Tuesday, March 10, 2009

My Favorite Part of Lysistrata

I throughly enjoyed Lysistrata as a whole, it was crude and funny. I believe that Ruden did a stellar job translating the jokes to the modern day. One particular part of the story I found especially enjoyable. Cinesias comes to visit his wife, Myrrhine, and he wants to have sex with her because he has been deprived for so long. Lysistrata greets him and then calls down his wife.

His wife is distracted by their baby so he sends the baby away and then asks her to have sex right there on the floor. She refuses and then proceeds to come up with many excuses to avoid having sex with him before running off and leaving him in a "compromised" position. Although we didn't talk about it much in class I believe this is one of the best examples of womanly wit in the play. A regular Athenian women would never have denied her man sex, and here Myrrhine didn't really do that either. She used her intelligence to not only to keep from having breaking her pact, but also to advance their cause. By teasing her husband he is more likely to get others to do what the women want. It was an enjoyable scene mostly for show of a strong female character that I always enjoy.

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