Twenty-three centuries are gone since Aristophanes 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 mismanage, is still with us. Perhaps he has outlived 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 gentlemen. In those days the men were not the only fools. Aristophanes had no intention of making out that they were. He was a better artist than party man. He was a comic poet who revealed the essential comedy of all things. The chorus of women, Lysistrata herself, and the other leading ladies, all have their foibles and absurdities; only the chorus of men, who are so keenly alive to them, seem never to guess that there are smuts on the pot. To seek in this age and country a companion for these old fellows would be to insult our Western civilization. Let us invent a purely fantastic character; one who could not sleep at night for fear of Prussians and Social Democrats, who clamoured daily for a dozen Dreadnoughts, conscription, and the head of Mr. Keir Hardie on a charger, and yet spent his leisure warning readers of the daily papers against the danger of admitting to any share of power a sex notorious for its panic-fearfulness, intolerance, and lack of humour; such a one would indeed merit admission to the χορὁς γερὁντων [Greek: choros gerontôn], would be a proper fellow to take his stand ἑξἡς Αριστογεἱτονι [Greek: hexês Aristogeitoni], beside the brave Aristogiton, and πατἁξαι τἡσδε γραὁς τἡν γνἁθον [Greek: pataxai têsde graos tên gnathon], beat down this "monstrous regiment of women."
Aristophanes was a staunch Conservative, but he disliked a stupid argument wherever he found it. He cared intensely about politics, but he could not easily forget that he was an artist. Neither the men nor the women are tied up and peppered with the small shot of his wit; they are allowed to betray themselves. The art consists in selecting from the mass of their opinions and sentiments what is most significant, and making the magistrate, who speaks for the party, deliver himself of judicious commonplaces. The chorus of wiseacres, the bar-parlour politicians, whom chance or misfortune has led to favour one side rather than the other, are less cautious without being less platitudinous. Their talk is all of "inevitable war" and "stripping for the fray," "vindicating rights," "tyranny" and "traitors," "spoliation," "innovation," and "striking good blows for the cause"; at least it was twenty-three hundred years ago.
Men Chorus.
This is not a time for slumber;
now let all be bold and free,
Strip to meet the great occasion,
vindicate our rights with me.
I can smell a deep, surprising
Tide of Revolution rising,
Odour as of folk devising