This, if you like (_handling his tool_). I will give you what I have
there!
LYSISTRATA. Well, well, I will tell her to come.
CINESIAS. Quick, oh! be quick! Life has no more charms for me since she
left my house. I am sad, sad, when I go indoors; it all seems so empty;
my victuals have lost their savour. Desire is eating out my heart!
MYRRHINÉ. I love him, oh! I love him; but he won't let himself be loved.
No! I shall not come.
CINESIAS. Myrrhiné, my little darling Myrrhiné, what are you saying? Come
down to me quick.
MYRRHINÉ. No indeed, not I.
CINESIAS. I call you, Myrrhiné, Myrrhiné; will you not come?
MYRRHINÉ. Why should you call me? You do not want me.
CINESIAS. Not want you! Why, my weapon stands stiff with desire!
MYRRHINÉ. Good-bye.
CINESIAS. Oh! Myrrhiné, Myrrhiné, in our child's name, hear me; at any
rate hear the child! Little lad, call your mother.
CHILD. Mammy, mammy, mammy!
CINESIAS. There, listen! Don't you pity the poor child? It's six days now
you've never washed and never fed the child.
MYRRHINÉ. Poor darling, your father takes mighty little care of you!
CINESIAS. Come down, dearest, come down for the child's sake.
MYRRHINÉ. Ah! what a thing it is to be a mother! Well, well, we must come
down, I suppose.
CINESIAS. Why, how much younger and prettier she looks! And how she looks
at me so lovingly! Her cruelty and scorn only redouble my passion.
MYRRHINÉ. You are as sweet as your father is provoking! Let me kiss you,
my treasure, mother's darling!
CINESIAS. Ah! what a bad thing it is to let yourself be led away by other
women! Why give me such pain and suffering, and yourself into the
bargain?
MYRRHINÉ. Hands off, sir!
CINESIAS. Everything is going to rack and ruin in the house.
MYRRHINÉ. I don't care.
CINESIAS. But your web that's all being pecked to pieces by the cocks and
hens, don't you care for that?
MYRRHINÉ. Precious little.
CINESIAS. And Aphrodite, whose mysteries you have not celebrated for so
long? Oh! won't you come back home?
MYRRHINÉ. No, at least, not till a sound Treaty put an end to the War.
CINESIAS. Well, if you wish it so much, why, we'll make it, your Treaty.
MYRRHINÉ. Well and good! When that's done, I will come home. Till then, I
am bound by an oath.
CINESIAS. At any rate, let's have a short time together.
MYRRHINÉ. No, no, no! ... all the same I cannot say I don't love you.
CINESIAS. You love me? Then why refuse what I ask, my little girl, my
sweet Myrrhiné.
MYRRHINÉ. You must be joking! What, before the child!
CINESIAS. Manes, carry the lad home. There, you see, the child is gone;
there's nothing to hinder us; let us to work!
MYRRHINÉ. But, miserable man, where, where are we to do it?
CINESIAS. In the cave of Pan; nothing could be better.
MYRRHINÉ. But how to purify myself, before going back into the citadel?