Canto I Summary

Lines 1-12

WHAT dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,
What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things,
I sing—This Verse to Caryll, Muse! is due;
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my Lays.

Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel
A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?
Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd,
Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In Tasks so bold, can Little Men engage,
and in soft Bosoms dwells such Mighty Rage?

• Do you ever say a quick prayer to some higher power before trying to do something really difficult, like nail a foul shot in a basketball game or take a hairy test in Algebra class? Ancient Greek and Roman poets like Homer (in the Iliad) and Virgil (in the Aeneid), and British heavyweights like John Milton (in Paradise Lost) would do the same thing as they began their epics, dedicating their poetic efforts to (and asking for inspirational help from) the Muses, the Greek gods, or (in Milton's case) God himself. 
• In the first six lines of Canto I, Pope is doing just that, but in a very tongue-in-cheek way. Instead of a divinity, he dedicates the poem to his and Arabella Fermor's friend John Caryll, who originally asked him to write it, and to "Belinda" (i.e., Arabella, the woman the poem is ostensibly about). This is called an invocation. 
• Here Pope sets the stage for the action that's coming, and gives us a bit of a mystery to follow as we read. Why (as he asks the "Goddess"—probably a Muse) would a Lord assault a young Lady? Why would a young Lady get angry at a Lord? Why would a society man do such a thing? And are society women really capable of getting into a rage about it? 
• Also here at the very beginning of his long poem, with this mock-dedication, Pope is setting his readers up for a theme that will come back over and over again: the Rape of the Lock as what literature historians call a mock epic: a poem that takes as its model far more serious epics like the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Paradise Lost, using high-flying poetic language and grand metaphors just like they do. But mock epics are about something trivial and small, like a young society woman losing a piece of her hair, instead of about a great war between the Trojans and Greeks, or the founding of the Roman Empire, or the fall of Adam and Eve.
• Pope isn't just making fun of grand epics, though: he's also paying an affectionate tribute to them, and demonstrating at the same time how well he knows epic poetry. Every educated person of Pope's day knew epic poetry really well, better even than you know the lyrics to the latest Katy Perry single. That's because the early 18th century loved Classical Greek and Roman culture. Historians call it the age of neoclassicism.
• This makes The Rape of the Lock especially fun for people who have read the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Aeneid. Have you ever listened to Weird Al Yankovic doing his "Polka Face" spoof of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face," or his "Party in the CIA" version of Miley Cyrus's "Party in the U.S.A"? They're really funny and clever all at the same time, especially if you know the original song really well. The Rape of the Lock is a lot like that. This is only the first of many mock-epic moments in the poem; we'll point them out to you as we go through it. 
• Following the mock-epic theme, then, the first twelve lines go about juxtaposing the grand and the trivial. Notice how the first line contains "dire Offence" (i.e., a horrific crime) and "am'rous Causes" (that's "amorous," meaning connected to love and romance, but Pope has shortened the word with an apostrophe to make it fit the meter of the line.)? 
• And notice how the second line contains "mighty Contests" and "trivial Things"? How about in line eleven, which has "Tasks so bold" and "Little Men," or line twelve, with "soft Bosoms" and "mighty Rage"? Yep, that's juxtaposition again. The technique is often used (as it is here) as a tool of satire. 
• By placing the high and mighty next to the trivial, Pope can actually make the high and mighty seem trivial, and then get his readers to question why they thought it was high and mighty in the first place. 
• Another cool poetic trick that Pope uses often comes in the last two lines of this section: "In Tasks so Bold, can little Men engage,/ And in soft Bosoms dwell such mighty Rage?" (11-12). If you look at both lines together, you'll see that the first half of the first line ("Tasks so Bold") goes with the second half of the second line ("mighty Rage"), and the second half of the first line ("little Men") goes well with the first half of the second ("soft Bosoms"). 
• This poetic device is called a chiasmus, from the Greek word for "cross." Look for more instances of it throughout the poem.
• What do you think Pope is up to by using it here?
• Have you noticed the poem's form by now? The entire thing, like these first twelve lines, is written in iambic pentameter and rhymed couplets (another term for these is heroic couplets). 
• See the "Form and Meter" section for a more detailed description of the heroic couplet, but take a sec to notice here (and all the way through the poem) how the side-by-side pairing of the couplets makes it easy for Pope to do the kind of juxtaposition we were looking at above. 
• Pope was really, really, really good at heroic couplets, by the way. And we mean good. For a short description of just how good, see our guide to a snippet from one of his later poems, An Essay on Criticism.

