LYSISTRATA (_alone_). Ah! if only they had been invited to a Bacchic
revelling, or a feast of Pan or Aphrodité or Genetyllis,[390] why! the
streets would have been impassable for the thronging tambourines! Now
there's never a woman here-ah! except my neighbour Calonicé, whom I see
approaching yonder.... Good day, Calonicé.
CALONICÉ. Good day, Lysistrata; but pray, why this dark, forbidding face,
my dear? Believe me, you don't look a bit pretty with those black
lowering brows.
LYSISTRATA. Oh! Calonicé, my heart is on fire; I blush for our sex. Men
_will_ have it we are tricky and sly....
CALONICÉ. And they are quite right, upon my word!
LYSISTRATA. Yet, look you, when the women are summoned to meet for a
matter of the last importance, they lie abed instead of coming.
CALONICÉ. Oh! they will come, my dear; but 'tis not easy, you know, for
women to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband;
another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep,
or washing the brat or feeding it.
LYSISTRATA. But I tell you, the business that calls them here is far and
away more urgent.
CALONICÉ. And why _do_ you summon us, dear Lysistrata? What is it all
about?