essay prompt for lysistrata

A Summary and Analysis of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Lysistrata is the first female lead in a Western comedy, and this alone arguably makes Aristophanes’ play worthy of study and analysis. Lysistrata is the only one of Aristophanes’ plays to be named after one of its characters. First performed in 411 BC, the play is set during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, a war that had been raging for two decades by this point.

The strategy which Lysistrata – whose name literally means ‘disbander of armies’ – devises to end the war is intended as a comic jumping-off point; but the play also raises important questions concerning war, power, politics, and gender.

It’s well-known that Lysistrata persuades her fellow female Athenians to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers. But this isn’t all she does, even if it is the one thing everyone knows about the play. Arguably more important, Lysistrata and the women seize control of the Acropolis, and the treasury – controlling the funding for the war against Sparta – giving them real economic and political power.

Lysistrata : summary

The plot of Lysistrata is reasonably easy to summarise. Lysisitrata persuades the women of Athens to withdraw all sexual favours from the men until the men agree to end to war with Sparta. Along with a chorus of women who have already seized the Acropolis, Lysistrata and her band of female revolutionaries defend themselves against a chorus of old men who try to smoke them out of the Acropolis.

The women’s plan works, and a Spartan herald turns up to declare that a similar plot hatched by the women of Sparta has had the same effect on the Spartan men, and the war between the two city states comes to an end.

Lysistrata : analysis

Because the Peloponnesian War is so remote from us, it’s easy to overlook the extent to which Aristophanes was being artistically bold in suggesting this. The very idea of staging a play that reminded the Athenians of the common culture and heritage they shared with their enemies seems daring.

What’s also noteworthy about Lysistrata is that the women’s withholding of conjugal rights from their husbands is a trial for them, too: the women of the play are women who obviously enjoy sex, and their sacrifice is a self-sacrifice, too, which many of them find it difficult to keep up (as it were).

Another point to ponder when analysing and discussing Lysistrata is how feminist, by our own modern standards, Aristophanes’ play really is. True, the Athenian women manage to wrest power from the menfolk and end the war, but they do so by using their bodies, and sex, as a weapon – at least, first and foremost it is their withdrawal of sexual privileges which tips the balance of power in their favour.

But then by the standards of the time, when sex was one of the few cards women could play in such a political game, Lysistrata’s defiance of expectation and social mores must have seemed audacious.

But then we should also bear in mind that Lysistrata is a comedy, and whilst comedies often contain serious ideas, there is often a carnivalesque sense of the overturning of the usual roles and conventions. As with another of Aristophanes’ plays about women gaining political power, Assemblywomen , it’s questionable how seriously theatregoers would have taken the idea of women gaining the upper hand.

Lysistrata is an unusual Greek comedy because it has not one chorus, but two – one comprising men and the other comprising women (though of course, both choruses would have been played by men in the original Greek theatre). This suggests that Aristophanes seeks to play out the ‘battle of the sexes’ and to present the two genders side by side in debate, not that he is offering a ‘feminist’ play avant la lettre .

Nevertheless, it is clever how Aristophanes, through Lysistrata, reveals the extent to which women are undervalued for their contributions to Athenian society. When an indignant magistrate asks Lysistrata what she can possibly know of war, and why she is so concerned with it, she responds that it is the women of the city who bear the sons who go off to fight (and, in many cases, don’t come back alive).

She points out that women already know how to manage an economy – that of the running of the household (something even acknowledged in the etymology of the word ‘economy’, which comes from the Greek for ‘house management’). At another point, Lysistrata likens the city of Athens to a clump of wool, drawing on a domestic chore she knows well to make a point about how a good city functions.

Lysistrata is a play that has endured for over 2,000 years, and will doubtless continue to be popular, because of the way it cleverly presents and analyses the differences between the two genders – differences which have endured as long as the play has.

But it also highlights that men and women are in it together: the political establishment may still largely be dominated by men, but it is women who bear, and rear, the sons who grow up to be politicians and soldiers and statesmen. Somewhere between interpreting the play as a big joke and analysing it as a serious argument for a shift in gender power relations, we find the true meaning of Lysistrata .

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4 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata”

Yes, by giving birth to sons, we like to feel we’ve made a contribution.

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Great overview and analysis of this wonderful comedy. You bring up the question of how seriously the audience would have taken the premise and “feminist” themes (in quotes, since it’s a modern concept) of the play, and I think it’s possible that the absurdity and hilarity of the scenario may have made it easier to acknowledge these ideas without having to be too “serious” about them.

As for the female parts actually being played by men, I wonder to what extent the ancient Greek audience would have considered that comedic, or was it just conventional for women not to be actors and not all that funny.