Lines 13–26

Sol thro' white Curtains shot a tim'rous Ray,
And op'd those Eyes that must eclipse the Day;
Now Lapdogs give themselves the rowzing Shake,
And sleepless Lovers, just at Twelve, awake:
Thrice rung the Bell, the Slipper knock'd the Ground,
And the press'd Watch return'd a silver Sound.
Belinda still her downy Pillow prest,
Her Guardian Sylph prolong'd the balmy Rest.
'Twas he had summon'd to her silent Bed
The Morning-Dream that hover'd o'er her Head.
A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau,
(That ev'n in Slumber caus'd her Cheek to glow)
Seem'd to her Ear his winning Lips to lay,
And thus in Whispers said, or seem'd to say.

• Ah, the leisurely life of the rich and beautiful. Here we meet our heroine, Belinda, just waking up as the sun peeks through her window curtains. Barely awake, she rings the bell next to her bed to call her maid, and knocks her slipper against the floor for extra emphasis. She checks her watch to see what time it is, and then sinks back into a doze. 
• We also meet Ariel, her "Guardian Sylph" (like a guardian angel but a lot smaller), who gives her an extra dream as she falls back to sleep. And what a dream it is. A very handsome, well-dressed young man—he makes her blush even in her sleep—is whispering in her ear.
• "Sol" in the very first line is a personification of the sun, and Pope makes him seem almost shy to be peeking in to Belinda's window, as if he's afraid to disturb her. And indeed he should be. The very next line uses a metaphor to compare Belinda's own eyes to the sun; in fact, her eyes are more beautiful (they "must eclipse the Day") than he is. 
• Belinda is hardly waking up with the dawn, though: these lines tell us that, like the pampered lapdogs owned by the 18th-century upper classes, or the sleepless lovers who don't need to work and so have the energy to stay awake all night thinking about romance, it's closer to noon
• And Belinda's no Cinderella, as her bell and knocking slipper also show. She's got a maid coming to bring her breakfast and help her get dressed. She's also got a fancy watch that chimes to tell her the time.
• So who is this dream boy whispering in her ear? We're not sure yet, but we do know that he's more decked out than "a Birth-night Beau." Every year, members of the British royal family would throw super-fancy Birth-night parties to celebrate their birthdays, and the nobility would go dressed in their finest clothes (think the red carpet on Oscar night, but more so). This dude is stylin'. No wonder she's blushing in her sleep.

Lines 27-114

Fairest of Mortals, thou distinguish'd Care
Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!
If e'er one Vision touch'd thy infant Thought,
Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught,
Of airy Elves by Moonlight Shadows seen,
The silver Token, and the circled Green,
Or Virgins visited by Angel-Pow'rs,
With Golden Crowns and Wreaths of heav'nly Flowers,
Hear and believe! thy own Importance know,
Nor bound thy narrow Views to Things below.
Some secret Truths from Learned Pride conceal'd,
To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd:
What tho' no Credit doubting Wits may give?
The Fair and Innocent shall still believe.
Know then, unnumbered Spirits round thee fly,
The light Militia of the lower Sky;
These, tho' unseen, are ever on the Wing,
Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.
Think what an Equipage thou hast in Air,
And view with scorn Two Pages and a Chair.
As now your own, our Beings were of old,
And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous Mold;
Thence, by a soft Transition, we repair
From earthly Vehicles to these of Air.
Think not, when Woman's transient Breath is fled,
That all her Vanities at once are dead:
Succeeding Vanities she still regards,
And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the Cards.
Her Joy in gilded Chariots, when alive,
And Love of Ombre, after Death survive.
For when the Fair in all their Pride expire,
To their first Elements the Souls retire:
The Sprights of fiery Termagants in Flame
Mount up, and take a Salamander's Name.
Soft yielding Minds to Water glide away,
And sip with Nymphs, their Elemental Tea.
The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome,
In search of Mischief still on Earth to roam.
The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the Fields of Air.

