a man’s appendages to boast of. Come, off with our tunics, for a man must savour of manhood; come, my friends, let us strip naked from head to foot. Courage, I say, we who in our day garrisoned Lipsydrion;[1] let us be young again, and shake off eld. If we give them the least hold over us, ’tis all up! their audacity will know no bounds! We shall see them building ships, and fighting sea-fights, like Artemisia;[2] nay, if they want to mount and ride as cavalry, we had best cashier the knights, for indeed women excel in riding, and have a fine, firm seat for the gallop.[3] Just think of all those squadrons of Amazons Micon has painted for us engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men.[4] Come then, we must e’en fit collars to all these willing necks.
Chorus of Women.
By the blessed goddesses, if you anger me, I will let loose the beast of my evil passions, and a very hailstorm of blows will set you yelling for help. Come, dames, off tunics, and quick’s the word; women must scent the savour of women in the throes of passion. . . . Now just you dare to measure strength with me, old greybeard, and I warrant you you’ll never eat garlic or black beans more. No, not a word! my anger is at boiling point, and I’ll do with you what the beetle did with the eagle’s eggs.[5] I laugh at your threats, so long as I have on my side Lampito
- ↑ A town and fortress of Southern Attica, in the neighbourhood of Marathon, occupied by the Alcmæonidæ—the noble family or clan at Athens banished from the city in 595 B.C., restored 560, but again expelled by Pisistratus—in the course of their contest with that Tyrant. Returning to Athens on the death of Hippias (510 B.C.), they united with the democracy, and the then head of the family, Cleisthenes, gave a new constitution to the city.
- ↑ Queen of Halicarnassus, in Caria; an ally of the Persian King Xerxes in his invasion of Greece; she fought gallantly at the battle of Salamis.
- ↑ A double entendre—with allusion to the posture in sexual intercourse known among the Greeks as ἵππος, in Latin ‘equus,’ the horse, where the woman mounts the man in reversal of the ordinary position.
- ↑ Micon, a famous Athenian painter, decorated the walls of the Poecilé Stoa, or Painted Porch, at Athens with a series of frescoes representing the battles of the Amazons with Theseus and the Athenians.
- ↑ To avenge itself on the eagle, the beetle threw the former’s eggs out of the nest and broke them. See the Fables of Æsop.