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Department of Greek & Latin

Aristophanes' Lysistrata Study Guide

by Professor Stephen Colvin (UCL)

Although we tend to think of ancient Greek in terms of Attic (the dialect of Athens and Attica), before the third century BCE there was no standard or common Greek language in the Greek-speaking world, just as there was no political entity called Greece. Each polis (city-state) or region put up inscriptions in the local dialect (the Greek dialects are conventionally divided into four major groups: Attic-Ionic, Doric, Aeolic, and Arcado-Cypriot). This dialect diversity seems to have been accepted without worry, and Greeks rarely bother to comment on it. There is an interesting exception to this: when the Greeks wrote (or sang) high literature, there was a tradition that they used, or at least made a bow in the direction of, the dialect associated with the literary genre rather than the local dialect. This explains why the choral sections of tragedy and comedy are in 'literary Doric', which is often a fairly superficial Doric veneer added to a very poetic version of Attic-Ionic. Choral poetry was associated with Doric, and the earliest choral poetry that we have was composed by the great master of the genre, Alkman of Sparta (late 7th century BCE).

Greek tragedy belongs, with Homeric poetry, to the realm of the timeless mythical past, and all characters in tragedy speak in the same poetic version of Attic (which included Homeric forms and borrowings from Ionic). Comedy, however, is a realistic genre, and the normal dialect of comic dialogue is non-poetic Attic; it is written in a looser version of the iambic trimeter, the metre used for most tragic dialogue, and is not essentially different from the language of Lysias, who wrote speeches for delivery in court. In this realistic comic world it would have seemed strange for Greeks characters from other regions of the Greek world to speak in the same beautiful Attic as the locals: in every surviving comic play (and fragment) non-Athenians are given a reasonably accurate version of their dialect to speak. Foreigners from outside the Greek world, on the other hand, are given a very disrespectful linguistic treatment: the Greeks called them barbaroi (English 'barbarian'), and on the comic stage they speak ludicrous pidgin Greek, or even nonsense supposed to represent a foreign language.

In Lysistrata there are two groups of speakers from Sparta, one female and one male. Even though the play was produced at a particularly low point for Athens in the Peloponnesian War, it is striking that these Spartan characters are not portrayed in a negative, rude, or hostile manner: as dramatic characters they are just as serious (or not) as their Athenian counterparts. They speak in an accurate sketch of their native dialect, rather than a pastiche, or the pidgin Greek which characterises comic barbarians. Nor do they speak in the feeble, conventional Doric that characterises the choral sections of drama: even the song at the end of the play, which is a choral ode designed to recall the Spartan poet Alkman, is in real Spartan dialect rather than literary Doric.

We can assess the accuracy of the Spartan characters' dialect by comparing it with inscriptions which survive from ancient Sparta. In a comic pastiche we would expect to see stereotypical oaths and expletives followed by lapses into Attic, markers of the wrong dialect, and broken or barbarised Greek. These would indicate that the point was to raise a laugh, along with remarks by Athenian characters that they could not understand the dialect (etc.). We find none of these signals that the dialect is not to be taken seriously: there are certainly oaths and expletives, but the dialect is consistent and accurate, and is unremarked on by Athenian characters. There are occasional features which look Attic rather than Spartan, but we cannot always trust the manuscripts: over the course of 2000 years of copying, scribes were often puzzled by an unfamiliar dialect form and 'corrected' it to the Attic equivalent (but many Spartan forms are guaranteed by metre -- if you change them to Attic the line will not scan properly). And in any case, Aristophanes was not trying to produce a transcript of Spartan, merely to give a realistic linguistic characterisation to his literary creations.

Modern readers of Aristophanes have sometimes assumed that foreigners are introduced to Greek comedy merely for the sake of a laugh, and that the linguistic characterization is part of this. This is understandable, given the role that dialect has played in much European literature, drama, and film. In nation states with a standard language, regional variation has generally been looked down on or laughed at by the elite who speak the standard (or try to). In Britain between Chaucer and Shakespeare there were important linguistic and social changes: the notion of a standard language emerged, and other varieties could thus be characterized as imperfect approximations to the standard. Regional (and social) varieties were explained by reference to the stupidity, laziness, or ignorance of the speakers; or perhaps even their inherent criminality (this is sometimes the case in Dickens).

Aristophanes' Acharnians also has roles for dialect speakers (one is from Megara, the other from Thebes). Their dialects, like that of the Spartans in Lysistrata, seem to have been regarded as perfectly legitimate varieties of Greek, and not inherently amusing. This must reflect political structures in Greece in the Classical period, a collection of quarrelsome city-states which managed to unite only to fight off the Persian invasions. The notion of a standard or prestige dialect grows out of a centralized system with a political centre, and a standardized spelling system. In Greece each of the city-states regarded their own dialect as a legitimate form of Greek; there is no reason why an Athenian would have thought that Spartan sounded like 'bad' Athenian dialect.

Questions and Points of Discussion

1. What different dialects are there in your native language? What cultural stereotypes are associated with different dialects?

