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 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]