Oenone says that the queen has risen from her sickbed but wants to take the air alone. The two men retire, and Phaedra arrives; she has barely the strength to walk, but it is not clear whether her weakness is physical or mental. Her train of thought is incoherent, and her words are not so much uttered as forced from her. She addresses the sun, her mythical ancestor, and says it is the last time she will see him; immediately afterward, she involuntarily cries, "If I were only sitting in the forest shade, watching a swift chariot flying in the dust."
Oenone, who has in effect been Phaedra's foster-mother, is alarmed for the life of her child, and anxiety sharpens her tongue. She reproaches Phaedra for her secrecy about the cause of her illness and reminds her that if she dies, she will leave her two young sons to the mercy of her enemy, Hippolytus. Phaedra reacts violently to the name, and Oenone is encouraged. But Phaedra is still bent on death; her guilt, she says, leaves her no other alternative. Dismayed and angry, Oenone turns on her. Is this the reward she receives for her years of devotion? She has left her own children to nurse Phaedra; will her foster-child leave her so callously?
Under this pressure Phaedra begins to yield, but at first she cannot find words of confession. Indirectly, she reminds Oenone that love has always been disastrous in her family: Her mother loved a bull, and her sister Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus. She too loves—and even more disastrously. "Whom?" demands Oenone. "You know the son of the Amazon, the prince I have long persecuted?" "Hippolytus," cries Oenone, and Phaedra's secret is revealed.
The barrier of confession breached, Phaedra plunges into a long and passionate description of the suffering her love has caused her. Her first sight of Hippolytus struck her like a thunderbolt, and her love for the son prevented her from accepting contentment with the father. Horrified at her feelings, she first raised a temple and sacrificed to Venus in the hope of being freed from her passion; when this failed, she tried to remove temptation from her path by pretending to detest Hippolytus and urging Theseus to send him away. Then, Theseus himself left, sending Phaedra to Troezen—and Hippolytus. Sick of her passion and of herself, Phaedra has taken the resolution to end her life before her guilty passion can drive her to some overt act and shame her forever.