2. What effects does Aristophanes create by using different dialects?

3. What difficulties are there with reconstructing ancient dialects?

Professor Alan H. Sommerstein, University of Nottingham

Today, and for the last half-century, Lysistrata has been by far the best known, most read and most staged of Aristophanes' eleven surviving plays, and the heroine's name is well on the way to becoming, if it has not already become, the second word that Aristophanes has bequeathed to the vocabulary of English (the first, of course, was "Cloudcuckooland").

Certainly an important contributor to the present-day popularity of Lysistrata has been the way it has been seen as almost embodying the famous slogan of the 1960s, "make love, not war"; it is the favourite Greek drama - perhaps the favourite drama, full stop - of every movement that is or professes to be "anti-war". In one way it is not surprising that this should be so. The play is built around an audacious attempt, by the women of all the major city-states of Greece, to end the war that their menfolk have been waging against each other, with short intervals, for the last twenty years, and to do so by the non-violent but (given the comic stereotype of male physiology and psychology) sufficiently coercive method of a sexual boycott. And yet, when we look at the play more closely, we find that Lysistrata is not in fact opposed in principle to war - indeed that the play positively endorses war so long as it is the right kind of war.

We can perhaps leave aside the violence Lysistrata uses, and the pain she causes, in achieving her goals, as in her organized attack on the Scythian archers attending the Magistrate (Proboulos) and the physical effects of sexual deprivation on the men, which one of them compares to an extreme form of torture. But Lysistrata is not opposed in principle, either, to Athens waging war against other states. The great Persian war is recalled with pride by everyone who mentions it, and the women's chorus, steadfast allies of Lysistrata, in the play's first reference to that epic struggle, remember it not as a patriotic fight for Greek independence but as a source of material gain for Athens in the shape of tribute payments exacted from subject-allies. The heroine herself, in her great speech to the Athenian and Spartan peace delegations, reminds them (with much bending and stretching of history) of the military assistance that each of these states had given the other in the past - Athens helping Sparta to suppress a rebellion in Messenia, Sparta helping Athens to expel the tyrant Hippias; and one of the reasons she gives for ending internal warfare among Greeks is that they may soon find themselves fighting the Persians again. She is not, in other words, opposed to war as such; she is opposed to war between Athens and Sparta.

In this respect Lysistrata is absolutely typical of Aristophanes' work as a whole. There is no passage in any of his surviving plays in which any character expresses opposition to any past, present or prospective war against any enemy other than Sparta, unless that war either has already ended in obvious failure or is being used as a stick to beat a politician whom the dramatist detests anyway for other reasons. If Aristophanes is trying to put over a point of view about Athenian foreign policy - and I think he is - his position is not anti-war; it is pro-Spartan (as indeed the hero of his Acharnians proudly asserts, several times over).

Not that Lysistrata is inviting the Athenians to lie down and let the Spartans walk over them. If she is a peacemaker, she is a tough one. She takes no action at Athens until she has the agreement of the women in enemy states to take equivalent action, and even then she takes all but one of their representatives as hostages (while surrendering none herself). And while the detailed peace terms which she brokers are designed merely to elicit bawdy laughter, they hew far closer to Athenian than to Spartan demands. That is not the kind of peace that had any prospect of being made in 411 BC; it is merely a fantasy. And Aristophanes knew it. In the latter part of the play, after the two choruses have united, they sing two short songs, each of two stanzas, in which they make four magnificent free offers to the audience, only to add that (as we would now put it) terms and conditions apply which make the offers worthless. The first of these offers is money, lots of it (200-300 drachmas a time, equivalent to several months' average earnings), with purses to put it in. Only at the end of the stanza it turns out that the money will not be given but lent, and the loan will carry interest (rate not stated, but certainly at least 12%). The debt will, however, be cancelled "if peace ever makes an appearance". On the face of it that sounds generous, but the ethos of these songs guarantees that it can't be, so the implication must be that peace is an exceedingly remote prospect. Why should the Spartans end a conflict in which they were clearly gaining the upper hand but had not yet achieved their war aim of dismantling the Athenian empire - unless they were somehow coerced, as they are coerced in the play by their own womenfolk?

As I once wrote, Lysistrata is not a plea for peace but a dream about peace, at a time when there seemed to be little chance of the war ending unless it ended with an Athenian surrender. Aristophanes the man probably did strongly desire an end to the war, and Aristophanes the dramatist probably did hope to persuade his audience to take a similar view. But neither he, nor the heroine he created, believed that war was invariably, or even usually, a terrible evil to be avoided at all costs, and nothing in any of his plays suggests that he would have accepted a peace that did not leave Athens free to maintain her empire. Lysistrata is not an "anti-war" play.

This note is a condensed version of my essay "Lysistrata the warrior", which may be found in full in Talking about Laughter and Other Studies in Greek Comedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 223-236, and in David Stuttard (ed.), Looking at Lysistrata (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2010), pp. 37-48.

