Lysistrata

Lysistrata

By Aristophanes

Translation by Douglass Parker

The bravest of women, Lysistrata, determines that there is only one way to end war forever. She calls a convention for women only and makes them swear to give up love. Dressed for seduction and armed to the teeth, they beat off their men and refuse to sleep with them until the fighting has ceased.  But, no matter how strong the will, the flesh is weak, and it is impossible to keep the women from joining the men. Backsliding is an ever-present danger.

To an Athens bereft by military disaster, as to the world today, LYSISTRATA stands as an impassioned plea for peace.  With a comic realism that borders on despair, Aristophanes observes that only lust is strong enough to drive out war.

Oh my god, I did not investigate my library's selection of ancient Greek texts, and just picked whichever translation popped up first (it also had a bright pink cover, and fun illustrations which were adorable) and, well,  the translation is not bad, I mean, he's obviously tried for like, rhymes and idioms and stuff, which is why you would never guess from just reading the play that the translator is also, clearly, insane.  I mean:

Even the most rabid advocate of the wide circulation of the classics in any form must blanch slightly at the broadcast misconception that this play is a hoard of applied lubricity.  Witness its latest American publication bowdlerized in reverse, nestled near some choice gobbets from Frank Harris'  autobiography and a slick and curious quarterly called Eros now under indictment.

What in the ever-loving fuck, you may be thinking. Or who the fuck is Frank Harris? The thoughts also crossed my mind.  But I mean, what the fuck is this:

71. The ensuing reconciliation scene, with its surrogate sexuality, is one of the most curious in Aristophanes. It is not lyric; yet both its diction, oddly diffuse and redundant, and it's meter, a paeonic variation on a common trochaic dialogue measure which paradoxically makes it much more regular, seem to call for extensive choreography. I have tried to hedge my bet by stilting the English and employing any regular scheme depending heavily on off rhymes.

I feel like we're getting further away from the goal of his translation, i.e., making it so people who speak English can understand this.   

Beyond all that, the play itself (and the translation) is charming.  It's very short, and involves a lot of jokes and puns about penises, as all best plays do, although it's actually more focused on the interplay between the women and men than it is coming up with new idioms for sex (I see you there Shakespeare, Aristophanes doesn't have a patch on you).  As I mentioned before, Parker does a pretty good job making ancient Greek rhyme, sound modern and make sense, but he has this one weird thing that drove me crazy: he uses "American mountain dialect" for the Spartan characters, which has the effect of completely stopping the rhythm of the page.  For example:

Kleonike: Where did you find that group?

Lysistrata: They're from the outskirts.

Kleonike: Well, that's something.  If you haven't done anything else, you've really ruffled up the outskirts.

Myrrhine: Oh, Lysistrata, we aren't late, are we? Well, are we? Speak to me!

Lysistrata: What is it, Myrrhine? Do you want a medal for tradiness? Honestly, such behavior, with so much at stake...

Myrrhine: I'm sorry.  I couldn't find my girdle in the dark.  And anyway, we're here now.  So tell us all about it, whatever it is.

Kleonike: No, wait a minute.  Don't begin just yet.  Let's wait for those girls from Thebes and the Pelopennese.

Lysistrata: Now there speaks the proper attitude.  And here's our lovely Spartan.  Hello Lampito dear.  Why darling, you're simply ravishing! Such a blemishless complexion - so clean, so out-of-doors!  And will you look at that figure - the pink of perfection!

Kleonike: I bet you could strangle a bull.

Lampito: I calklate so.  Hit's fitness whut done it, fitness and dancin'.  You know the step? Foot it out back'ards an' toe yore twitchet.

Kleonike: What beautiful bosoms!

Lampito: Shuckins, whut fer you tweedlin' me up so? 

I hate it so much, I can't even tell you.  It's one thing for the director of the play to make the decision to have all the Spartans talk like the worst parody of a hillbilly from a Saturday morning cartoon,  but to have the dialogue be twisted and yanked and worse: written in dialect, drives me nuts.  I'd be interested to see if more recent translations would do the same, since I feel like that kind of tone-deaf writing is not in vogue anymore.

I bitch, I bitch, but there's actually very few Spartans, and you can certainly skip the preface and footnotes if you want, and the experience of reading the play is only minorly diminished by the issues I describe.  And for a dusty, centuries-old Greek play, it's actually pretty fun.

And finally, I realized I'd forgotten to mention the prompt: I went for "Women: you can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em" and although apparently this sentiment predates even Aristophanes, I felt this was sufficiently old enough to count as its inspiration!
 
49: A Book That Has Inspired A Common Phrase Or Idiom