Part 13 (2/2)

Come, let vengeance fall, You that below the waist are still alive, Off with your tunics at my call-- Naked, all.

For a man must strip to battle like a man.

No quaking, brave steps taking, careless what's ahead, white shoed, in the nude, onward bold, All ye who garrisoned Leipsidrion of old....

Let each one wag As youthfully as he can, And if he has the cause at heart Rise at least a span.

We must take a stand and keep to it, For if we yield the smallest bit To their importunity.

Then nowhere from their inroads will be left to us immunity.

But they'll be building s.h.i.+ps and soon their navies will attack us, As Artemisia did, and seek to fight us and to sack us.

And if they mount, the Knights they'll rob Of a job, For everyone knows how talented they all are in the saddle, Having long practised how to straddle; No matter how they're jogged there up and down, they're never thrown.

Then think of Myron's painting, and each horse-backed Amazon In combat hand-to-hand with men.... Come, on these women fall, And in pierced wood-collars let's stick quick The necks of one and all.

WOMEN.

Don't cross me or I'll loose The Beast that's kennelled here....

And soon you will be howling for a truce, Howling out with fear.

But my dear, Strip also, that women may battle unhindered....

But you, you'll be too sore to eat garlic more, or one black bean, I really mean, so great's my spleen, to kick you black and blue With these my dangerous legs.

I'll hatch the lot of you, If my rage you dash on, The way the relentless Beetle Hatched the Eagle's eggs.

Scornfully aside I set Every silly old-man threat While Lampito's with me.

Or dear Ismenia, the n.o.ble Theban girl. Then let decree Be hotly piled upon decree; in vain will be your labours, You futile rogue abominated by your suffering neighbour To Hecate's feast I yesterday went-- Off I sent To our neighbours in Boeotia, asking as a gift to me For them to pack immediately That darling dainty thing ... a good fat eel [1] I meant of course;

[Footnote 1:_Vide supra_, p. 23.]

But they refused because some idiotic old decree's in force.

O this strange pa.s.sion for decrees nothing on earth can check, Till someone puts a foot out tripping you, and slipping you Break your neck.

LYSISTRATA _enters in dismay_.

WOMEN

Dear Mistress of our martial enterprise, Why do you come with sorrow in your eyes?

LYSISTRATA

O 'tis our naughty femininity, So weak in one spot, that hath saddened me.

WOMEN

What's this? Please speak.

LYSISTRATA

Poor women, O so weak!

WOMEN

What can it be? Surely your friends may know.

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