1. What attitudes towards warfare are there in the play? How do they compare with modern-day attitudes?

2. How good a leader is Lysistrata (and why)?

3. What political functions could Attic comedy perform? How does this compare with modern comedy?

Professor Gesine Manuwald (UCL Greek and Latin)

When considering ancient (Greek and Roman) comedy today, we are faced with the curious phenomenon that these plays have been popular in one way or another with audiences throughout the centuries, but equally appear rather foreign to modern audiences. What lies behind this paradox is perhaps that some of the structures shown in ancient comedy will always strike a chord and be perceived as funny: for instance, watching difficult love affairs or conflicts between different members and generations of the same family and seeing politicians or losers ridiculed still appeal to audiences; entering a kind of fantasy world (at least from a modern perspective) creates excitement; and getting insight into other people's private lives satisfies a pleasurable curiosity. That some of what is shown is rather removed from us, or we do not even understand everything immediately, then becomes secondary. This analysis perhaps characterizes the difference between reading an ancient comedy, when one looks up all references and tries to work out what the allusions mean, and watching a performance, when one is carried away by the main plot as well as the brilliance and virtuosity of the actors impersonating the characters.

Aristophanes' (c. 450-380 BCE) comedies, the only fully extant examples of the so-called period of Old Comedy, are generally regarded as particularly linked to their time of composition since they are firmly set in the Athens of the fifth century BCE and include references to contemporary politicians and current events (in Lysistrata, for example, there are frequent mentions of the Peloponnesian War, names of generals and locations of battles, sometimes distorted). This topicality must have been one reason that made the comedies successful when they were first performed. A modern audience, however, lacks the relevant background knowledge and will not necessarily know who the mocked politicians are and why they are singled out; yet they will notice that politicians are criticized for inappropriate behaviour or unpopular actions, and since such an attitude mirrors what many feel today, this is still entertaining.

New Comedy (represented nowadays mainly by Menander [c. 342/41-291/90 BCE] for Greece and Plautus [c. 250-184 BCE] and Terence [c. 195/94-159 BCE] for Rome) is generally assumed to be more accessible for modern audiences since plays of this type include only few references to the specific political conditions of the point of composition and mostly deal with domestic affairs and love plots. While this general assessment is true, the world in which these family stories are set is different from ours: there are arranged marriages; slavery is accepted; it is regarded as condonable to rape a girl as long as the perpetrator marries her afterwards; trickery is approved when it furthers the interests of the main characters. It is only once we accept these circumstances that we can enjoy the stories, and even in these plays there are allusions to local landmarks and institutions as well as insider jokes whose relevance is now lost.

The situation is even more complex for the Roman versions of New Comedy, since these plays, taken over from Greek models by Roman playwrights, are notionally still set in Greece, but have been transferred into Latin and adapted to a Roman environment, so that, for instance, the marketplace has changed from the Greek agora to the Roman forum. The resulting fantasy world with an indeterminate setting gives the Roman poets even more freedom. Yet Cicero (106-43 BCE) in the late Republic already commented on the odd situation that the characters shown on stage are meant to be Greeks, but speak Latin, and talk about 'the Greeks' and 'us' (Cic. Nat. D. 2.91).

There is thus a history of adapting plays within the development of ancient drama. It is again Cicero who reports that in the first century BCE lines in dramas could be interpreted out of context and applied to the contemporary world. For instance, he mentions the performance of a drama by Accius in which the verse Tullius, qui libertatem civibus stabiliverat - 'Tullius, who had established liberty for the citizens' (originally presumably referring to the early Roman king Servius Tullius [6th cent. BCE]) was applied to Marcus Tullius Cicero when the actor delivered it in the appropriate tone (Cic. Sest. 123). Such a procedure shows that the texts of plays in the ancient world were regarded as scripts that could be adjusted to the current demands of the audiences, organizers and performers.

These observations may prompt the conclusion that there are different ways of approaching an ancient comedy today: we can read the surviving text carefully and try to find out what was intended at the time when it was written and first performed and how the contemporary audience might have reacted; we can follow the main plot and ignore allusions to details that are not immediately recognizable; we can consider the reception history of the play and consider how audiences in different time periods might have reacted to it, what they will have understood and what they might have changed or would have liked to change; or we can create a modernized version that deviates from the transmitted text in details, but aims to be true to its spirit by transposing the plot and its jokes into something that might be more easily accessible for modern audiences.

This year's production of Lysistrata has chosen the last option. Purists will say that such a modified performance is inaccurate and interferes with the poet's original text. This view is obviously valid, but the procedure may be justified (if acknowledged) as being in the tradition of ancient comedy and a possible way of making ancient plays more immediately accessible to a wider modern audience. Hopefully, you will enjoy this performance!

