 27, 2017

      NEW YORK - You can tell by the way Carrie Coon confidently maneuvers around the tables of a crowded Tribeca restaurant that this is an actress who has hit her stride. She recently completed two tours of television duty, receiving acclaim for her work

      6 min read

    • Article

      V (formerly Eve Ensler) On Biden, Feminism And Why She Was Wrong To Cancel Her Father

      Mar 9, 2021

      You don’t just hook up with Eve Ensler," said Glenn Close, who performed in the play that made Enlser’s name and changed the lives of women around the world, The Vagina Monologues. "You become part of her crusade". Talking to Ensler, who is now known

      6 min read

    • Article

      Our 25-year friendship

      May 6, 2021

      Our 25-year friendship
      3 min read

    • Article

      Dramas At The Big House

      Dec 15, 2021

      Dramas At The Big House
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mfa Or The Highway?

      Dec 25, 2019

      FOR YEARS, I IDENTIFIED AS A PLAY ‑ wright who wanted an MFA. I had seen those coveted three letters in almost every playwright’s bio, often attached to an illustrious university—an Ivy, or maybe a West Coast equivalent. I spent three autumns writing

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Broadway Star Who Wants to Teach You a History Lesson

      Dec 25, 2017

      Wry Tony winner Nathan Lane goes dark as the vindictive, closeted power broker Roy Cohn in the upcoming Broadway revival of Angels in America, the defining epic of the AIDS crisis. It opens March 25 and also stars Andrew Garfield. Did you see Angels

      3 min read

    • Article

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks

      Nov 25, 2019

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks
      6 min read

    • Article

      Adapting the Bard: On the Hogarth Shakespeare Project’s Diversity Problem

      Oct 5, 2017

      It is disappointing when a project aims to see “the Bard’s plays retold by acclaimed, bestselling novelists and brought to life for a contemporary readership,” yet the writers selected are not ultimately representative of all that contemporary societ

      6 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Note

      Jul 25, 2019

      IF THE FIERCE WOMAN IN A BROCADE JACKET ON OUR cover is unfamiliar to you, allow us to correct that. Playwright Adrienne Kennedy is an American original as distinctive as any artist who’s ever walked among us. Born in 1931, she began writing her lyri

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Lysistrata

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Lysistrata - Aristophanes

      Lysistrata

      by

      Aristophanes

      To the best of our knowledge, the text of this

      work is in the Public Domain.

      HOWEVER, copyright law varies in other countries, and the work may still be under

      copyright in the country from which you are accessing this website. It is your

      responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country before

      downloading this work.

      Lysistrata

      Cleonice

      Myrrhine

      Lampito

      Magistrates

      Cinesias

      Child of Cinesias

      Herald of the Lacedaemonians

      Envoys of the Lacedaemonians

      An Athenian citizen

      Chorus of old men

      Chorus of women

      [Scene:— At the base of the Orchestra are two buildings, the house of Lysistrata and the entrance to the Acropolis; a winding and narrow path leads up to the latter. Between the two buildings is the opening of the Cave of Pan. Lysistrata is pacing up and down in front of her house.]

      Lysistrata

      Ah! if only they had been invited to a Bacchic revelling, or a feast of Pan or Aphrodite or Genetyllis, why! the streets would have been impassable for the thronging tambourines! Now there's never a woman here — ah! except my neighbour Cleonice, whom I see approaching yonder. . . . Good day, Cleonice.

      Cleonice

      Good day, Lysistrata; but pray, why this dark, forbidding face, my dear? Believe me, you don't look a bit pretty with those black lowering brows.

      Lysistrata

      Oh, Cleonice, my heart is on fire; I blush for our sex. Men will have it we are tricky and sly. . . .

      Cleonice

      And they are quite right, upon my word!

      Lysistrata

      Yet, look you, when the women are summoned to meet for a matter of the greatest importance, they lie in bed instead of coming.

      Cleonice

      Oh! they will come, my dear; but it's not easy, you know, for women to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep or washing the brat or feeding it.

      Lysistrata

      But I tell you, the business that calls them here is far and away more urgent.

      Cleonice

      And why do you summon us, dear Lysistrata? What is it all about?

      Lysistrata

      About a big thing.

      Cleonice [taking this in a different sense; with great interest]

      And is it thick too?

      Lysistrata

      Yes, very thick.

      Cleonice

      And we are not all on the spot! Imagine!

      Lysistrata [wearily]

      Oh! if it were what you suppose, there would be never an absentee. No, no, it concerns a thing I have turned about and about this way and that so many sleepless nights.

      Cleonice [still unable to be serious]

      It must be something mighty fine and subtle for you to have turned it about so!

      Lysistrata

      So fine, it means just this, Greece saved by the women!

      Cleonice

      By the women! Why, its salvation hangs on a poor thread then!

      Lysistrata

      Our country's fortunes depend on us — it is with us to undo utterly the Peloponnesians.

      Cleonice

      That would be a noble deed truly!

      Lysistrata

      To exterminate the Boeotians to a man!

      Cleonice

      But surely you would spare the eels.

      Lysistrata

      For Athens' sake I will never threaten so fell a doom; trust me for that. However, if the Boeotian and Peloponnesian women join us, Greece is saved.

      Cleonice

      But how should women perform so wise and glorious an achievement, we women who dwell in the retirement of the household, clad in diaphanous garments of yellow silk and long flowing gowns, decked out with flowers and shod with dainty little slippers?

      Lysistrata

      Ah, but those are the very sheet-anchors of our salvation — those yellow tunics, those scents and slippers, those cosmetics and transparent robes.

      Cleonice

      How so, pray?

      Lysistrata

      There is not a man will wield a lance against another . . .

      Cleonice

      Quick, I will get me a yellow tunic from the dyer's.

      Lysistrata

      . . . or want a shield.

      Cleonice

      I'll run and put on a flowing gown.

      Lysistrata

      . . . or draw a sword.

      Cleonice

      I'll haste and buy a pair of slippers this instant.

      Lysistrata

      Now

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1