Let word nor thought so foul have harbour there!“[[32]]
The old woman is not silenced, however: she merely changes her tactics. Will not the queen trust to her? She knows of love-philtres and salves that will cure her passion without fear of shame. Phædra is growing weary of the contest; and at last, when endurance is strained to breaking, she yields on a point which seems quite innocent and harmless. The nurse may fetch the potion of which she speaks; only—and on this she lays pathetic stress—no word of her secret must be breathed to the prince. There is a soothing, half evasive reply from the nurse: a muttered prayer aside to Cypris which has something ominous in it; and the old servant goes out to wreck the honour of her mistress in a foolish attempt to serve her. Hardly has she gone when, above the song which the women of the Chorus have taken up, Phædra catches the deep tones of an angry voice within the palace. She springs to her feet, every nerve tingling with apprehension; and calling to the singers for silence she bends her ear to the great door. A cry escapes her:
“Oh, misery!
O God, that such a thing should fall on me!“[[32]]
It is the voice of Hippolytus which she can hear, raging at her nurse in immeasurable scorn, for something that has been asked of him. As each brutal epithet falls, Phædra, in a trance of horror and shame repeats it to the listening women. Then she shrinks aside, as Hippolytus bursts out of the castle, the nurse at his heels, frantically entreating him to hold his peace. By no direct word does he acknowledge Phædra’s presence; and she, with every shred of self-respect gone, cowers apart as though she were indeed guilty of the foulness he imputes to her. But in noisy indignation, with every word barbed for the trembling queen, he raves against the nurse, against the whole of womankind, and love and marriage, ending by a threat to reveal the story to Theseus upon his return. His anger is just; but in the hardness of youth and the bitterness of a narrow spirit it is savage, merciless and all too prompt. Blind to everything but his own wounded pride, he cannot see that Phædra has been cruelly betrayed by the meddling zeal of her servant; and he heaps insult upon her until her sensitive soul lies prostrate—a thing that seems even to herself as black as he believes it. All through the tirade she, who is the central figure in this extraordinary scene, takes no part in it: she remains mute, as though literally smitten dumb with shame, until Hippolytus rushes out. Then she sinks to the ground, sobbing:
“And, this thing, O my God,
And thou, sweet Sunlight, is but my desert!
I cannot fly before the avenging rod
Falls, cannot hide my hurt.“[[32]]
Some of the women try to comfort her, and raising her eyes as they speak, she catches sight of the figure of the nurse. She springs from the ground, a wave of anger sweeping away her weakness: