‘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.