“_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. “_Oh for a deep and dewy spring, With runlets cold to draw and drink! And a great meadow blossoming, Long-grassed, and poplars in a ring, To rest me by the brink!_“[32] There is a significance in the half-conscious utterances which lies very near the surface of the words: the fair soul unwittingly hinting its secret in delirium as lovely as itself. Presently her mind grows clear again, and she starts in fear of what she may have betrayed. “_What have I said? Woe’s me! And where Gone straying from my wholesome mind? What? Did I fall in some god’s snare? Nurse, veil my head again, and blind Mine eyes! There is a tear behind That lash. Oh, I am sick with shame!_“[32]