NOTES INTRODUCTORY LETTER Mrs. In Pope's day grown-up ladies were all addressed as 'Mistress', whether married or single. CANTO I 1-3. The poem opens in true epic fashion. The poet addresses the Muse and tells her what is to be the subject of the inspiration for which he asks. Pope says, in effect, My subject, O Muse, is the consequences which sometimes result from innocent, or even amorous causes, and this subject has been suggested to me by my friend Caryll: the verses you inspire will be read by the lady Belinda, so, although the subject is a slight one, the glory of it will not be slight if it gives satisfaction to her and to him.' 66 2. contests. The earlier version has 'quarrels'. 3. For Caryll see Introduction. In all the editions published in Pope's lifetime the name appears as 'C', or 'C'. In his letter to Caryll of February 25, 1714, which accompanied two copies of the enlarged edition of the poem, Pope writes: "In this more solemn edition I was strangely [? strongly] tempted to have set your name at length, as well as I have my own: but I remembered the desire you formerly expressed to the contrary, besides that it may better become me to appear as the offerer of an ill present, than you as the receiver of it.' 5. Slight is the subject, &c. An imitation of Virgil, Georgic iv. 6: In tenui labor at tenuis non gloria: si quem Numina laeva sinunt, auditque vocatus Apollo. of which Dryden's translation is: Slight is the subject, but the praise not small 7. Dennis points out that compel' is too strong a word: and Elwin thinks impel' would have been better. Dennis found every fault he possibly could with the poem especially with the management of the machinery'. 12. A very palpable imitation of Virgil's 'tantaene animis caelestibus irae?' (Aen. i. 11). In the first edition this couplet ran: And dwells such rage in softest bosoms then, And lodge such daring souls in little men? which was a reminiscence of a line in Addison's translation of Georgic iv. 83, their little bodies lodge a mighty soul.' Pope, says Elwin, probably altered the couplet to get rid of the stress laid by the rime on the weak word 'then'; but he retained the allusion to Lord Petre's short stature. 13-18. These six lines are a great improvement on the earlier edition, which read thus: Sol through white curtains did his beams display, And oped those eyes which brighter shine than they ; And nymphs prepared their chocolate to take; The lines were probably intended not so much to describe Belinda's waking as to be of general application. Notice that in the enlarged edition Pope gives the sleepless lovers' an extra two hours before they 'awake'. 17. the bell. A hand-bell. Bell-hanging was not introduced into our domestic apartments till long after the date of The Rape of the Lock.... I myself, about the year 1790, remember that it was still the practice for ladies to summon their attendants to their bedchambers by knocking with a high-heeled shoe. Servants, too, were accustomed to wait in ante-rooms, whence they were summoned by hand-bells, and this explains the extraordinary number of such rooms in the houses of the last century' (Croker, quoted by Elwin). 18. the pressed watch. There is point in this expression; for some of the early 'repeaters' were operated by pulling a string. The Rev. Edward Barlow, a Roman Catholic priest, applied for a patent for pulling repeating clocks and watches' in 1686: the clockmakers opposed his claim on behalf of Daniel Quare, and the Privy Council in March, 1687, gave judgement in Quare's favour. He had made repeaters some six years before; and Charles II had sent one to Louis XIV. The invention was much appreciated, for it took some time and trouble to get a light from flint and tinder. 19. All the verses from hence to the end of this Canto were added afterwards.'-Pope. 20. Her guardian sylph. See Introduction. Belinda falls asleep again she had opened her eyes already, line 14; and she definitely wakes again at line 116. It does not necessarily involve a contradiction, or the inconsistency to which Croker called attention. 23. a birth-night beau, i. e. a courtier at one of the balls that were given on Royal birthdays, when the dresses were of unusual magnificence. Circles 32. The silver token. Silver pennies put at night by the fairies into the slippers of maids who kept the house clean (Croker). the circled green. What are now called 'fairy-rings'. of darker and longer grass, caused by a fungus. Shakespeare calls them the 'green-sour ringlets' (Tempest, v. 1). This was the lore taught by the nurses. The priest infused the legends of 'Virgins visited by angel-powers' (Croker). 42. the lower sky. See note on Canto ii. 83. 'Militia' in the sense of a military force is at least as old as 1590. 