Know farther yet; Whoever fair and chaste
Rejects Mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd:
For Spirits, freed from mortal Laws, with ease
Assume what Sexes and what Shapes they please.
What guards the Purity of melting Maids,
In Courtly Balls, and Midnight Masquerades,
Safe from the treach'rous Friend, the daring Spark,
The Glance by Day, the Whisper in the Dark;
When kind Occasion prompts their warm Desires,
When Musick softens, and when Dancing fires?
'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know,
Tho' Honour is the Word with Men below.

Some Nymphs there are, too conscious of their Face,
For Life predestin'd to the Gnomes Embrace.
These swell their Prospects and exalt their Pride,
When Offers are disdain'd, and Love deny'd.
Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant Brain;
While Peers and Dukes, and all their sweeping Train,
And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear,
And in soft Sounds, Your Grace salutes their Ear.
'Tis these that early taint the Female Soul,
Instruct the Eyes of young Coquettes to roll,
Teach Infants Cheeks a bidden Blush to know,
And little Hearts to flutter at a Beau.

Oft when the World imagine Women stray,
The Sylphs thro' mystick Mazes guide their Way,
Thro' all the giddy Circle they pursue,
And old Impertinence expel by new.
What tender Maid but must a Victim fall
To one Man's Treat, but for another's Ball?
When Florio speaks, what Virgin could withstand,
If gentle Damon did not squeeze her Hand?
With varying Vanities, from ev'ry Part,
They shift the moving Toyshop of their Heart;
Where Wigs with Wigs, with Sword-knots Sword-knots strive,
Beaus banish Beaus, and Coaches Coaches drive.
This erring Mortals Levity may call,
Oh blind to Truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.

Of these am I, who thy Protection claim,
A watchful Sprite, and Ariel is my Name.
Late, as I rang'd the Crystal Wilds of Air,
In the clear Mirror of thy ruling Star
I saw, alas! some dread Event impend,
E're to the Main this Morning Sun descend.
But Heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where:
Warn'd by thy Sylph, oh Pious Maid beware!
This to disclose is all thy Guardian can.
Beware of all, but most beware of Man!

