nurse in "Romeo and Juliet," although far more mischievous. She describes the strange malady of her mistress, and her own weary watching by the sufferer's couch. Pha3dra breaks out into frenzied song:—
"Lift up my body,
Straighten my head,
Hold up the hands
And arms of the dead;
The joints of my limbs are loosened,
The veil on my brow is like lead.
Take it off, take it off, let the clustering curls
On my shoulders be spread."
She pants for cooling streams and the whispering sound of shadowing poplars, and longs to stretch her limbs in repose on the verdurous meadow. Next comes an access of fever, and she breaks forth into wilder strains:—
"Send me, send me to the mountain: I will wander to the wood,
Where the dogs amid the pine-copse track and tear the wild beast's brood;
I will hang upon his traces where the dappled roebuck bounds;
I yearn, by all the gods, I yearn to halloo to the hounds,
To poise the lance of Thessaly above my yellow hair,
And to loose my hand and lightly launch the barbed point through air."
After more wild song and as wild speeches to the nurse, her secret is at length drawn from her; and that faithful but unscrupulous attendant reveals it.
