Page:The Eleven Comedies (1912) Vol 1.djvu/274

270 here, and the noble Theban, my dear Ismenia. 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 Hecaté, I asked my neighbours of Bœotia 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!

You, Lysistrata, you who are leader of our glorious enterprise, why do I see you coming towards me with so gloomy an air?

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

Tell us, tell us, what is it?

I only tell the simple truth.

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

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

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

To blurt it out in a word—we are in heat!