• What a dream indeed. Turns out our handsome youth is telling Belinda all about the spirits who control and protect young upper-class women of all personalities, without their knowledge.
• See, Belinda's not just a nobody, or some unimportant dork of a girl. "Hear and believe! Thy own importance know" (I.35), he whispers, telling her she has an entire invisible entourage of fairylike creatures who keep an eye on her, her hair, her clothes, and her social life, guiding and protecting her. 
• Who are they, and where did they come from? In lines 47-56, the dream visitor tells her that they were all once beautiful young women like herself, whose spirits now take joy in overseeing the social drama and romantic exploits of the girls who come after them. 
• We are introduced to four different kinds of these spirits: "Salamanders" (59-60), spirits of fire, who had strong personalities in life and were temperamental and quick to anger; "Nymphs"(61-62), water spirits who used to be wishy-washy girls; "Gnomes" (63-64), earthy types who were moody drama queens in life; and best of all the "Sylphs" (65-66), spirits of the air who when alive were "coquettes"—flirty happy girls, or the classic cheerleader types. 
• We then learn, in lines 67-78, that the Sylphs are the best of all four, as their job is to guard the good name of young women through all kinds of social situations, especially regarding those with the opposite sex (don't you wish you had someone like that to help you navigate lunch period or Saturday night's party?). 
• Upperclass women in Pope's day had to be very careful about their reputations when it came to dealing with men who weren't their fathers or husbands. They had to preserve their honor at all costs; in The Rape of the Lock, Pope imagines that the Sylphs are on a specific mission to help girls do just that.
• Lines 79-90 tell us more about what the Gnomes do: unlike the happy Sylphs, Gnomes fill young women with vanity and pride about their looks and the people they hang out with (yes, Gnomes turn girls into snobs who only care about status and who will do almost anything—even faking friendships or attraction—to get it). Not good. 
• But the dream goes right back to the Sylphs in lines 91-104, reminding Belinda (and us) that even when the behavior of girls seems absolutely inexplicable (they drop a friend for no good reason, they don't show up where or when they're supposed to, they fall in and out of love often), it's really the Sylphs who are masterminding the whole confusing deal. 
• Finally, in lines 105-114, the dream visitor reveals who he is: Ariel, the most powerful of all the Sylphs, who is Belinda's special guardian. And here, we get our first inkling that something terrible is about to happen in this poem: Ariel warns Belinda that he has a premonition of a dire event approaching, and that she needs to watch out for herself. He does not know exactly what it is, but he does know that it will involve a man. Cue the ominous music now. 
• Not only does this section of the poem move us further forward in the plot thanks to Ariel's warning, it's also Pope's way of teaching us (his readers) all about the "Machinery" or supernatural element of the poem that he told Arabella Fermor about in the dedicatory letter. 
• This is another mock-epic moment: in a serious poem like the Iliad, Greek gods like Zeus or Athena might be controlling and guiding and protecting the hero; in The Rape of the Lock, Belinda is protected and guided by the spirits of frou-frou young women, who used to love, on lines 55 and 56, "gilded Chariots" (decorated coaches, the fancy cars of Pope's day) and "Ombre" (a card game played at parties) just like herself. 
• Where Athena might help a Greek hero like Achilles fight a Trojan hero like Hector, Ariel and his fellow Sylphs give Belinda a hand making it through "Courtly Balls, and Midnight Masquerades" (72), or dealing with mean friends or boys who try to take advantage of her (the "daring Spark" of line 73). The whole thing is ridiculously silly. 
• Or is it? Belinda may be only a pretty girl with money, but the poem, even though it's frivolous, is still granting her all kinds of importance. As line 27 says, she is the "Fairest of Mortals," and she is our heroine after all. 
• Pope is, as he has been doing all along, using the power of juxtaposition again: mock-epic Belinda's superficial social life might seem trivial compared to the mighty exploits of epic Achilles, but then again doesn't Achilles himself—and all of those posing, preening Greek and Trojan warriors—seem a little silly by association with Belinda and the girls she hangs out with? 
• Speaking of double-edged compliments, did you think that some of the language Pope uses to describe women's minds and hearts in lines 91-104 is a little condescending? "giddy Circles," "varying Vanities," "the moving Toyshop of their Heart"?
• You're right. As with the dedicatory letter, we're back in the territory of how low an opinion 18th-century society held of women's intellects and capacities. 
• Pope pays Belinda and her kind massive compliments on their beauty and clothing and wit throughout this poem, but he's also at the same time reinforcing the stereotype of women like her as airheads. 
• Notice that Pope uses the model of the four elements (air, earth, water, fire) to classify his spirits. Why do you think he does this?

Lines 115-148

He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long,
Leapt up, and wak'd his Mistress with his Tongue.
'Twas then Belinda! if Report say true,
Thy Eyes first open'd on a Billet-doux.
Wounds, Charms, and Ardors, were no sooner read,
But all the Vision vanish'd from thy Head.
And now, unveil'd, the Toilet stands display'd,
Each Silver Vase in mystic Order laid.
First, rob'd in White, the Nymph intent adores
With Head uncover'd, the Cosmetic Pow'rs.
A heav'nly Image in the Glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her Eyes she rears;
Th' inferior Priestess, at her Altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred Rites of Pride.
Unnumber'd Treasures ope at once, and here
The various Off'rings of the World appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious Toil,
And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring Spoil.
This Casket India's glowing Gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box.
The Tortoise here and Elephant unite,
Transform'd to Combs, the speckled and the white.
Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,
Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms;
The Fair each moment rises in her Charms,
Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace,
And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face;
Sees by Degrees a purer Blush arise,
And keener Lightnings quicken in her Eyes.
The busy Sylphs surround their darling Care;
These set the Head, and those divide the Hair,
Some fold the Sleeve, while others plait the Gown;
And Betty's prais'd for Labours not her own.

