The Rape of the Lock

Canto 1:  Belinda wakes up one midday, recollecting a dream she has just had, in which a guardian sylph, Ariel by name, has informed her that she is surrounded by thousands of delicate spirits guarding her honor and beauty, and warning her that something dreadful is fated to happen to her this day.  But as Belinda reads the love letters waiting for her, she forgets the warning and goes to her toilet table to enhance her beauty with cosmetics.

Canto 2:  That same morning the Baron, who admires her, coveting the possession of two of Belinda’s lovely locks, has offered a prayer to Heaven, sacrificing various items in fire.  The scene is now on board a pleasure launch going up the Thames to Hampton Court.  Everyone is happy except the sylph Ariel.  He summons the other sylphs and warns them that they must be very attentive to Belinda this day because catastrophe threatens her.  He doesn’t know what the even will be:  Will she lose her chastity?  Will she break a valuable porcelain?  Will she “stain her honor or her new brocade”?  “Or lose her heart or necklace at a ball”?  Or, worst of all, is her lapdog Shock to die?  Each sylph hastens to defend some part of Belinda’s person.

Canto 3:  The mirthful party arrives at Hampton Court.  A game of cards is started, and a bloody battle (of cards) ensues.  Coffee is then served.  As Belinda bends over her cup, the Baron takes a pair of shears, spreads them to enclose the lock, and joins them again.  Just as he is about to cut, a sylph intervenes and is cut in two but “soon unites again.”  The lock is cut from Belinda’s head “forever and forever.”  Shrieks go up to Heaven, louder than when husbands or lapdogs die.

Canto 4:  Umbriel, a gloomy sylph, hastens down to the Cave of Spleen, and brings from there a bag of chagrin, and hastily returns to hampton.  He breaks the bag over Belinda’s head, and Belinda’s fury breaks forth.  She curses the day that brought her to Hampton Court.  She bitterly bemoans the loss of her beautiful lock.

Canto 5:  The Baron is entreated to return the lock but he refuses to do so.  A fight ensues, and in the scuffle, the lock is lost.  Where could it have gone?  Some think that it went to limbo.  But the Muse saw it rise upward and become suddenly transformed as part of a constellation in the heavens.  This new star will be sacred to lovers, and in its course almanac-makers will read the destiny of nations.  Surely such an end must console Belinda for the lost lock.