Summary
Athens, 410 BC. A traditional production would begin with a Bacchanalia, in which, according to the translator, " the actors were partying, drinking and being very sexually playful." Eventually, in this sequence, a Spartan and an Athenian would get into a fight, which would escalate, to signify war.
Lysistrata enters and recognizes her neighbor, Calonice. As they greet one another, Calonice comments on the fact that Lysistrata "ruins" her face when she frowns. Lysistrata expresses her dismay at the fact that she has called a meeting of women, but they are all sleeping. Calonice insists that the women will be there soon, but have to tend to their domestic and familial duties. Lysistrata tells Calonice, "This game will lead the women to save all of Greece."
Calonice is not so sure that Lysistrata will be able to get women to enact such huge change, saying, "All we can do is lie around in slinky gowns, all made up and perfumed, wearing pretty little shoes." Lysistrata insists that this is precisely how they will save Greece.
First, some women from Anagyra, "where everyone is smelly," arrive. Then, some Athenians. Myrrhina comes in with some other women. Then, Lampito enters with the Theban and Corinthian women. When Lysistrata asks Lampito how everything is going in Sparta, Lampito replies, "Yes, me can throttle bull! Me do gymnastics, make lots of muscles!" Calonice admires Lampito's "boobs" as Lampito introduces her Theban friend (whom Calonice notes trims her pubic hair) and her Corinthian friend, whose rear end Calonice slaps.
Lysistrata makes an impassioned speech, asking the women if they miss their husbands who are away at war. She says that she used to use toys, but now she cannot even find those anymore, and there are no spare lovers around. Lysistrata suggests that they ought to withhold sex from their husbands in order to convince them to stop fighting, but none of the women want to do it.
When Lysistrata asks Lampito if she will abstain from sex, Lampito says, "Not fucking is difficult, is true. Is nice to have man in bed. But war is more difficult. So if no fucking for no war then yes, no fucking, I say." Lysistrata is grateful and insists that if the women all make themselves very beautiful and irresistible, but then refuse to have sex with their husbands, their husbands will have no choice but to stop fighting.
The women question Lysistrata about what they should do if the husbands leave them, or drag them into bed, or try and force themselves on them. To this she says, "Don’t let them enjoy it. Besides, no husband wants to force his wife, there’s no pleasure in that. They’ll give up that game soon enough." Lysistrata then outlines the second part of the plan, in which Athenian women will go to the Acropolis and seize all the wealth found there.
Lysistrata delivers an oath that all the women repeat. They wonder what to swear on, but when Lysistrata suggests sheep entrails over a shield, as in Aeschylus, the women think that perhaps they should just use a jug of Thasian wine. Some women bring the wine and everyone touches the cup. The oath is as follows: "I will not go near my husband or my lover. No matter how big a hard-on he has. I will be completely celibate, And wear nothing but seductive clothing, And get my husband as horny as possible. But I will never willingly give in to him, No matter how he pressures me. And if he tries to force me, I will not do the thing where I put my legs up over his head. Nor will I pretend to be a lioness he has caught in the forest. If I keep my oath, let my cup be filled with nothing but wine. And if I break it, let it be filled with nothing but water."
They drink as a noise is heard offstage, which signifies that the women have seized the Acropolis. "By Aphrodite, that’s the spirit. We’ll show them that women are a strong and wily sex," says Lysistrata.
Chorus 1. A chorus of old men enter. They sing a "burning song" in which they threaten to smoke the women out of the Acropolis. Then, the Leader of the women comes out, followed by a chorus of women. The women say, "Don’t come near us with those torches bright,/For we are all prepared to fight./It won’t be easy to defeat this flock of wily hens,/Nike, help us beat this enemy./We want to have our victory./We won’t be dislodged from here by these feeble men."
The men threaten to burn the women with their torches, but the women throw cold water on them. "I was just watering you, to help you grow," says the leader of the women. They throw the water on the men's crotches, and the men yell, "I'm freezing cold and my balls are shrinking!"
Analysis
The play begins with a scene of women doing some grassroots organizing. Lysistrata is calling together the women of the community to get them to work together to stop the war that is taking place, but she faces some initial obstacles. Many of the women are not showing up, which Calonice assures Lysistrata has to do with their domestic duties as women in the community. She tells her, "Most of the women are stuck inside, either taking care of their husbands, or waking up their servants, or putting their children to bed, or giving their babies a bath or some milk." Very early on in the play, Aristophanes depicts a world in which women seek to politically organize, and break out of their traditional domestic and feminine labors in order to do so.
What is all the more unique about Lysistrata's plan is that she proposes that the women can enact political change precisely by using their feminine powers within the home. When Calonice suggests that women are not impactful politically, saying, "All we can do is lie around in slinky gowns, all made up and perfumed, wearing pretty little shoes," Lysistrata tells her that this is precisely how they will win their political case. Lysistrata is interested in weaponizing a woman's ability to seduce a man in order to coerce the men into stopping wars.
In Aristophanes' vision, sex is the perfect way for the women to control their husbands, and is not only their primary weapon for making change, but also their motivation. The play suggests that the women dislike war not for political reasons explicitly, but because it takes the men away from home, leaving them lonely and sexually unfulfilled, and because it is all tied up in money and greed. The play does make a political comment on the arbitrary nature of war, depicting war as silly and unnecessary, but centers sexual satisfaction as at the heart of the crisis between the women and their husbands.
True to traditional Greek dramatic modes, there is both a dramatic scene and a choral scene for each segment of the narrative. In this first section, we see the women gathered in a more traditional "scene" situation, sharing their feelings about the current political situation in conversation. The choral scene that follows features two choruses, one male and the other female, discussing the issues at stake, but in poetically heightened ways. While none of the play is particularly realistic, there is a division in form between the choral scenes and the regular scenes. While the regular scenes push the narrative forward, the choral scenes provide a kind of commentary about what is going on.
The choral scene turns the campaign that the women are planning into a metaphorical and theatrical scenario. The women and the men become two dueling factions, collectives that have their own points of view, politically and theatrically. The sexual protest that Lysistrata staged is presented as a meeting of fire and water. While the men carry torches, which represent their libido, the women fight back with cold water, which they throw on the men's genitals. This theatricalized relation between the two choruses serves to represent and further illuminate the dynamic between the genders within Greek society. It explicates the struggle in an imaginative and entertaining way for the stage, like a dance or a song.