Essay questions / points of discussion

1) How does ancient Greek comedy compare with any contemporary comedy that you are familiar with? Is it completely different, or are there points of overlap?

2) What lines from Lysistrata could be adjusted to refer to current political circumstances? Explain your reasons for your choice, and how you would adapt those lines.

3) Is ancient comedy harder to adapt to modern contexts than other genres (such as epic or tragedy)? Why, or why not?

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Lysistrata Essay Topics & Writing Assignments

The battle between men and women is the main conflict of the play, but this is not a theme which is limited to this time period. Part 1: How do you define the idea of the battle between the sexes? Part 2: Why is the battle of the sexes something that continues in modern times? Part 3: Do you think the battle of the sexes can ever be won? Why or why not?

The battle between men and women is the main conflict of the play, but this is not a theme which is limited to this time period.

Part 1: How do you define the idea of the battle between the sexes?

Part 2: Why is the battle of the sexes something that continues in modern times?

Part 3: Do you think the battle of the sexes can ever be won? Why or why not?

Beyond the idea of gender differences, the play also tackles the more general theme of power and of control. Part 1: Why are the women concerned that the men have more control or power in society? Part 2: Why are the men interested in being in control over the women? Part 3: Do you think the theme of control and power are applicable to today's society? Why or why not? In what ways, if so?

(read more Essay Topics)

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Summary and Study Guide

Lysistrata (411 BCE) was written by the best-known Greek comic poet, the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. We know little of Aristophanes’ life outside of his work. His birth and death cannot be firmly dated, but he was believed to have been born around 460 BCE and died sometime in the mid-380s BCE. His active period, though, is more certain— around 425 to 388 BCE—making him a contemporary of other fifth-century Athenian luminaries like Socrates, Euripides, and Sophocles.

Of around forty plays Aristophanes wrote, we have eleven in complete form. They are our only surviving examples of what later commentators would call “Old Comedy,” a sub-genre of Greek comedy (followed by Middle and New). Greek tragedy largely limited its subject matter to myths, but Old Comedy reflected the contemporary sphere. Its plays usually took place in the present and lambasted social and political figures and situations. Even when they starred mythological gods and heroes, they were concerned with topics that were relevant to a contemporary audience . This made their humor cutting-edge in their day, but sometimes difficult to contextualize now.

Lysistrata is one of the more accessible of Aristophanes’ works for the modern reader. Twenty years into the Peloponnesian War, a long and destructive conflict between the city-states of Athens and Sparta, its heroine is sick of domestic affairs falling by the wayside. She devises a fantastical solution to heal the divide not only between men and women, but between the combatants themselves: deny men sex until peace is made. While the Peloponnesian War is a favorite topic for Aristophanes (e.g. Acharnians and Peace ), Lysistrata was probably the first of his plays to focus on the lives of women, a theme he will revisit in Women at the Thesmophoria and Assemblywomen . It is likely that Lysistrata , in fact, introduced the first true comic heroine of western literature.

Lysistrata also showcases many elements of Old Comedy which modern audiences find entertaining still. Sometimes called “the Father of Comedy,” Aristophanes loves physical humor, dirty jokes, and silly premises. He disregards the physical and logical constraints of the everyday world for plot requirements (or even a quick joke). His characters, unlike the somber heroes of the Greek tragedians, are vulgar and cartoonish, and the language they speak is not the elite, affected register of tragedy, but that of the common person. Yet despite the slapstick and sex jokes, Lysistrata is, at its core, a play about peace. It is an exercise in wish fulfilment for a city embroiled in combat for two decades, a fantasy in which the girl-next-door can fight the power, love can conquer war, peace can prevail. These themes have made it a popular choice for modern stage and film adaptation including Spike Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq and the 2011 Broadway musical adaptation Lysistrata Jones ), though the play’s highly sexual content sometimes renders it distasteful to the modern crowd.

This guide refers to Sarah Ruden’s 2003 translation of Lysistrata , published by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

Plot Summary

Twenty years into the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian woman named Lysistrata calls a meeting of her fellow Greeks (Athenian and otherwise) at the gates of the Acropolis . There she reveals her plan: all Greek women will unite to deny men sex until they agree to peace. Most of her peers are flabbergasted, but with the support of the Spartan Lampito , Lysistrata convinces them. The women take a solemn oath to remain celibate, and Lampito and other non-Athenians leave to spread the word.

This will be a two-pronged attack. While the younger women withhold sex, the elders will seize the treasury in the Acropolis, crippling the war financially. A male group of old veterans treks up the hill to take it back, but the old women repel them, throwing cold water on their torches .

