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154 under an oath of secrecy, to Hippolytus. Diana's worshipper, shocked at the disclosure, discourses on the profligacy of women in general, and determines to absent himself for a while until Theseus returns to Troezen, with the intention, as Phædra and her nurse believe, of disclosing to his father his wife's infidelity. Overwhelmed by shame and despair, Phædra hangs herself, but suspends from her neck a letter in which she accuses Hippolytus of making dishonourable proposals to her. Theseus, on his return from an oracle he had been consulting, finds his wife a lifeless corpse, and believes in his son's guilt. Him he curses as a base hypocrite, who, affecting to worship the chaste goddess, has attempted to commit a crime that even Venus would scarcely sanction. His supposed father Neptune, in an evil moment, had once given Theseus three fatal curses, one of which he now hurls at his innocent son. Hippolytus now turns his back for ever on his father's house: weeping, and attended by his weeping friends, he drives slowly and sadly along the sea-beach. The curse comes upon him in the form of a monster sent by Neptune. A messenger brings the tidings to Theseus. "There came," he says, "when we had passed the frontier of this realm of Troezen,—

"A sound, as if some bolt from Zeus

Made thunder from the bowels of the earth—

A heavy hollow boom, hideous to hear.

A sudden fear fell on our youthful hearts

Whence came this awful voice: till with fixed gaze

Watching the sea-beat ridges, we beheld