“Little he knows that Hell’s gates opened are,
And this his last look on the great Day-star!“[[32]]
The next moment the goddess has vanished, and Hippolytus leads in his troop of huntsmen, laden with spoil and bearing fresh-culled field flowers for the honour of the goddess of all wild things. Straight to the statue of Artemis goes the prince, and standing in an attitude of supplication, he proffers a wreath from the uncropped meadows that she loves. There is in his prayer a curious note of exaltation. Young, brave and fair, there is something at once beautiful and sinister in his claim to perfect purity: his naïve assumption that he alone of all men is worthy to worship the goddess: in the ascetic vow he takes; and the mystical touches, hinting of personal converse with the deity. We vaguely feel that there is a shade of excess in it; that the limit of holy confidence has been passed; and that, with all its intensity, there is something narrow and hard in his devotion. A pious old huntsman has to remind him that he has not paid service at the second shrine; when, with a perfunctory salute to the statue of Aphrodite, Hippolytus and his train go into the castle.
There follows a lovely ode by the Chorus, which prepares for the entrance of Phædra. They tell of a mysterious sickness that has fallen on the queen, and of their fears for her life.
“For three long days she hath lain forlorn,
Her lips untainted of flesh or corn,
For that secret sorrow beyond allayment,
That steers to the far sad shore of the dead.“[[32]]
Many a surmise they ponder, to account for the strange malady: perhaps some god is angry with the queen for stinted rites: or the absent king her husband is unfaithful: or she has had ill tidings from her Cretan home. Their musing brings no light to the problem; but its purpose is served, for when Phædra is presently borne out on her couch, we are prepared to see a being in whom vitality is burning low; but in whom suffering is overshone by stainless honour and an unconquerable will. She is attended by her maids, and by an old nurse whose delineation is wonderful. She is one of the humble characters whom Euripides drew so often: whose sterling qualities he seems to delight in, but whose limitation and error he puts in too, with absolute fidelity. Like Medea’s nurse, she probably came with her mistress from her maiden home; and she has grown old in faithful service. She has the tenderness of a mother for the young queen; but age has made her fretful, and slavery has hardened the fibre of her mind. With pathetic solicitude, she is yet inclined to be querulous at the feverish caprices of her charge. Moreover, she divines that there is something weighing upon her mistress which Phædra will not reveal, even to her; and she is hurt at the lack of confidence.
As the queen’s languid voice follows the wandering thought that has almost escaped control, the old woman grows impatient. She cannot comprehend the yearning flight of fancy which, in phrases of wild beauty, betrays its longing for escape: to flee to the mountain spaces and the woods and fields, and thread the mazes of the pines with arrow and spear, like Artemis herself.