The Councilor , an important Athenian official, arrives to withdraw funds from the treasury. He disparages female addictions to wine, sex, and orgiastic cults and attempts to put down the rebellion, but Lysistrata bests him in a debate. While the Councilor argues that this outrageous behavior is enabled by men being too lenient with their wives, Lysistrata contends that women have sat by long enough while men make poor civic decisions. Women, she argues, can apply domestic skills like household management and even weaving to governance and matters of state. When the Councilor attempts to arrest her, she and the others subdue him and his guards and drive them off.

Lysistrata is discouraged, though, by defectors from the cause. She catches women going AWOL left and right, hungry for sex with their husbands. One of the young wives, Myrrhine, is visited by her husband Cinesias. He is comically desperate for sex, but also for his wife to return home to look after their child and the house. Under Lysistrata’s advisement, Myrrhine teases him at length before leaving him high and dry.

A Spartan herald arrives with news that Sparta wants to meet for peace; Lampito has successfully implemented Lysistrata’s plan abroad. The herald and Cinesias agree to bring ambassadors from their respective states together, representatives who can arrange a treaty. Lysistrata is invited to preside. She brings out a woman dressed as a personification of peace, the Goddess of Deals; the sex-addled men are distracted by her voluptuous body, using it to define the terms of the agreement. With peace finally established and men and women reunited, Athenians and Spartans promise to remain friends forever and throw a party on the Acropolis.

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Aristophanes

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by Aristophanes

Lysistrata quotes and analysis.

"I’m so upset that it feels like my heart’s about to burst. Men think we are so shrewd and cunning…But look around you. We were supposed to meet on important business, but instead all the women are lying around, sleeping." Lysistrata

Lysistrata says this in the first scene to express her disappointment with the women of Greece, who are not showing up for the meeting she has called. She bemoans the fact that men are always calling women cunning, but they cannot even get it together to attend a meeting she has called.

"What are we supposed to do? We don’t have many options. All we can do is lie around in slinky gowns, all made up and perfumed, wearing pretty little shoes." Calonice

When Lysistrata talks about how all of the women have the shared desire to end the war, Calonice chimes in, suggesting that they have few options for helping the situation, as they can only use their feminine charms, since they have no political power. This perfectly sets up Lysistrata's scheme.

"Not fucking is difficult, is true. Is nice to have man in bed. But war is more difficult. So if no fucking for no war then yes, no fucking, I say." Lampito

This line is delivered by the Spartan woman, Lampito, who is portrayed in the play as somewhat dim-witted, but also agreeable to Lysistrata's plan. Here, she expresses her hesitations about eschewing sex, but then agrees that war is worse than any temporary lack of sexual fulfillment may be.

"I was just watering you, to help you grow." Leader of the Women's Chorus

In Chorus 1, the men threaten to fight the women with fire, but the chorus of women throw cold water on the men, which sends them retreating. When the men protest this action, the women's leader insists that she was just watering them. This is a double entendre, in that it refers to the fact that she has dumped water on them, but also refers to the fact that the women are aiming to extinguish the "fire" of male desire by being cold and refusing sex.

"It serves us right! We encourage them in their wantonness. Listen to what I heard a man say in the marketplace: 'Jeweller,' he said, 'you remember this trinket of my wife’s? Well, she was partying, last night, when a rod came loose and thrust straight through the hole. It went in, and it went out, again and again. I’m not sure what to do, because I’m leaving town, but maybe you could drop by and make sure that hole gets what it needs.”" Magistrate

In Scene 2, the Magistrate says this line as a way of diagnosing the problem that the women have created in the community. He suggests that men encourage their wives' "wantonness," and that they have brought this rebellion on themselves. His philosophy suggests that men ought to be stricter with women if they want them to obey and listen to them.

"The women are the pawns of those Spartan dogs. They have betrayed us and for no cause. Without sex what will happen to our great State? Democracy will end if we can’t copulate." The Chorus of Men

The Chorus of Men sing this in Chorus 2, suggesting that the women are compromising their democracy by rebelling in this way, and are being disloyal to Greek interests.

"Oh, great tragedy! My cock has been left, abandoned and bereft. Poor boy, left alone, in such a cruel, cruel world. Who will help you? Where will you turn for just a moment’s kindness? I shall have to hire a nurse, to help you through this great trial." Cinesias

Cinesias says this line when Myrrhina denies him sex, leading him on in a particularly excruciating way. Knowing that he is wild with desire for her, she is slowly setting up a bed on which they can have sex, but keeps going back into the Acropolis to get another item. When she runs off a final time, leaving him in the throes of desire, he becomes despondent, even going so far as to suggest that he needs a nurse to look after him.

LEADER (MEN): There is no beast more shameless than a woman. Even fire is less savage. LEADER (WOMEN): You know this, and yet you choose to fight us, when we could be your friends instead. Leader of the Men and Leader of the Women

In Chorus 4, the leader of the chorus of men bemoans the fact that the women of the community are being so unforgiving and punishing to them. The leader of the women offers a simple enough counteroffer, suggesting that perhaps the men ought to just listen to and make peace with the women, rather than fight them. Here, she presents the option to create peace as simple and uncontroversial.

