The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems

by Alexander Pope

line	reference	meaning
The Design
2	Bacon's expression	in the dedication of his Essays (1625) to Buckingham, Bacon speaks of them as the most popular of his writings, "for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms."
11	anatomy	dissection
Epistle I
1	St. John	Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, Pope's "guide, philosopher, and friend," under whose influence the Essay on Man was composed.
5	expatiate	range, wander.
6		Pope says that this line alludes to the subject of this first Epistle, "the state of man here and hereafter, disposed by Providence, though to him unknown." The next two lines allude to the main topics of the three remaining epistles, "the constitution of the human mind ... the temptations of misapplied self-love, and the wrong pursuits of power, pleasure, and false happiness."
9	beat ... field	the metaphor is drawn from hunting. Note how it is elaborated in the following lines.
12	blindly creep ... sightless soar	the first are the ignorant and indifferent; those who "sightless soar" are the presumptuous who reason blindly about things too high for human knowledge.
15	candid	lenient, free from harsh judgments.
16		An adaptation of a well-known line of Milton's Paradise Lost, l, 26.
17-23		Pope lays down as the basis of his system that all argument about man or God must be based upon what we know of man's present life, and of God's workings in this world of ours.
29	this frame	the universe. Compare Hamlet, II, ii, 310, "this goodly frame, the earth."
30	nice dependencies	subtle inter-relations.
31	Gradations just	exact shades of difference.
32	a part	the mind of man, which is but a part of the whole universe.
33	the great chain	according to Homer, Jove, the supreme God, sustained the whole creation by a golden chain. Milton also makes use of this idea of the visible universe as linked to heaven in a golden chain, Paradise Lost, II, 1004-1006, and 1051-1052.
41	yonder argent fields	the sky spangled with silvery stars. The phrase is borrowed from Milton, Paradise Lost, III, 460.
42	Jove	the planet Jupiter.
	satellites	Pope preserves here the Latin pronunciation, four syllables, with the accent on the antepenult.
43-40		Pope here takes it for granted that our universe, inasmuch as it is the work of God's infinite wisdom, must be the best system possible. If this be granted, he says, it is plain that man must have a place somewhere in this system, and the only question is whether "God has placed him wrong."
45		Every grade in creation must be complete, so as to join with that which is beneath and with that which is above it or there would be a lack of coherency, a break, somewhere in the system.
47	reas'ning life	conscious mental life.
51-60		Pope argues here that since man is a part of the best possible system, whatever seems wrong in him must be right when considered in relation to the whole order of the universe. It is only our ignorance of this order which keeps us from realizing this fact.
55	one single	the word "movement" is understood after "single."
61-8		Pope here illustrates his preceding argument by analogy. We can know no more of God's purpose in the ordering of our lives than the animals can know of our ordering of theirs.
64	Ægypt's God	One of the gods of the Egyptians was the sacred bull, Apis.
68	a deity	worshiped as a god, like the Egyptian kings and Roman emperors.
69-76		Pope now goes on to argue that on the basis of what has been proved we ought not to regard man as an imperfect being, but rather as one who is perfectly adapted to his place in the universe. His knowledge, for example, is measured by the brief time he has to live and the brief space he can survey.
69	fault	pronounced in Pope's day as rhyming with "ought."
73-6		These lines are really out of place. They first appeared after l. 98; then Pope struck them out altogether. Just before his death he put them into their present place on the advice of Warburton, who probably approved of them because of their reference to a future state of bliss. It is plain that they interfere with the regular argument of the poem.
79		This line is grammatically dependent upon "hides," l. 77.
81	riot	used here in the sense of "luxurious life." The lamb is slain to provide for some feast.
86	Heav'n	i. e. God. Hence the relative "who" in the next line.
92-8		Pope urges man to comfort himself with hope, seeing that he cannot know the future.
93	What future bliss	the words "shall be" are to be understood after this phrase.
96		Point out the exact meaning of this familiar line.
97	from home	away from its true home, the life to come. This line represents one of the alterations which Warburton induced Pope to make. The poet first wrote "confined at home," thus representing this life as the home of the soul. His friend led him to make the change in order to express more clearly his belief in the soul's immortality.
89		Show how "rests" and "expatiates" in this line contrast with "uneasy" and "confined" in l. 97.
99-112		In this famous passage Pope shows how the belief in immortality is found even among the most ignorant tribes. This is to Pope an argument that the soul must be immortal, since only Nature, or God working through Nature, could have implanted this conception in the Indian's mind.
102	the solar walk	the sun's path in the heavens.
	the milky way	some old philosophers held that the souls of good men went thither after death.
...		Pope means that the ignorant Indian had no conception of a heaven reserved for the just such as Greek sages and Christian believers have. All he believes in is "an humbler heaven," where he shall be free from the evils of this life. Line 108 has special reference to the tortures inflicted upon the natives of Mexico and Peru by the avaricious Spanish conquerors.
109-10		He is contented with a future existence, without asking for the glories of the Christian's heaven.
111	equal sky	impartial heaven, for the heaven of the Indians was open to all men, good or bad.
113-30		In this passage Pope blames those civilized men who, though they should be wiser than the Indian, murmur against the decrees of God. The imperative verbs "weigh," "call," "say," etc., are used satirically.
113	scale of sense	the scale, or means of judgment, which our senses give us.
117	gust	the pleasure of taste.
120		The murmurers are dissatisfied that man is not at once perfect in his present state and destined to immortality, although such gifts have been given to no other creature.
123	reas'ning pride	the pride of the intellect which assumes to condemn God's providence.