44. i. e. attend you at the theatre, and when you are driving in Hyde Park. The Drive in Hyde Park is still called "the Ring", though the site and shape have been changed' (Croker). "The box at the theatre, and the ring in Hyde Park, are frequently mentioned,' says Elwin, as the two principal places for the public display of beauty and fashion'-and he quotes from Garth's Dispensary, 'Blaze in the box and sparkle in the ring.' 45. equipage escort. . 6 46. a chair, i. e. a Sedan chair; in which the 'passenger' was carried by two chairmen ', one in front and one behind, walking in step with each other. 47, 48. Pope does not follow the account of the genesis of the sylphs as given in Le Comte de Gabalis. 50. earthly vehicles. Thus Henry More, in his Immortality of the Soul, says: The Platonists do chiefly take notice of three kinds of vehicles, aetherial, aerial, and terrestrial' (Book II, chap. πίν. 1). 55. chariots. These were family coaches, and were still in use in the middle of the nineteenth century. K quae gratia currum 56. ombre. See Appendix. 57-66. In making the spirits human beings who have ceased to be such, Pope is not in accord with the Comte de Gabalis, who assigns to them a more supernatural origin. The air is full of countless multitudes of nations of a human figure (Sylphs) . . . the seas and rivers are inhabited, as well as the air; the Sages have called this kind Undines or Nymphs. . . . The earth, almost to the centre, is filled with Gnomes .. as for the Salamanders, [they are] the inflamed guests of the Region of Fire . . . They are composed of the purest parts of the elements they inhabit.' Elwin points out that Pope was indebted to Dryden (The Flower and the Leaf, line 489) for his idea of their origin: And all those airy shapes you now behold Were human bodies once, and clothed with earthly mould. 59. termagant a noisy scolding woman. Originally the name of a Saracen idol in mediaeval romances, and as such introduced into the 'morality' plays, it came to be applied to any violent character. The old form of the word was Tervagant, which Skeat derives from the Latin ter vagare, and connects it with the diva triformis (Diana). 62. elemental tea. Elemental because made with water, the element appropriated to the nymphs, and of which, according to the Comte de Gabalis, they were made. Tea was then pronounced tay (cf. Canto iii. 7, 8); similarly bobea rimes with way in Canto iv. 153, 154. The continental pronunciation of the vowels e and i was not uncommon even down to the early nineteenth century. Lord John Russell always talked about being obleeged to any one. 65. sylphs. Here used of females: in the next couplet 'sylphs' is masculine. In the Comte de Gabalis the female sylphs are called 'sylphids', and the female gnomes 'gnomids'. 70. The idea of arbitrary and temporary change of sex is again a departure from the Comte de Gabalis: and Elwin asserts Pope's indebtedness for both idea and phraseology to Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 423. 73. spark = lover. The word was also used as a verb in America, meaning to 'court' as a lover. 77, 78. Cf. Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, part iii: Immortal powers the term of conscience know, Warburton says this is a parody of Homer'. 79. too conscious of their face. i. e. of their own beauty, too conceited. Face' should be grammatically 'faces'; this and similar licences occur several times in the poem, e. g. Canto iii. 42, 'halberts in their hand'. 81. These. i.e. the gnomes. 89. a bidden blush, i. e. rouge. 94. impertinence = extravagance, silliness, foolery, nonsense (Phillips's New World of Words, 1706), the common meaning of the word in the eighteenth century. 96. one man's treat. Cf. Canto iii. 169. 100. toyshop. The original meaning of 'toy' was 'a trifle': Any silk, any thread, any toys for your head. (Winter's Tale, iv. iii. 326). Etymologically the word is connected with tow and tug. 102. coaches drive. Rather an awkward expression, says Elwin, seeing that driving a coach' has another signification in common parlance. The turn of phrase in lines 101-2 is an echo of two lines of Statius (Thebais, viii. 398), a poet whose ingenious turns of expression were peculiarly attractive to Pope. 105. who thy protection claim. Another awkward phrase. Ariel means I claim the right of protecting thee', not 'to be protected by thee'. 107. late, i. e. lately, of late. 108. The language of the Platonists, the writers of the intelligible world of spirits, &c.'-Pope. 110. descend = shall descend. 115. Shock. Belinda's pet lap-dog. Dennis speaks of him as a vile Iceland cur'. 118 As Croker points out, this is rather clumsily put. He means that the first thing she saw on opening her eyes was a billetdoux, not that this was the first time she had seen one. first opened. See note on line 20. She had not lifted her head from the pillow when she had opened her eyes before, and so had not seen the billet-doux. |