"Eloquent but not verbose, uncompromising but willing to negotiate, exacting but forgiving." Leader of the women

This is how the leader of the chorus of women describes Lysistrata, the women's leader, as she enters in the final scene. Each of her attributes is presented with its opposite, a way of showing just how reasonable and even-handed Lysistrata is. She is very eloquent, but does not speak at length, she sticks to her morals, but is also willing to talk things through, and highly demanding and tough, but also forgiving and generous.

"Peace has nice ass." The Spartan Herald

While negotiating with Cinesias and the Spartan herald, Lysistrata brings a naked, walking statue, which she calls "Peace," out for all to see. Cinesias and the herald are distracted by Peace throughout the peace talks, and agree to Lysistrata's stipulations in large part because of their extreme lust for Peace. This line, uttered by the Spartan herald, is a joke on the fact that she is called "Peace"—the very agreement that Lysistrata is seeking.

Lysistrata Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Lysistrata is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Portrayal of comedy in Lysistrata

While comedy is not a theme within the plot of the play itself, it is an important part of how audiences have understood Aristophanes' satire since it was first written. Aristophanes created a broad and exceedingly ridiculous comedic play in order...

Discuss the features of old comedy as exemplified in Aristophanes' Lysistrata.

Analyze the conventional structure of plot in Prometheus Bounds.

Check out the link below:

Study Guide for Lysistrata

Lysistrata study guide contains a biography of Aristoph, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Lysistrata
• Lysistrata Summary
• Character List

Essays for Lysistrata

Lysistrata essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Lysistrata by Aristoph.

• Medea v. Lysistrata: Matriarchs in Patriarchal Greece
• The Heroics of Antigone and Lysistrata
• For What It’s Worth: Peace and Love In Lysistrata
• The Harm of Stories
• The Stench of Gendered Power Structures in Lysistrata

Lesson Plan for Lysistrata

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Lysistrata
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Lysistrata Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Lysistrata

• Introduction

How to Write a Personal Narrative: A Step-by-Step Guide

“As I sat down to write this article, memories flooded back, each one a brushstroke in the painting of my past…”

That could be the beginning of your personal narrative. Writing it lets you turn your memories and experiences into stories that click with others. This type of writing goes beyond school assignments or essays for college applications; it’s a chance to get really good at sharing your life's events in ways that matter. 

In this article, we're going to explore what personal narratives are all about and guide you through a simple seven-step process to create your own. You’ll learn how to pull out moments that make your story stand out and how to tweak your writing until it’s just right. We’ve got practical examples for you to follow along, making sure you have everything you need to tell your story. 

What is a Personal Narrative?

A personal narrative is a way to tell your own story. It's a style of writing that puts your experiences front and center, inviting readers into your world. Teachers often assign personal narratives to encourage free, expressive writing. 

The personal narrative definition is wider than academic settings, though. . These narratives can also show potential employers who you are beyond your resume. At its core, writing a personal narrative is a form of storytelling, using a first-person perspective to bring real-life tales to life. Whether it's for a grade, a job, or just for fun, it's about getting your story out there.

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How to Write a Personal Narrative: Steps

In this section, we'll break down the process into manageable steps, starting with how to zero in on the right topic that speaks about who you are.

Step 1. Choosing a Personal Narrative Topic

The first step in crafting your personal narrative is picking the perfect topic. It should be something meaningful to you, something that has not just happened, but also shaped who you are or has a significant story behind it. Here’s how to frame your personal narrative ideas:

• Story Arc : Your narrative is like a mini-movie. Start with setting the scene, build up to the main event, and wrap up with a reflection. For example, if you’re writing about your first solo travel experience, begin with your initial feelings, describe the challenges you faced, and end with what you learned about yourself.
• Thematic Focus : Instead of moving through time, center your narrative around a central theme. Maybe it’s about resilience, and you could link different times you had to be resilient, ending with a major life challenge.
• A Day to Remember : Sometimes a single day can tell a lot about you. Pick a day that was particularly memorable and unpack it from start to finish. Maybe it was a seemingly ordinary day that brought unexpected lessons or joys.

Step 2. Working on Your Personal Narrative Outline

When putting together your personal narrative, starting with a solid outline can help keep your story on track. Here's how you can lay it all out:

• Introduction: Kick things off with a hook that grabs attention, like an intriguing question or a vivid snapshot of a key moment. Set the scene and introduce the main theme.
• Setting and Characters : Give a good sense of where your story is unfolding and who's involved. Paint a clear picture of the backdrop and the key people.
• Plot Development : Lay out the events in the order they happened, or group them around major themes. Build up to your main event, adding conflicts or challenges as you go.
• Climax : This is the high point of your story, where everything comes to a head. Make it a moment that has the most impact.
• Resolution : Wrap up the main storyline, showing how things settled down after the climax.
• Reflection : Spend some time reflecting on what happened. Share what you learned or how you changed because of the experience.

