She said: the pitying audience melt in tears, But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears. In vain Thalestris with reproach assails, For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan; Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began. "Say, why are beauties prais'd and honour'd most, The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast? Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford, Why angels call'd, and angel-like ador'd? Why round our coaches crowd the white-glov'd beaux, Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows? How vain are all these glories, all our pains, Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains: That men may say, when we the front-box grace: 'Behold the first in virtue, as in face!' Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day, Charm'd the smallpox, or chas'd old age away; Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce, Or who would learn one earthly thing of use? To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint, Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint. But since, alas! frail beauty must decay, Curl'd or uncurl'd, since locks will turn to grey, Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, And she who scorns a man, must die a maid; What then remains but well our pow'r to use, And keep good humour still whate'er we lose? And trust me, dear! good humour can prevail, When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail. Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul." So spoke the dame, but no applause ensu'd; Belinda frown'd,
Thalestris call'd her prude. "To arms, to arms!" the fierce virago cries, And swift as lightning to the combat flies. All side in parties, and begin th' attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; Heroes' and heroines' shouts confus'dly rise, And bass, and treble voices strike the skies. No common weapons in their hands are found, Like gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound. So when bold Homer makes the gods engage, And heav'nly breasts with human passions rage; 'Gainst Pallas,
Mars;
Latona,
Hermes arms; And all Olympus rings with loud alarms. Jove's thunder roars, heav'n trembles all around; Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound; Earth shakes her nodding tow'rs, the ground gives way; And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day! Triumphant Umbriel on a sconce's height Clapp'd his glad wings, and sate to view the fight: Propp'd on their bodkin spears, the sprites survey The growing combat, or assist the fray. While through the press enrag'd Thalestris flies, And scatters death around from both her eyes, A beau and witling perish'd in the throng, One died in metaphor, and one in song. "O cruel nymph! a living death I bear," Cried Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair. A mournful glance Sir Fopling upwards cast, "Those eyes are made so killing"—was his last. Thus on Mæeander's flow'ry margin lies Th' expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down, Chloe stepp'd in, and kill'd him with a frown; She smil'd to see the doughty hero slain, But at her smile, the beau reviv'd again. Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air, Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair; The doubtful beam long nods from side to side; At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside. See, fierce Belinda on the baron flies, With more than usual lightning in her eyes, Nor fear'd the chief th' unequal fight to try, Who sought no more than on his foe to die. But this bold lord with manly strength endu'd, She with one finger and a thumb subdu'd: Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; The Gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust. Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows, And the high dome re-echoes to his nose. "Now meet thy fate", incens'd Belinda cried, And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. (The same, his ancient personage to deck, Her great great grandsire wore about his neck In three seal-rings; which after, melted down, Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown: Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew; Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.) "Boast not my fall," he cried, "insulting foe! Thou by some other shalt be laid as low. Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind; All that I dread is leaving you benind! Rather than so, ah let me still survive, And burn in Cupid's flames—but burn alive." "Restore the lock!" she cries; and all around "Restore the lock!" the vaulted roofs rebound. Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain Roar'd for the handkerchief that caus'd his pain. But see how oft ambitious aims are cross'd, The chiefs contend 'till all the prize is lost! The lock, obtain'd with guilt, and kept with pain, In ev'ry place is sought, but sought in vain: With such a prize no mortal must be blest, So Heav'n decrees! with Heav'n who can contest? Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere, Since all things lost on earth are treasur'd there. There hero's wits are kept in pond'rous vases, And beaux' in snuff boxes and tweezercases. There broken vows and deathbed alms are found, And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound; The courtier's promises, and sick man's prayers, The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs, Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea, Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry. But trust the Muse—she saw it upward rise, Though mark'd by none but quick, poetic eyes: (So Rome's great founder to the heav'ns withdrew, To Proculus alone confess'd in view) A sudden star, it shot through liquid air, And drew behind a radiant trail of hair. Not Berenice's locks first rose so bright, The heav'ns bespangling with dishevell'd light. The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies, And pleas'd pursue its progress through the skies. This the beau monde shall from the Mall survey, And hail with music its propitious ray. This the blest lover shall for Venus take, And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake. This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, When next he looks through Galileo's eyes; And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome. Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravish'd hair, Which adds new glory to the shining sphere! Not all the tresses that fair head can boast Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost. For, after all the murders of your eye, When, after millions slain, yourself shall die: When those fair suns shall set, as set they must, And all those tresses shall be laid in dust, This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.
Form: couplets 1 ff.
Pope is again imitating Aeneid,
IV, to which he refers in lines 5-6.
Line 2 is an adaptation of line 637 in Virgil, which Dryden translates: "Fate, and the God, had stopp'd his Ears to Love." In Aeneid,
IV,
Dido and her sister Anna plead with Aeneas to stay in Carthage. 7 ff.
Clarissa: "[Pope] A new character introduced in subsequent editions [beginning in 1717], to open more clearly the
AL of the poem, in a parody of the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus in Homer." See the Iliad,
II. 14. side-box.
The gentlemen occupied the side-boxes, the ladies the front-boxes. 53. "[Pope] Minerva in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with the suitors in Odyssey
II, 261 ff., perches on a beam of the roof to behold it." 62.
Dapperwit: character in Wycherley's Love in a Wood, a Restoration drama. 63.
Sir Fopling: the chief character in Etherege's Man of Mode or Sir Fopling Flutter, another Restoration drama. 64. "[Pope] The words in a song in the opera Camilla" (an opera by Marc Antonio Buononcini, performed fifty-four times during 1706-9). 65.
Meander: a winding river in Asia Minor. 71-74. "[Pope] See Homer Iliad 8 87 ff. and Virgil Aeneid 12 725 ff." See also Paradise Lost,
IV, 996 ff. 85 ff.
A sneeze was considered by the Greeks and Romans to be a lucky omen. 105-6.
Othello.
See
II, iv, 51-98 and IV. 113-14.
Some ... cases: a parody of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso,
IV, lxviii-lxxxvii, where the hero's lost wits are recovered among the lost or wasted things of the earth preserved on the moon.
Cf.
Paradise Lost,
II, 444-98. 115.vases: pronounced to rhyme with "cases." 125-26.
So ... view.
Romulus disappeared during a thunderstorm while he was reviewing the Romans on the Campus Martius, and afterwards appeared to Proculus Julius with a message for his people, and in his sight ascended into heaven. 126.confess'd: revealed. 129-30.
Not . . light.
Pope refers to Catullus' translation of Callimachus' The Lock of Berenice.
This Berenice was wife of Ptolemy
II.
In 246 when he set out to battle,
Berenice dedicated to Aphrodite a lock of her hair as an offering for his safe return.
The lock mysteriously vanished and the court astronomer pretended to discover it transformed into a constellation, now called Coma Berenices. 133. the Mall: the shaded promenade in St.
James' Park. 136.
Rosamonda's lake: a small pond in St.
James' Park. 137.
Partridge. "[Pope] John Partridge [1644-1751] was a ridiculous star gazer, who in his almanacs every year, never failed to predict the downfall of the Pope and the King of France, then at war with the English." Swift had played a practical joke on Partridge in his Predictions for the Year 1708 by Isaac Bickerstaff when he published a prophecy and then an account of the almanac-maker's death. 138.
Galileo's eyes: the telescope perfected by Galileo in 1630. 140.
Louis:
Louis
IV, with whom England had long been at war. 142. sphere: pronounced to rhyme with "hair."
