fleet through the midst of Athos. What shall hair do, when such things yield to iron ?" 178. unresisted- irresistible. (101) Canto IV. Cf. the descent of Ulysses (Odyssey, xi) and of Æneas (Eneid, vi) into Hades. ¶ 1, 2. Pope compares the Eneid, iv. 1, 2: At regina gravi jamdudum saucia cura Cf. Dryden's translation: But anxious cares already seized the queen; ¶ 11-93. Added in the second version. ¶ 13. Umbriel: diminutive from Latin "umbria,” shadow. ¶20. The dreaded cast: the east wind was thought to cause spleen. ¶ 24. Megrim -low spirits, the "blues"; also, resulting whims. (102) 38. night-dress: the modern dressing-gown. gives a new disease: i. e., is the occasion of affecting to be ill, when the new gown may be displayed to the doctor and sympathetic friends; cf. 1. 36. ¶43. spires-coils. ¶ 46. angels in machines: angels coming to the aid of mortals. In ancient Greek and Latin plays, when the plot had reached a crisis where human power was helpless, a god descended by means of a stage device, or "machine," and extricated the characters from their troubles. 51. Homer's tripod: "See Hom. Iliad, xviii, of Vulcan's walking tripods."-P. ¶ 52. a goose-pie talks: "Alludes to a real fact; a lady of distinction imagined herself in this condition."-P. ¶59. vapours-depression of spirits, the "blues." "The disease was probably named from the atmospheric vapors which were reputed to be a principal cause of English melancholy."-Elwin. (103) 82. See the Odyssey, x. 102. loads of lead: "The curl-papers of ladies' hair used to be fastened with strips of pliant lead."-Croker. (104) 117. Hyde Park Circus: see note on Canto I. 44 (p. 448). 118. The church of St. Mary-le-Bow stood in the center of the business part of the city, where the "wits" and fine gentlemen would scorn to live. ¶ 121. Sir Plume: the original was Sir George Brown, brother of "Thalestris." "Nobody but Sir George Brown was angry, and he was a good deal so and for a long time. He could not bear that Sir Plume should talk nothing but nonsense." -P., as quoted in Spence's Anecdotes, Section V (1737-39). Spence adds, "I have been assured by a most intimate friend of Mr. Pope's .. that what was said of Sir George Brown in it was the very picture of the man." 124. clouded covered with spots darker than the rest of the wood; cf. The Tatler, No. 103. ¶ 133-36. "In allusion to Achilles' oath in Homer, Il. [233-37]."-P. 137. Cf. Dryden's translation of the Iliad, i. 88: "That while my nostrils draw this vital air." ¶ 141, 142. Added in the second version. ¶ 149. 150. Cf. the Eneid, iv. 657, 658: Felix heu nimium felix, si litora tantum "Happy, alas too happy, if only the Dardanian keels had never touched our shores." (105) Canto V. 12. Cf. the Eneid, iv. 440, "Fata obstant, placidasque viri deus obstruit auris"; and Dryden's translation, "Fate and the gods had stopped his ears to love." 15. the Trojan: Eneas; obedient to the command of Jupiter, he prepared to leave Carthage in spite of the frantic grief of Dido and the entreaties of her sister Anna; see the Æncid, iv. 416-49. ¶7-36. Added in the edition of 1717. ¶7. Clarissa: "a new character introduced in the subsequent editions, to open more clearly the moral of the poem, in a parody of the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus in Homer [Iliad, xii. 310 ff.].”—P. ¶53. (106) 45. "Homer, I., xx."-P. 153-56. Added in the second version. sconce's: a sconce is a bracket-candlestick. "Minerva in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with the suitors in the Odyssey, perches on a beam of the roof to behold it."-P. (107) 64. "Those eyes are made so killing": "The words of a song in the opera of Camilla."-P. 65. Pope compares Ovid, Epistles, vii. 1, 2: Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis, "So when the fates call, the white swan sings by the streams of Macander, lying helpless in the damp grass." ¶83, 84. Added in the second version. ¶89-96. "In imitation of the progress of Agamemnon's sceptre in Homer, Il., ii [101–9].”—P. (108) 113, 114. "Vide Ariosto, Canto XXXIV.”—P. Cf. Paradise Lost, III. 440–59. 115. heroes' wits: among the things in the lunar limbo of Ariosto's poem are the wits of Orlando, the distracted hero. ¶ 129. Berenice's locks: Berenice, wife of one of the Egyptian kings, dedicated her hair to the gods for the safe return of her husband from a military expedition, and an astronomer reported that the hair had been transformed into the constellation "Coma Berenices." ¶ 131, 132. Added in the second version. ¶ 133. the Mall: a promenade in St. James's Park, London, much frequented by the fashionable world; bands of music apparently played there. ¶ 136. Rosamonda's lake: a small body of water in St. James's Park. 137. Partridge: "John Partridge was a ridiculous star-gazer, who in his almanacs every year never failed to predict the downfall of the Pope and the King of France, then at war with the English."