LYSISTRATA. What is this fable you are telling me? Ah! what have you got there so hard?
THIRD WOMAN. A male child.
LYSISTRATA. No, no, by Aphrodite! nothing of the sort! Why, it feels like something hollow--a pot or a kettle. Oh! you baggage, if you have not got the sacred helmet of Pallas--and you said you were with child!
THIRD WOMAN. And so I am, by Zeus, I am!
LYSISTRATA. Then why this helmet, pray?
THIRD WOMAN. For fear my pains should seize me in the Acropolis; I mean to lay my eggs in this helmet, as the doves do.
LYSISTRATA. Excuses and pretences every word! the thing's as clear as daylight. Anyway, you must stay here now till the fifth day, your day of purification.
THIRD WOMAN. I cannot sleep any more in the Acropolis, now I have seen the snake that guards the Temple.
FOURTH WOMAN. Ah! and those confounded owls with their dismal hooting! I cannot get a wink of rest, and I'm just dying of fatigue.
Studies
