No More Learning

. . . Pass decree on
decree, you can do us no hurt, you wretch abhorred of all your fellows.
Why, only yesterday, on occasion of the feast of Hecate, I asked my
neighbours of Boeotia for one of their daughters for whom my girls have a
lively liking--a fine, fat eel to wit; and if they did not refuse, all
along of your silly decrees! We shall never cease to suffer the like,
till someone gives you a neat trip-up and breaks your neck for you!

CHORUS OF WOMEN (_addressing Lysistrata_). You, Lysistrata, you who are
leader of our glorious enterprise, why do I see you coming towards me
with so gloomy an air?

LYSISTRATA. 'Tis the behaviour of these naughty women, 'tis the female
heart and female weakness so discourages me.

CHORUS OF WOMEN. Tell us, tell us, what is it?

LYSISTRATA. I only tell the simple truth.

CHORUS OF WOMEN.
What has happened so disconcerting; come, tell your
friends.

LYSISTRATA. Oh! the thing is so hard to tell--yet so impossible to
conceal.

CHORUS OF WOMEN. Nay, never seek to hide any ill that has befallen our
cause.

LYSISTRATA. To blurt it out in a word--we are in heat!

CHORUS OF WOMEN. Oh! Zeus, oh! Zeus!

LYSISTRATA. What use calling upon Zeus? The thing is even as I say. I
cannot stop them any longer from lusting after the men.