-P. ¶ 138. Galileo's eyes: the telescope. (109) TRANSLATIONS FROM HOMER. Iliad, i. 640-61. Cf. Dryden's translation of the same passage, on p. 60. (109) ELOISA TO ABELARD. Lines 1-58, 207-48, 277-302. Peter Abelard (10791142), of a noble French family, early came to great distinction as a lecturer upon divinity; thousands crowded to hear him in Paris and elsewhere, and his lectures largely determined for centuries the method of scholastic theology. In the midst of this brilliant career, at the age of thirty-six, he fell in love with a beautiful and intellectual girl of eighteen, Heloise, who it is said knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; he became her tutor, and soon won her passionate love. When the illicit connection became known to her uncle, Abelard consented to marry her on condition that the marriage should be kept secret; the uncle, however, soon revealed it, and the lovers parted, Heloise becoming a nun and Abelard a monk. Years after, according to tradition, Abelard wrote a letter to a friend in distress and sought to console him by telling the story of his own greater sorrows; the letter in some way reached Heloise, and drew from her a letter to Abelard-the basis of Pope's poem. There is doubt as to the authenticity of the letters, although they have generally been considered genuine. The originals were written in Latin. In 1693 a garbled French translation was published; and in 1714 the French version was translated into English. Pope follows the English translation. (110) 20. Cf. Milton's Comus, 1. 429, "By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades." ¶ 22. weep: a reference to the moisture which collects upon stone in damp air. 24. forgot myself to stone: cf. Milton's "Il Penseroso," l. 42, "Forget thyself to marble." ¶36. Cf. John Pomfret's "Love Triumphant over Reason" (1699), l. 213, “Which breeds such sad variety of woe." (111) 64. "Taken from Crashaw."-P. Line 16 in Crashaw's "Description of a Religious House and Condition of Life" (1646). (112) 101-14. A comparison with the corresponding passage in the English translation will show something of Pope's manner of handling his original: "I am a miserable sinner prostrate before my judge, and with my face pressed to the earth I mix my tears and sighs in the dust when the beams of grace and reason enlighten me. Come, see me in this posture and solicit me to love you! Come, if you think fit, and in your holy habit thrust yourself between God and me, and be a wall of separation! Come and force from me those sighs, thoughts, and vows which I owe to Him only! Assist the evil spirits, and be the instrument of their malice! But rather withdraw yourself, and contribute to my salvation. . . Let me remove far from you, and obey the apostle, who hath said, 'Fly!'"' .... (113) THE DUNCIAD. Book I. "Dunciad" means "a poem about dunces"; the word is made on the analogy of "Iliad," "a poem about Ilium." 1. The mighty mother: Dulness. her son: in the first editions, he was Lewis Theobald, a contemporary poor poet and an editor of Shakspere, who had offended Pope by his Shakespeare Restored, or an Exposure of the Blunders Committed and Unamended in Mr. Pope's Late Edition (1726); in the edition of 1743, Colley Cibber, the actor and playwright, who had infuriated Pope by publishing an attack upon him, was substituted for Theobald. ¶ 2. The Smithfield Muses: "Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept, whose shows, machines, and dramatical entertainments, formerly agreeable only to the taste of the rabble, were, by the hero of this poem and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent Garden, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning pleasures of the court and town."-P. ¶6. "Alluding to a verse of Mr. Dryden in his verses to Mr. Congreve: 'And Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.'"-P. See p. 52. ¶ 10. Pallas: the propriety of the allusion to Pallas, goddess of wisdom (who sprang completely armed from the head of Zeus), is obvious in connection with this reference to the preceding reign of Dulness. ¶ 20. Swift was dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin; the author of The Drapier's Letters; of the "Bickerstaff” pamphlets, exposing the quack astrologer, John Partridge; and of Gulliver's Travels. ¶ 21. Cervantes' serious air: Cervantes, the great Spanish novelist, in his Don Quixote (1605, 1615) ridiculed the old romances of chivalry with much seeming gravity; Pope alludes to the similar grave irony of Swift's Gulliver's Travels. ¶22. Rab'lais' easy chair: François Rabelais, the French humorist, in his Pantagruel (1533) and Gargantua (1535) satirized church and society in his day with coarse, rollicking humor. "By 'Rabelais' easy chair' he means the broader (as compared with Cervantes) humor in the Tale of a Tub, which led Voltaire, as Warton says, to call Swift 'Rabelais in his senses.'"'-Courthope. ¶23. Or praise the court, or magnify mankind: “Ironice, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both."-P. ¶24. "Relates to the papers of the drapier against the currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great discontent of the people, his Majesty was graciously pleased to recall.' -P.¶25. thy Bocotia: Ireland. Boeotia was considered the dullest, least cultured district of Greece, and so the English esteemed Ireland in Pope's day. her: refers to Dulness; cf. 11. 16, 17. ¶ 28. a new Saturnian Age of Lead: "The ancient Golden Age is by poets styled Saturnian, as being under the reign of Saturn; but in the chemical language Saturn is lead."— P. 29. those walls: Bedlam Hospital for lunatics, London. ¶ 30. Monroe: a doctor in the hospital. 