Shameful, maybe, yet for thee better than honour’s code. Better this deed, if it shall save thy life, than that name thy pride will kill thee to retain.PhaedraI conjure thee, go no further! for thy words are plausible but infamous; for though as yet love has notI follow Nauck in reading οὐ for εὖ. ὑπειργασμαι = have been subdued—according to Paley and Liddell and Scott (passive). Mahaffy extracts a middle sense prepared my soul for love’s entry, and adopts the conjectural οὐ which would certainly seem to add clearness. undermined my soul, yet, if in specious words thou dress thy foul suggestion, I shall be beguiled into the snare from which I am now escaping.NurseIf thou art of this mind, ’twere well thou ne’er hadst sinned; but as it is, hear me; for that is the next best course; I in my house have charms to soothe thy love,—’twas but now I thought of them;—these shall cure thee of thy sickness on no disgraceful terms, thy mind unhurt, if thou wilt be but brave. But from him thou lovest we must get some token, a word or fragment of his robe,and thereby unite in one love’s twofold stream.These lines are perhaps spurious. Nauck and Weil both bracket them.PhaedraIs thy drug a salve or potion?NurseI cannot tell; be content, my child, to profit by it and ask no questions.PhaedraI fear me thou wilt prove too wise for me.