Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle

by F. A. Wright

The Lysistrata, ‘breaker up of armies,’ is a much stronger play, and the heroine is a masterpiece of dramatic characterisation. From the beginning of the action, when she stands in the darkness waiting for the women she has summoned, and frowning with impatience—‘although a frown spoils her looks,’ as her one companion tells her—until the end, when, her purpose accomplished, she can say, ‘Let man stand by woman and woman by man. Good luck to all, and pray God that we make no more of these mistakes,’ she is a real living woman. If Aristophanes had written nothing else, Lysistrata shows that he understood the female mind almost as well as Euripides himself: better far than most women authors, except only the incomparable Jane, to whose Emma in masterfulness and independence the Athenian lady bears a close resemblance. The plot of the play is simple. Under the lead of Lysistrata the women of Athens make a league with the women of Sparta, Bœotia, Corinth, and the other Greek States (for the solidarity of women is one of the key-notes of the play), to stop the war. For this purpose they put into effect both active and passive measures: they bind themselves by oath to have no further intercourse with their husbands until peace is made (the women at first object, but under the lead of the athletic Spartan finally agree), and they also seize the Acropolis with the treasury. The old men left at home, and the officials, for most of the men are at the war, try to use force; but Lysistrata has marshalled and drilled her women. In a very vivid scene the men attack, but, ‘Up guards, and at them!’ cries Lysistrata; and the forces of male law and order, as represented by the Scythian policemen, are put to ignominious flight. Then the men think it expedient to propose a friendly meeting, and the ‘conversation’ between Lysistrata and the Chief Commissioner is the most instructive part of the play.

‘Why have you seized the treasury?’ he asks. Lysistrata explains that all wars depend on financial considerations, and that the women mean to stop supplies. His argument, that women have no administrative skill or financial knowledge, is countered by the plain facts of home management. ‘It is not the same thing,’ says the Commissioner; ‘this is a war fund.’ Then Lysistrata declares that the war has to stop—now, at once.

In our retiring modesty we have put up long enough with what you men have been doing. You would not let us speak, but we have not been at all satisfied with you. We knew what was going on, although we stay indoors. Over and over again we were told of some new big mistake you had made. With pain in our hearts we would put on a smile and ask, ‘What have you done to-day about the peace?’ ‘But—what’s that to you?’ our man would say. ‘Hold your tongue.’ And so I did, then (says Lysistrata), but I am not going to now. I have heard the strain quite long enough, ‘Men must see to war’s alarms.’ This is my version of the tune: ‘Women shall see to war’s alarms’; and if you listen to my advice you will not be troubled by war’s alarms any more. All you have to do is to hold your tongue, as we used to do.

At this the Commissioner breaks in furiously: ‘You accursed baggage, I hold my tongue before you! Why, you are wearing a veil now to hide your face. May I die rather.’ But his anger does him little good.

‘If that is your difficulty,’ says Lysistrata, ‘take my veil’—and she puts it on his head—‘and now hold your tongue; moreover, here is my wool-basket, so you may munch beans and card the wool; for now “Women, women never shall be slaves.”’ And so the scene ends with the triumphant chorus.

Between this, the first act, and the second there is a short interval of time; and when we see Lysistrata again she is having some difficulty in keeping her women together and away from their husbands. ‘You long for your men,’ she says; ‘don’t you think they are longing for you? I am sure they are finding the nights very hard. Hold out, good friends, and bear it for a little while longer.’ Her arguments are successful, and soon the first man comes in, with a baby in his arms, prepared to submit to any terms. But till the peace is made, no arrangement is possible and the poor husband goes away unsatisfied. Finally, a joint deputation of Spartans and Athenians appear before Lysistrata. She, as a woman, and therefore, she says, a person of sense, has no difficulty in arranging for them terms of peace which are satisfactory to both sides; and so the play ends with a ‘necklace’ dance, men and women dancing hand in hand.

But this brief summary gives little idea of all the devices of stage-craft in which the Lysistrata abounds. It is eminently an acting play, and can still fill a theatre. The language is certainly gross and its heroine is entirely lacking in modest reticence, but a glance at the French adaptation by M. Donnay, of the Academy, and especially at the additional episodes there introduced, will prove that grossness is not the worst thing in the world, and that a quiet tongue does not always mean a virtuous mind.

The Women in Assembly, Ecclesiazusæ, is much less vigorous. Written twenty years later than the Lysistrata, it shows plain signs of old age and failing powers. Euripides and Socrates have both passed away; the Socratic Circle has broken up. Tragedy is dead, and comedy is dying, for Aristophanes has lost most of that ‘vis comica’ which was his most wonderful possession. The influence of Plato is substituted for the influence of Euripides, and the play is a parody of feminist theories as they are developed in the Republic.

The construction, however, is poor: the action halts and changes midway in the play; the first part is effective enough, but it would be more effective if we did not remember the Lysistrata, whose themes it repeats with less vigour.