A brief summary of |The Rape of the Lock
In a mock heroic style, Pope asks music to help him sing how trivial situations arising from love affairs lead to serious consequences. The subject of his poem, he owes to the suggestion of his friend Caryl. He will write how a well-bred lord (Lord Petrie) dared to take aggressive liberties with a well-born lady (Belinda) who in the end rejected his love. Although the subject is trivial, the poet hopes that he will deserve fame, if the charm of this lady impresses him and his verse is approved by Caryl.
Belinda slept late until noon, as soon as she woke up, she called her maids by ringing a hand bell and knocking on the floor with her slippers. She pressed the repeater clock to find out the time. No maid answered her call, she once again pressed the pillow under her and fell asleep. Her guardian angel (Ariel) prolonged her sleep and appeared in a dream before her closed eyes in the form of a shining beau.
The angel (Ariel), who was her guardian spirit, told her to believe in what he would reveal to her. She should know that countless angels constantly fly around her to protect her in all her activities, although they remain hidden from mortal eyes. The angels, the vision says, are a class of spirits who are the disembodied souls of women. For when women die, their souls go into the four elements of fire, water, earth and air according to the nature of the qualities that predominate in them. The souls of fiery, quarrelsome women go into fire and are called salamanders. The gentle women enter water and are called nymphs. The larger ones enter the earth and are called gnomes; those of light-minded coquettes go into the air and are called Sylphs. All these spirits can take possession of either sex at their pleasure. Young women who are chaste and fair are under the protection of the Sylphs; it is the Sylphs who protect them from harm amidst the various social pleasures that tempt their hearts and excite their passions. It is they, then, who make such women secure their chastity by constantly changing the objects of their attraction and affection. On the other hand, the proud, self-conscious women come under the influence of the mischievous Gnomes, who are of a serious nature. It is these Gnomes who turn the heads of idle beauties and fill their minds with foolish expectations of high rank through advantageous marriage with masters. Belinda is under the care and protection of the Sylph who now addresses her. Then the soothsayer (Uriel) predicts that some great calamity will befall Belinda during the day, but he does not know the exact nature or source of the mischief.
Belinda's favorite lap dog now woke her. As she woke, her eyes fell on a love letter full of romantic expressions of love. She made her toilet with the help of her maid daughter, while unseen sylphs flew here and there to help her in her work. In the toilet, various luxury items and ornaments, cosmetics, pins, perfumes, powders, puffs, patches were solemnly presented as if it were a religious ritual. Finally, Belinda's person shone in all her beauty, the smile and embarrassment on her face complementing the labor of the workers.
Having finished her toilet (and breakfast, etc.), Belinda, as splendid as the morning sun on the sea, set off for a pleasure trip in a barge on the banks of the Thames, accompanied by many friends, men and women. She was the center of attention of the party. Her lively features, her bright mind, her sparkling eyes charmed everyone. She bestowed her favor on all the braves without offending anyone, nor showing any special preference to any.
Belinda's splendid beauty was enhanced by two beautiful curling side locks of hair, which framed her white neck in a charming manner. For the young braves to see them was to lose their hearts. The Baron (Lord Peter), who was in her company, wanted to capture one of them at any cost, fair or foul. He prayed to all the gods, especially the god of love, before sunrise that morning, to grant him the desired reward and to keep him for a long time.
He spent a pleasant time in the pleasant part of the gilded barge as the barge glided slowly along. But Ariel was oppressed by the thought of the danger that befell Belinda. He called his sylphs, and they came flying on their colorful wings, crowding around the sails and shrouds. Their transparent forms were too beautiful for human eyes. Their wings rustled but softly, the sound of the wind. Ariel reminded them of the different classes, for the sylphs, each with special duties in a particular field of activity. The order of sylphs of which Ariel was chief, was responsible for the needs of the beauties by securing their face powder, extracting liquid cosmetics for them from the rainbow, helping them with their blushes, curling their hair, and advising them in their dreams on new fashions in the hem of their petticoats. He told the sylphs that he had learned that some calamity was going to befall Belinda that day, but he could not know in what form it would come or where it would come from. So he assigned different sylphs to guard Belinda's fan, her ear-drops, her watch, her favorite lock. And he himself took charge of the scythes, who were her favorite lap dogs. He appointed fifty specially chosen sylphs to guard her hoop petticoat. Then he warned them that whoever neglected his duties would be punished appropriately. He would be stopped in a phial or tied with a pin, or immersed in washing dishes, or caught fast in a game,
Hot chocolate. The sylphs, trembling at the thought of the impending danger, immediately went dutifully to their respective posts.
The day was drawing to a close when Belinda sat down to play cards with her two male friends, the Baron and another gentleman. It was a game known as Ombre, played between three, one of whom would take the other to win. According to the rules of the game, each was dealt nine cards. Belinda examined her hand and offered to win the remaining two. She declared the spades to be the trump. The game was pursued in the spirit of combat between Belinda’s strength and her opponents, and the green velvet table was like a battlefield, the cards being individual soldiers, Belinda holding three matadors, the highest trump card in the game being one of spades or spades, two of diamonds and clubs or bastos; He played these in succession and won three tricks, then he played the King of Spades which was the fourth high trump and also the master of that trick. Then Belinda, having no more trump cards, fouled the King of Clubs which was immediately defeated by the Baron's Queen of Spades. So the fifth trick went to the Baron. Now the Baron had the advantage. He played successively the King, the Queen, the Jack of Diamonds which were the highest cards in that non-trump suit and won all three tricks. He then led his Ace of Hearts. If he won that (i.e. the fifth and last) trick, Belinda would have to lose the Caudel, 1.e. suffer the penalty of losing the game. But fortunately, she was the King of Hearts; being superior to the Ace she brought it down with a victorious accident and became the master of the fifth trick. cried out in triumph. But alas, her joy was soon drowned in the bitter sorrow of losing her lock of hair.
The party then sat down for coffee. The women roasted the coffee berries and ground them in mills. The richly sweet-smelling liquid was poured into porcelain cups and each drank several cups. As Belinda sat drinking, the sylphs cooled the hot coffee or protected her rich dress. The coffee smoke rose in the Baron's mind and the Hun found a means of keeping himself in the coveted lock. A woman named Clarissa provided him with a pair of scissors with which he stood behind Belinda's back. They tried to warm him as much as possible, but Ariel, looking into the depths of the secrets of her heart, saw there the image of an earthly lover: so she must be left to her fate. The Baron now cut the lock, although a sylph tried to prevent the disaster by placing her aerial body between her lock and the scissors. Belinda, overcome with deep anger, blazed her eyes and sent forth a painful cry of anguish. But the Baron refused his splendid reward, saying that his name would live forever as a successful hero who possessed what he most desired.
Belinda was very troubled; her head was torn with conflicting emotions. Anger and despair at the loss of her hair made her miserable. Now that the Sylphs and their leader, Ariel, had abandoned her, a gloomy dwarf named Umbriel was free to exert his evil influence on her. He flew to the cave of Tili (the goddess of ill temper) in the center of the earth.
Tili, the goddess of ill temper, has her abode in a dark cave in the center of the earth, where the only wind that blows is the cheerful, dull east wind. The goddess lies on her bed, which is her throne, in which her friends share her pain and headache, while two maids, in nature and love, wait for her. III- Nature is an old maid with wrinkles in her form, but her hands are full of prayers while her heart is full of abuse, the effect is an old woman who pretends to be young and, taking on wrinkles of her own free will, hangs her head to one side and pretends to be very gentle and delicate. The cave is full of hazy shapes: some of them frighten the sick minds of hypochondriac hermits, others delight the imagination of dying female saints. There are also various ridiculous, bizarre shapes that indicate the crazy imaginations of individuals, male and female, whose minds are changed by the disease of their spleen, which makes them prone to strange delusions. The gnome addressed the goddess as the queen of debauchery who afflicted women with a depression of sadness, which led them to strange desires, and told her that a woman named Belinda had despised her power and scattered happiness all around her. The gnome reminded the goddess that he had served her faithfully by doing various mischiefs to the beauties, marrying their complexions, causing pimples on their faces, giving diseases to their lap dogs, tearing their hooves, and so on. He then requested her to mistreat Belinda. At this request, the goddess gave him a bag full of sighs, sobs, passio, etc., and a bag full of sorrows, sorrows, tears, etc.
Umbrel returned to earth with the bag and the phial. He found Belinda resting in the arms of his friend Thalesestris, and the two emptied the bag. Immediately Belinda burned with terrible rage, while Thelstress, picturing her dark future, only fueled her growing anger. She regretted that Belinda had taken great care and trouble to curl her locks by tying them long with paper bands and gathering them in curling tongs. Now the Baron would show the curls to the Fops and the ladies, and Belinda would be a wretched toast. She concluded that the Baron should be allowed to keep the lock and show it off to others with pride. Thelstress then went to Sir Plume to demand that the Baron return the lock. Sir Plume did so with much swearing and cursing. But the Baron flatly refused to return it and triumphantly spread it before her eyes. Umbrel then poured the contents of his phial over Belinda's head: he began
To sigh in deep distress, to shed tears of sorrow, and to lament why she had ever gone to Hampton Court! It would have been better for her if she had been a simple country girl. Now that one lock was gone, she herself would have cut off its companion curl. How she wished that the cruel Baron had "claimed to hold a hair less to see, or any hair but these."
Although all the others pitied poor Belinda, the Baron was not at all moved by her lamentation. Nor was he moved by the reproaches of Thelstress. Clarissa, who was quite serious, tried to calm Belinda by saying that women were praised in vain, that in vain they boasted of the fineness of their dress, that they liked men. The value of a woman is in virtue. There is no use in trying to preserve one's beauty, for beauty cannot last forever and locks, curly or uncurled, must turn grey in time. So it was best for Belinda to take her loss with good humor. And good humor, despite loss, is able to do what screams and reproaches cannot.
Thelsteres rejected the sages and dismissed Clarissa's advice as a tactful one and called upon women to a battle of wits and charms against the opposite sex. The hero and heroine shouted in confusion while the spectators applauded and the silks rustled. Umbrel and the other spirits watched the fight with interest. Thelsteres scattered death with both her eyes. Clarissa was engaged to Sir Plume who was killed by Chloe's bark, but he came back to life when she smiled at him as he lay slain. Belinda betrothed the Baron, and put a pinch and snuff into his nostrils, which made him sneeze terribly, and his eyes filled with tears. He forced her to surrender at the point of her hairpin and demanded that she return the lock. But alas the lock was nowhere to be found. Some say it had ascended to the moon where all the waste of the earth is gathered, but the poet saw it rising to the heavens where it shines as a constellation, beloved by lovers and consulted by astronomers.