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i io THE LYSISTRATA
The women conclude that one who talks thus
is no better than a dead man ; and when he
sets out on some trusty platitude concerning
women's sphere and the married state with
Truly
whoever is able to wed
Lysistrata takes him up sharply with
Truly, old fellow, 'tis time you
were dead.
Accordingly they prepare with sacrificial pigs,
funeral cakes, fillets and chaplets to give the
walking corpse a decent burial. The magistrate
stumps off, taking Heaven to witness
he never was so insulted in his life, which, as
Lysistrata observes, amounts to nothing more
than grumbling because they have not laid
him out.
Twenty-three centuries are gone since Aris-
tophanes wrote the Lysistrata,
but the safe
official who dismisses with a traditional sneer
or a smile the notion that any can manage,
save those who have been trained to mis-
he has out-
manage, is still with us. Perhaps
lived the class whose prejudices and limitations
he formerly expressed but in ;
the days
of Aristophanes such a class existed, and it
is represented here by the chorus of old gentle-
men. In those days the men were not the
had no intention of
only fools. Aristophanes
naaldog out that they were. He was a better