This life’s race, could man keep it from his birth,
A true clean spirit.“[[32]]
But while the queen is speaking, winning a painful way upward to her spirit’s height, the nurse is lagging after her on a much lower path. She has rallied from the first shock, when Phædra’s confession had driven her to mere panic; and is now revolving the matter in a mind where perception has been dimmed by age and the moral fibre coarsened by long servility. Calling up all her store of doubtful experience and worldly wisdom, she opposes every cunning and plausible argument to Phædra’s virtue. Can her mistress not see that she is visibly caught in the snare of Cypris? Of what use is it to struggle against so mighty a goddess? No human heart can resist the power of love; and it is wiser to yield at once than to be broken by Aphrodite’s anger.
Phædra listens patiently, seeing that the faithful old creature is prompted by real devotion; and her reply has more of pity than of anger in it, for the crooked counsel.
“Oh this it is hath flung to dogs and birds
Men’s lives and homes and cities—fair false words!
O why speak things to please our ears? We crave
Not that. ‘Tis honour, honour, we must save!“[[32]]
But when the nurse, irritated, flings a rank word at this love that she cannot comprehend, Phædra’s anger blazes in a vehement rebuke.
“Shame on thee! Lock those lips, and ne’er again