• Belinda's lapdog—yes, like Paris Hilton with her Chihuahua accessory, Belinda has a fancy little dog ("Shock") to keep her company—ends the dream abruptly by waking her up with puppy kisses. Will she remember Ariel's warning of dire things to come? 
• Not likely, as the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes is a "Billet-doux" or a love letter (literally, it's French for "sweet note"—try that out on your Valentine next year). Pope does not tell us who the letter's from, but when she reads it, its contents (the "Wounds" her beauty has inflicted on the writer's heart, and how strongly— "Ardor"—he feels about her "Charms," line 119) make her completely forget about the dream. 
• In what follows—the last 24 lines of this Canto, or section, of the poem—Pope gives us perhaps the grandest description of a girl putting on her makeup, doing her hair, and getting dressed, in all of British literature. Belinda gets out of bed, goes to her mirrored vanity, sits down, and with the help of the invisible Sylphs, she puts on her jewelry, makes up her face, does her hair, and laces herself up into her dress. 
• Think Katniss in The Hunger Games, surrounded by Cinna and the rest of her personal-stylist team from the Capitol. "Betty," in line 148, is Belinda's maid, who—as the poem tells us—gets all of the credit for the fancy work the Sylphs actually do.
• This description of Belinda's primping is another of those mock epic moments, juxtaposing the grand or the great with the trivial or the inconsequential. Pope uses three different extended metaphors to nail the juxtaposition. The first one (121-128) is religious: Belinda's "Toilet" (121) is likened to an "Altar" (127), and Belinda and Betty are made into priestess-worshipers.
• What god are they praying to? Belinda's own image, of course (125). 
• Their decking out of Belinda's face in the mirror is made into a form of worship service, or "The sacred Rites of Pride" (128), as Pope puts it. Just before you think Pope might be going a bit to far with this, ask yourself what an alien from outer space might think of how you get ready for school in the morning, especially if you take a lot of time with your hair and makeup. 
• Vanity—Belinda's absolute love of her own appearance—and the bad effects too much of it can have on society, is a huge theme in The Rape of the Lock. This section of Canto I is where we first see it, but look out for it throughout the rest of the poem.
• The second extended metaphor, from lines 129 to 138, takes us from the church of Belinda's face to the outer territories of the British Empire. Pope takes an inventory of what's on Belinda's dressing-table (her jewelry, her perfume, her makeup, her hair toys), and reminds us where all of the stuff originally came from. 
• These are "the various Off'rings of the World" (130): her "Gems" from India, her perfumes from Arabia, her ivory and tortoise-shell combs from elephants and tortoises. You did know that the British Empire was getting larger and more powerful all throughout the eighteenth century, didn't you? Remember, in 1714 when the poem was written, the good old U.S. of A. was still thirteen colonies paying taxes to Britain, and British ships and merchants were scurrying all over the globe to bring back fancy goodies like perfume and ivory to deck out those who could afford them back home. 
• Pope is celebrating all of this power and wealth even while he trivializes it by putting it in the form of the cosmetics and gewgaws in Belinda's room. Notice too how Belinda herself is oblivious to the nature or source of her accessories, as they're all jumbled together on the table top ("Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux" in line 138). 
• "Patches," by the way, refers to the artificial beauty marks that 18th-century men and women would stick onto their faces in strategic places. Seem weird to you? Imagine what they would have thought of pierced eyebrows. It's all relative, people. 
• The third extended metaphor makes Belinda into a warrior of sorts. A hottie warrior. Ever hear the '80s song by Pat Benatar, "Love is a Battlefield"? Belinda's hair-and-makeup session is arming her for war—well, more truthfully, for the fancy party she will go to in the very next Canto. 
• Pope has already told us that her jewelry and cosmetics are "Spoil" (132), meaning the "spoils of war" (and not rotten fruit).
• "Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms" (139), Pope tells us, and Belinda becomes like Achilles putting on his armor before facing the Trojans in battle. (Think about that while you're getting ready for the prom.) Who will Belinda be "fighting," though?