The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings: Poems and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

by Alexander Pope

  708. Mantua: Birthplace of Virgil, who wrote ‘Mantua, alas! too close to unfortunate Cremona’, which had been parcelled out to army veterans (Eclogues, IX, 28).

  709. Latium: Italy; the implication is that the arts departed from Rome after it was sacked by troops of the Holy Roman Empire in 1527.

  714. Boileau: Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, seventeenth-century French poet, and author of an Art of Poetry, one of the models for ‘Essay on Criticism’; see also Horace, Satire, II, i, 111n.

  724. ‘Nature’s chief … well’: Quoted from an Essay on Poetry (1682) by the Duke of Buckingham.

  725. Roscommon: The Earl of Roscommon (d. 1685), minor poet and critic.

  729. Walsh: William Walsh (d. 1708), Pope’s friend and poetic mentor in his youth.

  730. knew: Knew how, or knew whether.

  731. desert: Pronounced to rhyme with ‘heart’.

  738. low numbers: Humble verses.

  739. their wants: What they lack.

  Windsor Forest

  By 1707, when he was still in his teens, Pope had completed a poem describing the landscape around his home at Binfield, a few miles from Windsor. It was heavily influenced by Virgil’s Georgics and by a seventeenth-century ‘locodescriptive’ poem by John Denham entitled Cooper’s Hill, which used a hill in that area as a vantage point for surveying England’s tribulations during the civil wars of the 1640s. Denham’s poem contained the pair of couplets most quoted in the eighteenth century, exemplifying the balanced order that Pope likewise aspired to: he hoped that his verse might flow like the Thames: O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

  My great example, as it is my theme!

  Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;

  Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full.

  More largely, Pope admired Cooper’s Hill for finding instructive analogies in nature; as he put it, ‘The descriptions of places and images raised by the poet are still tending to some hint, or leading into some reflection, upon moral life or political institution’ (Pope’s footnote to the Iliad, Twickenham edition, VIII, p. 2361). Some years later, anticipating the end of the Duke of Marlborough’s wars against France and Spain, Pope returned to the poem and added the second section (beginning at line 291). ‘Windsor Forest’ was published in 1713, shortly before the Peace of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession. Pope’s theme is that England flourishes through a harmonious balance of opposing forces, known as concordia discors, symbolized in the balanced elements of the landscape. He also exploits the proximity of Windsor Castle, emblematic of the centuries-old monarchy, and the fact that Windsor Forest – ‘forest’ meant a protected hunting preserve, not necessarily wooded – was exploited for their own pleasure by cruel, belligerent Norman kings. Criticism of William the Conqueror and his successors alludes covertly to a more recent William, Queen Mary’s consort William III, while their successor Queen Anne is hailed as a sponsor of peace, prosperity, and benevolent imperial rule.

  Epigraph: ‘I do not sing unbidden. Of you, Varus, all our groves of tamarisks shall sing, nor is any page more welcome to Phoebus than that which bears the name of Varus’ (abridged from Virgil, Eclogues, VI, 9–12). The tamarisk was sacred to Phoebus Apollo, god of music and poetry.

  2. the monarch’s and the Muse’s seats: Because of its proximity to Windsor Castle, and to the residence of several seventeenth-century poets.

  3. sylvan maids: Naiads and dryads, pastoral nature spirits.

  5. Granville: The poem is dedicated to George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, a minor poet and playwright.

  8. Live in description: In Milton’s Paradise Lost.

  21. lawns: ‘an open space between woods’ (Dictionary); also 81.

  26. desert: Deserted area, wilderness.

  27. tufted trees: Trees in a clump, a phrase from Milton’s L’Allegro.

  31. our oaks: Britain’s fleet of oaken ships.

  33. Olympus: The highest mountain in Greece, home of the gods.

  37–9. Pan: God of flocks and pastures. Pomona: Goddess of fruits. Flora: Goddess of flowers. Ceres: Goddess of grains.

  38. enamelled ground: A technical term from painting, in which a layer of enamel forms the base (‘ground’) on which other colours may be applied; it was traditional to describe beautiful landscapes as ‘enamelled’.

  41. Industry: Industriousness, labour.

  42. Stuart: Queen Anne (whose death in 1714 would end the Stuart line); see also 162 and note.

  45. savage laws: The medieval Forest Laws, by which the Normans turned farmland into hunting preserves, and punished poaching by unauthorized persons even if they lived on the land.

