"Lysistrata is Funny As a Play but Not As a Character." Discuss.

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Callum Davis                                                                                                  

“Lysistrata is Funny As a Play but Not As a Character.” Discuss.

        When Lysistrata is explaining to Calonice her plan, Calonice doesn’t know what Lysistrata is trying to suggest, asking if its “big and meaty”. Lysistrata’s sense of humour comes into question here as it takes her a long time to realise that Calonice is referring not to her plan but to something else. However, the fact that Lysistrata misunderstands what Calonice is referring to for a while is funny. She is funny without realising it, by being who she is. She is very serious because believes that the war should end. This scene is funny, but Lysistrata isn’t intentionally being funny.

        One of the first things Lysistrata says in the plays is that “you wouldn’t have been able to move for all the tambourines” if what they had been asked to attend was a “Bacchic celebration…or something in honour of Pan or Aphrodite.” For the purpose of comedy it is assumed that women will turn all celebrations into Bacchic ones. It also assumes that women are only really interested in wine and sex.

        When the Spartans arrive, Lysistrata, Myrrhine and Calonice begin to poke and prod at them, commenting them on their “beautiful colour (and) rippling muscles”. Lampito is worried that they are “feel(ing her) over” as if they were about to sacrifice her. Not only is there visual humour here but also an element of satire. It is likely that, at the time that the Athena Polias at the time was called Lysimakhe, obviously a name very similar to Lysistrata in meaning as well as sound. There was also a priestess called Myrrhine at the same time serving the temple of Athena Nike. It satirises the priestesses’ methods of preparing and testing sacrificial victims. It implies that they get so used to those methods that they apply the same level of roughness to people, as well as animals.

        The oath sworn by the women that they would refuse to have sex with their husbands is a parody of oath taking. Normally the process would be very formal and serious. At the beginning Myrrhine “nearly faints”, following her knees giving way. She can’t believe what she is saying, adding some visual humour. A regular oath-taking would not mention “a state of erection”, rape or the “lioness-on-a-cheese grater position”.

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        The chorus is split into two in this play, one half of men, the other of women. There is a great deal of visual humour surrounding this. When the magistrate arrives at the acropolis, after a short while he orders his Scythian archers to break in. All four are stopped individually and altogether by the old women led by Stratyllis. Before this, the old men, trying to batter the door down got soaked in water by the old women. Later, the magistrate is dressed up both as a woman and a corpse by the women, completed with a tiara and ...

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