The Rape of the Lock In Plain and Simple English (Translated)
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About this ebook
Alexander Pope's mock-heroic poem is one of the greatest satires ever wrote. The essay is as hilarious today as it was hundreds of years ago...if you can understand it!
If you have struggled in the past reading the satire, then BookCaps can help you out.
We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.
BookCaps
We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.Visit www.bookcaps.com to see more of our books, or contact us with any questions.
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The Rape of the Lock In Plain and Simple English (Translated) - BookCaps
About This Series
The Classic Retold
series started as a way of telling classics for the modern reader—being careful to preserve the themes and integrity of the original. Whether you want to understand Shakespeare a little more or are trying to get a better grasps of the Greek classics, there is a book waiting for you!
An heroi-comical poem
Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
Mart, [Epigr, XII. 84.]
Belinda, I had no desire to ravish your locks,
But I delight in offering you this tribute.
To Mrs. Arabella Fermor
Modern Version
Madam,
There's no point in pretending that I don't think this poem has some value, as I'm dedicating it to you. But you are my witness to the fact that I only wrote it for the amusement of a few young ladies, who are clever and witty enough to laugh at the daft things not only other women. but also themselves, sometimes get up to. But of course as it was supposed to remain secret it soon got out. As someone offered a poor copy to a publisher, you kindly agreed to allow, for my sake, the publication of a more accurate copy. I was forced into doing this before I had finished what I planned, not all of the scheme being complete.
Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by critics for the part which Gods, Angels or Devils play in a poem. In one way the ancient poets are very similar to modern Ladies: however trivial somehting is, they always make it seem extremely important. I meant to include these spiritual elements in a very novel and unusual way, following the Rosicrucian idea of spirits.
I know that it's wrong to bother a Lady with complex concepts, but the poet is so eager to have his work understood, particularly by Ladies, that you must let me explain one or two difficult terms.
I must tell you about the Rosicrucians. The best account of them I know is in a French book called Le Comte de Gabalais, which in size and title is so like a novel that many women have mistakenly read it as one. According to these gentlemen, each element contains a spirit, and they call them Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs and Salamanders. The Gnomes, or earthly Daemons, love to cause mischief, but the Sylphs, who live in the air, are the most goodnatured creatures imaginable. They say that any mortal person can be on the best of terms with these gentle spirits, as long as they are completely chaste (an easy proviso for all true believers).
As for the poem which follows, everything about it is a fantasy, like the Vision at the beginning or the Transformation at the end (apart from the loss of your hair, which I always mention with great respect). The human characters are as made up as the spiritual ones; the character of Belinda, as she appears here, is nothing like you, except in her beauty.
If this poem was as wonderful as you and your mind, I couldn't hope for it to pass through the world with such universal admiration as you receive. But whatever may happen to it, I am still very lucky to be able to have the chance to say that I am, with very great respect,
Your most obedient and humble servant,
Alexander Pope
Canto I
I am singing about the terrible consequences that come from love,
What great battles are started by trivial things;
This verse is offered to my inspiraiton Caryl!
Even Belinda might agree to look at this,
And it is a small subject, but the praise won't be small,
If she inspires, and he approves of, my verse.
Tell us, Goddess, what strange motives could lead
A well-bred Lord to attack a gentle beauty?
What stranger reason, yet to be investigated,
Could make a gentle beauty reject a Lord?
Can little men become involved in such great matters,
And can such a great anger live in soft bosoms?
The sun shone a timid ray through the white curtains
And opened those eyes which are brighter than thee day:
Now lapdogs wake up, shaking,
And sleepless lovers are as awake as they were at midnight:
The bell is rung three times, the slipper falls to the ground,
And the watch when pressed rings its silver bell.
Belinda still rested her head on her feather pillow,
With her guardian Sylph still watching over her rest:
It was he who had brought to her silent bed
The morning dream which hovered over her head;
A youth more lovely than a birthday suitor
(Who made her flush even in her sleep)
Seemed to put his winning lips to her ear,
And said in whispers, or seemed to say,
Most lovely human, who is watched over
By a thousand bright creatures of the air!
If you have ever seen in your young mind
Any of the things your nurse and priest have told you of,
Dancing elves seen in the moonlight shadows,
The silver token, the green crown,
Or virgins visited by angels,
With golden crowns and wreaths of heavenly flowers;
Hear and believe! Know your own importance,
And don't just look at the things of earth.
There are some secret truths, hidden from the arrogant educated,
Which are shown only to girls and to children:
What does it matter if the doubters don't believe?
The lovely and the innocent will still believe.
So you should know that countless spirits fly around you,
The armies of light of the lower skies:
Though you can't see them they are always flying,
Swarming through the heavens.
Think of the servants you have for you in the air,
And look scornfully at servants and sedan chairs.
Our beings used to have the shape you have now,
We once had the lovely shapes of women;
From there, by a soft transition, we went
From being corporeal to beings of air.
Do not imagine that when a woman no longer breathes
That all of the vanities have died with her;
She still follows other vanities,
Although she no longer plays, she watches over the game.
The pleasure she took in Golden chariots, when she was alive,
And her love of card games, survives after death.
For when the lovely ones die, with