  50. wiser … slaves: i.e. wiser than humans, wild animals resisted enslavement.

  52. the elements … swayed: The tyrant held sway over Nature itself (by robbing farmers of their crops).

  55. swain: Rural labourer.

  61. Nimrod: The tyrannical ‘mighty hunter before the Lord’ of Genesis 10:9.

  63. haughty Norman: ‘alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I’ (Pope’s note).

  66. fanes: Temples, probably recalling the destruction of the monasteries under Henry VIII.

  77. Saxon … Dane: Rulers of Britain before the Norman Conquest.

  80. denied a grave: The burial of William I was delayed because of objections by the owner of the site.

  81. second hope: William’s second son, Richard, was killed by a stag in the New Forest.

  83. Rufus: William II, William’s third son, also known as Rufus, likewise died hunting in the New Forest. See also ‘Dunciad’, II, 265n.

  87. unknown: Not previously known to them, because forbidden.

  90. secret transport: Inward rapture. conscious: Alert, aware.

  94. spirits: Subtle ‘animal spirits’ in the blood that were believed to animate the body.

  96. Wind: Blow.

  101. tainted: Carrying an animal’s scent.

  106. Albion: England, from albus (‘white’), referring to the White Cliffs of Dover.

  108. invest: Besiege.

  111. brake: Thicket.

  119. Arcturus: Star in the Great Bear constellation that rises with the sun in September; it was thought to presage beneficial rain.

  135. genial: Generative.

  136. mead: Meadow.

  142. Tyrian dye: Crimson or purple, as in the famous dye of ancient Tyre.

  143. volumes: ‘volume: something rolled, or convolved … as a fold of a serpent’ (Dictionary).

  147. Cancer: The sun, Phoebus Apollo’s chariot or ‘car’, enters the Crab constellation (the astrological sign for Cancer) at the summer solstice, 22 June.

  150. opening: The cry of hounds following a scent.

  159. Arcadia: Region in Greece associated with pastoral simplicity.

  160. immortal huntress: Diana (Greek Artemis), goddess of the hunt and the moon.

  162. queen: Queen Anne, who was fond of hunting.

  164. empress of the main: Britannia ruled the seas, as Diana controlled the tides.

  166. Cynthus: Mountain on the island of Delos, birthplace of Diana.

  170. buskined: Wearing laced half-boots.

  172. Lodona: A nymph whom Pope imagines changed, in the manner of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, into the river Loddon near his home at Binfield.

  176. crescent: The crescent moon, Diana’s emblem; see 164n. zone: Belt.

  178. fillet: Headband or ribbon.

  186. liquid: Clear, transparent (liquidus).

  200. Cynthia: Diana; see 166n.

  207. Still bears the name: i.e. the Loddon.

  209. laves: Bathes.

  219. great father: The Thames. floods: Rivers.

  221. honours: Adornments, i.e. foliage.

  222. future navies: Ships built of oak.

  227. Po: Eridanus, a mythological river identified by Virgil and Ovid with the Po; the name of a constellation.

  230. our ea
rthly gods: The royal family, residing at Windsor Castle.

  233. Jove: Or Jupiter (the Latin name for Zeus), who rules on Mount Olympus.

  242. physic: Medicine, extracted from plants. spoils: Despoils.

  243. chemic art: The art of the chemist. exalts: In alchemy, refines, raises to higher power.

  244. draws: Extracts, distils.

  246. figured worlds: On a map, or perhaps a diagram of the zodiac.

  251. a mean: The ‘golden mean’ is the midpoint between extremes of any kind, a favourite theme of Pope’s; see also ‘III Bathurst’, 246.

  255. kindred: The ancients believed that the soul and the stars were composed of the same substance.

  257. Scipio: Roman general, called ‘Africanus’ for his defeat of Rome’s rival Carthage in North Africa; he retired to a country estate after defeating Hannibal in the Second Punic War.

  258. Atticus: Pomponius Atticus, Roman philosopher and friend of Cicero, called Atticus because of his mastery of attic Greek, likewise chose retirement. Trumbull: Sir William Trumbull, who retired from politics and went to Windsor Forest in 1698; a valued mentor to the youthful Pope.

  259. sacred Nine: The Muses.

  265. Cooper’s Hill: See headnote.

  272. numbers: Metre, versification. Cowley: ‘Mr [Abraham] Cowley died at Chertsey, on the borders of the Forest, and was from thence conveyed to Westminster’ (Pope’s note); he was 48, so ‘early lost’ (273).

  274. sad pomp: Cowley’s body was solemnly transported down the Thames, for burial in Westminster Abbey.

  275. swans … expire: The ‘swan song’, which swans, mute until then, were supposed to sing when dying.

  290. silver star: Emblematic of the Order of the Garter, whose meeting place was at Windsor Castle; Pope implies that Granville deserved to be made a knight of the Garter (it never happened).

  291. Surrey: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, wrote love poems while imprisoned in Windsor Castle in the sixteenth century. sacred rage: Poetic inspiration.

  294. lists: See ‘Essay on Criticism’, 278n.

  297. Geraldine: The mistress addressed in Surrey’s poems.

  298. Myra: The mistress addressed by Granville.

  303. Edward’s acts: Edward III rebuilt Windsor Castle in the fourteenth century and founded the Order of the Garter.

  305. monarchs chained: Kings of Scotland and France, held prisoner at Windsor by Edward III. Cressi: Crécy in France, site of Edward’s great victory in 1346.

  306. shield: To affirm his claim to France, Edward put the French fleur-de-lis on his shield.

  307. Verrio: Italian artist Antonio Verrio, commissioned by Charles II to paint scenes of British victories on the ceilings at Windsor.

  311. ill-fated Henry: Henry VI (d. 1471), murdered and buried at Windsor.

  314. Edward: Edward IV, his rival (d. 1483).

  316. Belerium: Land’s End in Cornwall, the south-western tip of England.

  319. Charles’s tomb: Charles I was buried ignominiously, after his execution in 1649, at Windsor by the Puritans, who refused permission for the burial service to be read.

  321. fact: Deed, crime.

  323. purple death: The Great Plague of 1665, which produced purple blotches and swellings.

  324. domes: Impressive buildings; also 352n. rolling fire: The Great Fire that destroyed much of London in 1666.

  325. intestine wars: Internal warfare, the civil wars.

  326. dishonest: Dishonourable.

  327. Anna: Queen Anne.

  332. shining horns: Attributes of a river god.

  334. alternate: Stressed on the second syllable.

  336. Augusta: Roman name for London. gold: When London was rebuilt after the Great Fire (see 324n.), the gilt metal decorations were much admired. See also 377.

  340–48. Isis … Darent: English rivers (‘Cole’ is the Colne, and ‘Vandalis’ the Wandle). The Thames was often poetically described as the fruit of a union between the Thame and the Isis. The river Mole flows underground at one point. ‘Danish blood’ was shed near the Darent in an eleventh-century battle.

  352. domes: Stately buildings (from domus). pompous: ‘splendid; magnificent; grand’ (Dictionary).

  355. Hail, sacred: The speaker is Father Thames.

  358. Hermus: In the Hermus valley in Asia Minor, grains of gold were mingled with the sands of the River Pactolus.

  359. Nilus: The Nile, with seven mouths; its source was then unknown.

  363. Volga’s banks: Scene of recent battles between Peter the Great of Russia and Charles XII of Sweden.

  368. Iber: The Ebro in Spain, where Marlborough fought his Iberian campaign in 1710. Ister: Roman name for the Danube, where Marlborough won his great victory at Blenheim in 1704.

  372. chase: Hunt.

  378. temples rise: After the Great Fire (see 324n.) fifty new churches were planned, though most were never built.

  379–80. two fair cities … ample bow: The commercial ‘City’, and the court and Parliament at Westminster, along a curving ‘bow’ of the Thames.

  380. Whitehall: Royal palace destroyed by the Great Fire (and never rebuilt).

  383. sue: ‘to beg; to entreat; to petition’ (Dictionary).

  384. bend before a British queen: As in the time of Elizabeth I.

  387. her cross: The red cross of St George, which appears on the Union Jack, superimposed on the crosses of St Andrew (Scotland) and St Patrick (Ireland).

  389. Tempt: Attempt, dare.

  393. balm: Sap from incised trees.

  396. ripening ore: The heat of the sun (‘Phoebus’) was thought to ripen ore into gold.

  398. Unbounded Thames: ‘a wish that London may be made a free port’ (Pope’s note).

  404. feathered people: Four Iroquois chiefs had visited London in 1710.

