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Lysistratus
By Gary E Miller
An intricate network of publishers has brought out The Penelopiad, a retelling of the Odyssey –from the point of view of Penelope, Odysseus's wife, by Margaret Atwood, as part of a series of updated classics by famous modern authors.
Not to be outdone, Poetry and Good Cheer Press offers Lysistratus, a re-examination of Aristophanes' timeless play, by an unfamous (or infamous) writer.
It is a story of sex, love, war, social upheaval, political strife, violence, rebellion, humour, suspense, drama – everything but a recipe for souvlaki.
For those few who don't know, the Greek playwright Aristophanes (450?-380? B. C. E.) wrote a play, Lysistrata, about an Athenian woman who organizes a sex strike to stop wars among the Greek states.
She was married, but we know nothing about her husband. Perhaps it was an arranged marriage – or a deranged marriage.
Anyway, Miller's Lysistratus tells the story of this pre-Christian era feminist conjecturally from the husband’s point of view. It is in prose, with some comments by other characters, in limerick form.
Sample
Third Old Woman
It is not only war
with its sweat
You desire, crave, and lust for, I'll bet –
So your wish we will grant:
If it's war that you want,
Be assured that it's war that you'll get.
The debate had turned into an argument and now it degenerated into a brawl. It must have been difficult for the men to behave like gentlemen when the women clearly did not behave like ladies.
Five days later, some of the women in the Acropolis began to show a modicum of common sense and wanted to return to their husband's homes and beds, but they were prevented by that iceberg on two legs, Lysistrata.
By this time the entire male population of all the city-states was in a terrible state, but Cinesias, Myrrhine's husband whom I mentioned earlier, suffered most of all. With their baby in his arms, he ascended to the Acropolis to plead with his wife to return to him. She led him on with promises of physical satisfaction, but after endless delays with trumped-up excuses, the promises were unfulfilled and he left in frustration. You could tell they were a married couple.
Yet he insisted he still loved her. Maybe a lack of sexual activity lowers a man's I.Q., but no: if that were true, I would be a complete idiot and I still had enough wit to compose another bit of verse:
