The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems Part 19

'47 throngs':

Pope now describes the mad fancies of people so affected by spleen as to imagine themselves transformed to inanimate objects.

'51 pipkin':

a little jar. Homer ('Iliad', XVIII, 373-377) tells how Vulcan had made twenty wonderful tripods on living wheels that moved from place to place of their own accord.

'52'

Pope in a note to this poem says that a lady of his time actually imagined herself to be a goose-pie.

'56 A branch':

so aeneas bore a magic branch to protect him when he descended to the infernal regions ('aeneid', VI, 136-143).

'Spleenwort':

a sort of fern which was once supposed to be a remedy against the spleen.

'58 the s.e.x':

women.

'59 vapours':

a form of spleen to which women were supposed to be peculiarly liable, something like our modern hysteria. It seems to have taken its name from the fogs of England which were thought to cause it.

'65 a nymph':

Belinda, who had always been so light-hearted that she had never been a victim of the spleen.

'89 Citron-waters':

a liqueur made by distilling brandy with the rind of citrons. It was a fas.h.i.+onable drink for ladies at this time.

'71'

Made men suspicious of their wives.

'82 Ulysses':

Homer ('Odyssey', X, 1-25) tells how aeolus, the G.o.d of the winds, gave Ulysses a wallet of oxhide in which all the winds that might oppose his journey homeward were closely bound up.

'89 Thalestris':

the name of a warlike queen of the Amazons. Pope uses it here for a friend of Belinda's, who excites her to revenge herself for the rape of her lock. It is said that this friend was a certain Mrs. Morley.

'102 loads of lead':

curl papers used to be fastened with strips of lead.

'105 Honour':

female reputation.

'109 toast':

a slang term in Pope's day for a reigning beauty whose health was regularly drunk by her admirers. Steele ('Tatler', No. 24) says that the term had its rise from an accident that happened at Bath in the reign of Charles II. A famous beauty was bathing there in public, and one of her admirers filled a gla.s.s with the water in which she stood and drank her health.

"There was in the place," says Steele "a gay fellow, half-fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore though he liked not the liquor, he would have the Toast. He was opposed in his resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honor which is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been called a TOAST."

To understand the point of the story one must know that it was an old custom to put a bit of toast in hot drinks.

In this line in the poem Thalestris insinuates that if Belinda submits tamely to the rape of the lock, her position as a toast will be forfeited.

'113-116'

Thalestris supposes that the baron will have the lock set in a ring under a bit of crystal. Old-fas.h.i.+oned hair-rings of this kind are still to be seen.

'117 Hyde-park Circus':

the Ring of Canto I, l. 44. Gra.s.s was not likely to grow there so long as it remained the fas.h.i.+onable place to drive.

'118 in the sound of Bow':

within hearing of the bells of the church of St. Mary le Bow in Cheapside. So far back as Ben Jonson's time (Eastward Ho, I, ii, 36) it was the mark of the unfas.h.i.+onable middle-cla.s.s citizen to live in this quarter. A "wit" in Queen Anne's day would have scorned to lodge there.

'121 Sir Plume':

this was Sir George Brown, brother of Mrs. Morley (Thalestris). He was not unnaturally offended at the picture drawn of him in this poem. Pope told a friend many years later that