  409. freed Indians: In South America, liberated from Spanish rule.

  411. race of kings: The Incas.

  420. broken wheel: The wheel of torture.

  425. gods: i.e. royalty, frequently celebrated in Granville’s poems.

  434. First in these fields: ‘Spring’, the first of Pope’s youthful sequence of pastoral poems, begins (echoing Virgil): ‘First in these fields I try the sylvan strains, / Nor blush to sport on Windsor’s blissful plains.’

  Prologue to Mr Addison’s Tragedy of Cato At a time when he was still on good terms with Joseph Addison, Pope contributed this prologue, which was declaimed at the 1713 opening night of his hugely successful Cato. The tragedy presents (it would be too much to say it dramatizes) a high-principled Roman, Cato the Younger, who opposed the dictatorship of Julius Caesar and ultimately committed suicide rather than conform. In a time of great political tension, both Whigs and Tories sought to claim the play’s celebration of ‘Liberty’ for their own. Contemporary politics aside, the theme of noble self-mastery was one that Pope would pursue throughout his poetic career.

  9. vulgar springs: i.e. cheap emotional effects.

  23. gives his little senate laws: Two decades later, in ‘Arbuthnot’ (209 and note), Pope cleverly adapted this line in a critique of Addison himself.

  27. triumphal cars: Victorious generals were accorded ‘triumphs’, in which chariots drew them through the streets of Rome.

  41. scene: The stage.

  42. Italian song: Opera, sung in Italian.

  43. assert: ‘to maintain; to defend either by words or actions’ (Dictionary).

  The Rape of the Lock ‘The Rape of the Lock’, widely regarded as Pope’s masterpiece, had a complicated history. In 1711 John Caryll, a country gentleman in the Pope family’s circle of Catholic friends, told him about an incident in which Robert, Lord Petre had publicly embarrassed the beautiful Arabella Fermor by snipping off a lock of her hair. As Pope long afterward related to a friend, the two families were furious with each other, and Caryll had encouraged him to ‘write a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again’ (Spence, Anecdotes, I, 44). Pope thereupon wrote a short, two-canto vers
ion of the poem, which was published in 1712. Realizing that much might still be done with the story, he later doubled it in size, adding the mock-epic ‘machinery’ of sylphs and gnomes and many of the most memorable episodes: the dressing scene, the boat trip on the Thames, the game of ombre, and the Cave of Spleen. This version was published in 1714, and in 1717 Pope made one further addition, Clarissa’s speech in Canto V, which challenges the heroine to acknowledge that the proper goal of flirtation is marriage. In its revised form the poem brilliantly parodies the conventions of classical epic: the gods become sylphs and gnomes, and the arming of the hero becomes Belinda’s dressing room; the heroic voyage is reduced to an excursion on the Thames; heroic combat to a game of cards (ombre is chosen because its rules allow Belinda to vanquish two men simultaneously); and the underworld journey to an emotional crisis of self-indulgent ‘spleen’. From one point of view these epic allusions expose the triviality of the quarrel over the lock; from another, they afford a largeness of perspective that confers charm and beauty upon the social game of courtship. Seventy years later Samuel Johnson wrote: ‘The subject of the poem is an event below the common incidents of common life; nothing real is introduced that is not seen so often as to be no longer regarded; yet the whole detail of a female day is here brought before us invested with so much art of decoration that, though nothing is disguised, everything is striking, and we feel all the appetite of curiosity for that from which we have a thousand times turned fastidiously away’ (Life of Pope, p. 234). It appears, however, that the Fermor and Petre families were deeply offended by Pope’s attempt to ‘laugh them together again’. The heroine and hero both married other people, and by the time the 1714 version of the poem was published, Lord Petre had died of smallpox.

  Dedication: Mrs: The title ‘Mrs’, short for ‘Mistress’, was used for unmarried as well as married women. Rosicrucian: A follower of an esoteric philosophy, some of whose symbols Pope goes on to describe. As he indicates, he got most of it from Le Comte de Gabalis, a playful erotic fantasy by the Abbé de Villars.

  Epigraph: ‘I did not wish, Belinda, to violate your locks, but it gives me pleasure to have paid the tribute you begged for’ (Martial, Epigram, XII, 84, substituting Belinda’s name for the original).