CALONICE. Oh! they will come, my dear; but 'tis not easy, you know, for women to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep, or washing the brat or feeding it.
LYSISTRATA. But I tell you, the business that calls them here is far and away more urgent.
CALONICE. And why do you summon us, dear Lysistrata? What is it all about?
LYSISTRATA. About a big affair.[391]
CALONICE. And is it thick too?
LYSISTRATA. Yes indeed, both big and great.
CALONICE. And we are not all on the spot!
LYSISTRATA. Oh! if it were what you suppose, there would be never an absentee. No, no, it concerns a thing I have turned about and about this way and that of many sleepless nights.
CALONICE. It must be something mighty fine and subtle for you to have turned it about so!
[391] An obscene double entendre; Calonice understands, or pretends to understand, Lysistrata as meaning a long and thick "membrum virile"!
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