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Step 3. Writing the First Draft of Your Personal Narrative

Now let’s move on to the fun part! Don't worry about getting everything perfect right away — the first draft’s goal is to let your story flow naturally:

• Start with Your Hook: Revisit the introduction you outlined and flesh it out. Begin with the attention-grabbing sentence that will make readers want to continue.
• Let the Story Unfold: Follow your outline, but allow yourself some flexibility. As you write, new memories or details may come to mind. Embrace them! Think about what you saw, heard, and felt during these moments. Were you sitting in a sunlit room, listening to the hum of a busy street outside? Maybe you felt the chill of an autumn breeze? 
• Stay True to Your Voice: This is your story, so let your unique voice shine through. Whether you're humorous, reflective, or serious, maintain a consistent tone that feels authentically you. Keep the tone conversational and straightforward, as if you’re telling this story to a friend. 

Once the first personal narrative draft is done, set it aside for a bit before revisiting it with fresh eyes.

Step 4. Revising Your Personal Narrative

Once the first personal narrative draft is done, set it aside for a bit before revisiting it with fresh eyes:

• Tighten Up the Story : As you go through your draft, focus on making everything clear and to the point. If you’ve talked about how nervous you were before a big event more than once, try to combine those thoughts into one powerful sentence that really captures how you felt.
• Keep Your Tone Consistent : Make sure your voice stays the same throughout the story. If you start off with a casual, conversational tone, like saying, “I couldn’t shake the nerves before my big test,” stick with that style instead of suddenly becoming formal later on.
• Adjust the Pacing : Pay attention to how smoothly your story flows from one part to the next. When you’re describing a key moment, like meeting someone important or going through a major experience, give it the detail and time it deserves. Let those moments develop naturally without rushing.
• Enhance Your Descriptions : Make your imagery more vivid to help the reader visualize your story. For example, instead of just saying, “The room was noisy,” you could say, “The room buzzed with excited chatter.” These small tweaks can make your story feel more alive and engaging.

Step 5. Adding Personal Touches

As you polish your personal narrative, focus on making it uniquely yours. You can include personal reflections on your experiences. For example, if you’re writing about a challenging project, discuss not just the struggle but how it impacted you personally and professionally.

Besides, add unique details that only you can share. Instead of generic descriptions, use specific anecdotes or sensory details, like how the scent of freshly baked cookies from your grandmother's kitchen made you feel nostalgic.

Last but not least, incorporate dialogues or direct quotes from people involved in your story to add authenticity and depth. For instance, if your mentor gave you advice, include their exact words to capture the moment’s impact. This approach will help you understand how to write a personal narrative that is both engaging and deeply personal.

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Step 6: Editing for Clarity and Style

When you’re editing your personal narratives, the goal is to make sure everything flows smoothly and makes sense. Here’s how to get it just right:

• Clarify Your Message: Check for any parts of your story that might be a bit confusing. If you talked about being excited about a project and then suddenly shifted to its challenges, make sure to connect these thoughts clearly. For instance, you might rephrase it as “I was excited about the project, but I soon faced some unexpected challenges, like tight deadlines.”
• Simplify Complex Sentences: Break down long or complicated sentences. Instead of saying, “My enthusiasm for the project, which was incredibly high despite the difficulties I faced, was the driving force behind my perseverance,” you could simplify it to, “Even though the project was tough, my excitement kept me going.”
• Smooth Transitions: Check how your paragraphs and sections flow together. If you jump from describing a problem to the solution without a clear link, add a transition. For example, “After struggling with the project’s challenges, I realized that asking my mentor for help was the key to overcoming the obstacles.”

Oh, and read your narrative out loud. This can help you spot any awkward phrases or spots where the story might be a bit choppy. It’s a great way to catch any issues and make those final tweaks to get everything just right.

Personal Narrative Prompts

Here are ten personal narrative prompts to get you thinking about different moments in your life:

Need more tips on how to get started? Check out this guide on how to start a narrative essay to kick off your writing with a strong opening.

Personal Narrative Examples

Here are a few personal narrative beginnings to spark your creativity. These snippets are designed to get you started and inspire your own storytelling.

Wrapping Up

As you finish up your story, think about how those moments shaped who you are today. It's not just about what happened, but how it changed you. When learning how to write a personal narrative, it’s important to focus on the moments that truly matter to you and tell them in your own voice. This way, your narrative can really connect with others. 

Remember, the best stories come straight from the heart, so trust yourself and let your experiences shine through!

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How to Start a Personal Narrative?

Can a personal narrative be about anything, what is the format of a personal narrative.

Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

• The New York Times. (2020, January 7). Personal Narrative Essay Winners. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/learning/personal-narrative-essay-winners.html