131-172		In this passage Pope imagines a dialogue between one of the proud murmurers he has described and himself. His opponent insists that the world was made primarily for man's enjoyment (ll. 132-140). Pope asks whether nature does not seem to swerve from this end of promoting human happiness in times of pestilence, earthquake, and tempest (ll. 141-144). The other answers that these are only rare exceptions to the general laws, due perhaps to some change in nature since the world began (ll. 145-148). Pope replies by asking why there should not be exceptions in the moral as well as in the physical world; may not great villains be compared to terrible catastrophes in nature (ll. 148-156)? He goes on to say that no one but God can answer this question, that our human reasoning springs from pride, and that the true course of reasoning is simply to submit (ll. 156-164). He then suggests that "passions," by which he means vices, are as necessary a part of the moral order as storms of the physical world (ll. 165-172).
142	livid deaths	pestilence
143-4		Pope was perhaps thinking of a terrible earthquake and flood that had caused great loss of life in Chili the year before this poem appeared.
150	then Nature deviates	Nature departs from her regular order on such occasions as these catastrophes.
151	that end	human happiness, as in l. 149.
156		Cæsar Borgia, the wicked son of Pope Alexander VI, and Catiline are mentioned here as portents in the moral world parallel to plagues and earthquakes in the physical.
160	young Ammon	Alexander the Great. See note on Essay on Criticism, l. 376.
163		Why do we accuse God for permitting wickedness when we do not blame Him for permitting evil in the natural world?
166	there	in nature
	here	in man
173-206		In this section Pope reproves those who are dissatisfied with man's faculties. He points out that all animals, man included, have powers suited to their position in the world (ll. 179-188), and asserts that if man had keener senses than he now has, he would be exposed to evils from which he now is free (ll. 193-203).
176	to want	to lack
177		Paraphrase this line in prose.
181	compensated	accented on the antepenult.
183	the state	the place which the creature occupies in the natural world.
195	finer optics	keener power of sight.
197	touch	a noun, subject of "were given," understood from l. 195.
199	quick effluvia	pungent odors. The construction is very condensed here; "effluvia" may be regarded like "touch" as a subject of "were given" (l. 195); but one would expect rather a phrase to denote a keener sense of smell than man now possesses.
202	music of the spheres	it was an old belief that the stars and planets uttered musical notes as they moved along their courses. These notes made up the "harmony of the spheres." Shakespeare ('Merchant of Venice', V, 64-5) says that our senses are too dull to hear it. Pope, following a passage in Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, suggests that this music is too loud for human senses.
207-232		Pope now goes on to show how in the animal world there is an exact gradation of the faculties of sense and of the powers of instinct. Man alone is endowed with reason which is more than equivalent to all these powers and makes him lord over all animals.
212		The mole is almost blind; the lynx was supposed to be the most keen-sighted of animals.
213-4		The lion was supposed by Pope to hunt by sight alone as the dog by scent. What does he mean by "the tainted green"?
215-6		Fishes are almost deaf, while birds are very quick of hearing.
219	nice	keenly discriminating.
	healing dew	healthful honey.
221-222		The power of instinct which is barely perceptible in the pig amounts almost to the power of reason in the elephant.
223	barrier	pronounced like the French 'barrière', as a word of two syllables with the accent on the last.
226	Sense ... Thought	sensation and reason.
227	middle natures	intermediate natures, which long to unite with those above or below them. The exact sense is not very clear.
233-58		In this passage Pope insists that the chain of being stretches unbroken from God through man to the lowest created forms. If any link in this chain were broken, as would happen if men possessed higher faculties than are now assigned them, the whole universe would be thrown into confusion. This is another answer to those who complain of the imperfections of man's nature.
234	quick	living. Pope does not discriminate between organic and inorganic matter.
240	glass	microscope
242-44		Inferior beings might then press upon us. If they did not, a fatal gap would be left by our ascent in the scale.
247	each system	Pope imagines the universe to be composed of an infinite number of systems like ours. Since each of these is essential to the orderly arrangement of the universe, any disorder such as he has imagined would have infinitely destructive consequences. These are described in ll. 251-257.
267-80		In these lines Pope speaks of God as the soul of the world in an outburst of really exalted enthusiasm that is rare enough in his work.
269	that	a relative pronoun referring to "soul," l. 268.
270	th' ethereal frame	the heavens
276	as perfect in a hair as heart	this has been called "a vile antithesis," on the ground that there is no reason why hair and heart should be contrasted. But Pope may have had in mind the saying of Christ. "the very hairs of your head are all numbered." The hairs are spoken of here as the least important part of the body; the heart, on the other hand, has always been thought of as the most important organ. There is, therefore, a real antithesis between the two.
278	Seraph ... burns	the seraphim according to old commentators are on fire with the love of God.
280	equals all	makes all things equal. This does not seem consistent with the idea of the gradations of existence which Pope has been preaching throughout this Epistle. Possibly it means that all things high and low are filled alike with the divine spirit and in this sense all things are equal. But one must not expect to find exact and consistent philosophy in the Essay on Man.
281-94		Here Pope sums up the argument of this Epistle, urging man to recognize his ignorance, to be content with his seeming imperfections, and to realize that "whatever is, is right."
282	our proper bliss	our happiness as men.
283	point	appointed place in the universe.
286	Secure	sure.
289		Hobbes, an English philosopher with whose work Pope was, no doubt, acquainted, says, "Nature is the art whereby God governs the world."

[Contents]

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[An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot]

Introduction

Next to

The Rape of the Lock

, I think, the

Epistle to Arbuthnot

is the most interesting and the most important of Pope's poems — the most important since it shows the master poet of the age employing his ripened powers in the field most suitable for their display, that of personal satire, the most interesting, because, unlike his former satiric poem the