How, may I ask, will your rule re-establish order and justice in lands so tormented? LYSISTRATA Nothing is easier. MAGISTRATE Out with it speedily--what is this plan that you boast you've invented? LYSISTRATA If, when yarn we are winding, It chances to tangle, then, as perchance you may know, through the skein This way and that still the spool we keep passing till it is finally clear all again: So to untangle the War and its errors, ambassadors out on all sides we will send This way and that, here, there and round about--soon you will find that the War has an end. MAGISTRATE So with these trivial tricks of the household, domestic analogies of threads, skeins and spools, You think that you'll solve such a bitter complexity, unwind such political problems, you fools! LYSISTRATA Well, first as we wash dirty wool so's to cleanse it, so with a pitiless zeal we will scrub Through the whole city for all greasy fellows; burrs too, the parasites, off we will rub. That verminous plague of insensate place-seekers soon between thumb and forefinger we'll crack. All who inside Athens' walls have their dwelling into one great common basket we'll pack. Disenfranchised or citizens, allies or aliens, pell-mell the lot of them in we will squeeze. Till they discover humanity's meaning.... As for disjointed and far colonies, Them you must never from this time imagine as scattered about just like lost hanks of wool. Each portion we'll take and wind in to this centre, inward to Athens each loyalty pull, Till from the vast heap where all's piled together at last can be woven a strong Cloak of State. MAGISTRATE