Ecclesiazusae

Acts

• Prologue

  Praxagora rehearses a speech before dawn. The women of Athens have a plan: they will disguise themselves as men and take over the Assembly.

  309 lines
• Parodos

  The women assemble in the dark, wearing false beards and their husbands' cloaks. They practise speaking like men.

  46 lines
• First Episode

  The women march to the Assembly and vote themselves into power before the real male citizens arrive. Athens is now ruled by women.

  198 lines
• First Stasimon

  Praxagora's husband Blepyrus discovers his cloak is missing and is forced to go outside in his wife's dress. He meets a neighbour in the same predicament.

  27 lines
• Second Episode

  News arrives that the Assembly has voted to hand the city over to women. Blepyrus and his friend try to make sense of the revolution.

  88 lines
• Third Episode

  Praxagora announces the new communist regime: all property shared, all meals communal, all sexual partners available to everyone — with the ugly given priority.

  190 lines
• Fourth Episode

  Citizens react to the new order. One man hands over his property eagerly; his cynical neighbour plans to keep his and eat the communal food anyway.

  191 lines
• Fifth Episode

  The sexual regulations are tested. A young man tries to visit his girlfriend but is intercepted by a series of increasingly hideous old women demanding their legal right to him first.

  283 lines
• Second Stasimon

  The old women fight over the young man, each citing the law that gives the ugly priority. The farce escalates as more hags appear.

  45 lines
• Exodos

  A servant announces the communal dinner. The citizens prepare for the feast as the new regime takes hold.

  8 lines
• Final Song

  The play ends with a grand procession to the communal banquet. Aristophanes leaves the question open: is this utopia, or Athens eating itself?

  23 lines