31. his famed father's hand: “Mr. Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the poet laureate; the two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam Hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist."-P. and W. (114) 37. Proteus: a sea-god, son of Oceanus; when seized, he would try to escape by changing himself into a lion, a dragon, and other monstrous forms. ¶40. Curll's . . . Lintot's: "Two booksellers.. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters."-P. post: the sign-post in front of the shop; advertisements of books were pasted on it. ¶41. "It is an ancient English custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print elegies on their deaths, at the same time or before."— P. 44. New Year odes: "Made by the poet laureate for the time being [Cibber], to be sung at court on every New Year's Day, the words of which are happily drowned in the voices and instruments."-P. and W. Grub Street: the abode of many poor poets and hack-writers. 48. loss of ears: political and other offenders were often punished by having their ears cropped. ¶50. Cf. Matt. 5:6.57. Jacob: Jacob Tonson, a bookseller and publisher. third day the author received the profits of the third performance of his play. ¶63. clenches puns. .... (115) 85. **: in the earlier editions "Thorold," the name of the Lord Mayor in 1720, stood here. ¶86. "The procession of a Lord Mayor is made partly by land and partly by water. Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a victory by sea and another by land, on the same day, over the Persians and barbarians."-P. ¶90. Settle's: Settle was poet to the city of London; his office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the Lord Mayors and verses to be spoken in the pageants."-P. Cf. Dryden's lines upon him, as Doeg, on p. 28. 191. shrieves sheriffs. 195. Queen: Dulness. 98. Heywood's: "John Heywood, whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII."-P. It was Thomas Heywood, the dramatist, contemporary with Shakspere, who was city poet, and neither he nor John Heywood was dull. ¶ 101, 102. It was long a popular belief that bear cubs were born shapeless and had to be licked into form by the mother. 103. Prynne: William Prynne, a writer of doggerel verses, was sentenced to the pillory in 1632 and had both ears cut off. Daniel: Daniel Defoe, whose verse is far below the level of his prose, was also pilloried, in 1703. ¶ 104. Eusden: Lawrence Eusden, a very minor poet, was made poet laureate in 1718. Blackmore's endless line: Sir Richard Blackmore (1658?-1729), a physician, wrote several long epics, composing them in part while he was driving in his gig from patient to patient. ¶ 105. slow Philips: Ambrose Philips' "Pastorals," which appeared in the same year as Pope's and were by some preferred to his, excited the jealousy of Pope and made him Philips' enemy; "slow" means slow in composition (cf. "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," ll. 17982, p. 125). Tate's poor page: i. e., a page to Tate. "Nahum Tate [1652-1715] was poet laureate, a cold writer, of no invention."-P. ¶ 106. Dennis: John Dennis (1657-1734), a poor playwright and literary critic; he was a man of violent temper, verging almost on madness. ¶ 108. Bayes's: Cibber is called Bayes because he was poet laureate and (metaphorically) wore the bays, the fruit of the laurel. (116) 126. sooterkins=abortions. 131. Fletcher's: Cibber borrowed liberally from John Fletcher, the Elizabethan dramatist. ¶ 132. frippery of crucified Molière: i. e., Cibber made frippery of Molière's work when he adapted it, as in his Non-Juror based on Molière's Tartuffe. 133. Theobald (pronounced "Tibbald") had amended the text of Shakspere, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, in his Shakespeare Restored; see note on 1.1.134. Cf. the statement by Heminge and Condell, the editors of the first folio edition of Shakspere: "And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse that wee have scarce received from him a blot in his papers." ¶ 135. The rest: the rest of the books in Cibber's library. ¶ 138. their fond parents: the authors. ¶ 140. Quarles: Francis Quarles (1592-1644). whose mediocre poems were illustrated by fine engravings. ¶ 141. Ogilby: John Ogilby's translation of the Iliad (1660) and the Odyssey (1665) were printed on extra fine paper, with plates by distinguished engravers. 142. Newcastle: Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle (died 1674). "Langbaine reckons up eight folios of her Grace's; which were usually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them."-P. ¶ 143. his suff'ring brotherhood: the works of poor poets like Cibber himself. 146. Settle, Banks, and Broome: "The poet has mentioned these three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our hero in his three capacities: 1. Settle was his brother laureate, only indeed upon half-pay, for the city instead of the court, but equally famous for unintelligible flights in his poems on public occasions, such as shows, birthdays, etc.; 2. Banks was his rival in tragedy (though more successful) in one of his tragedies, The Earl of Essex, which is yet alive; .... 3. Broome was a serving-man of Ben Jonson, who once picked up a comedy from his betters, or from some cast scenes of his master, not entirely contemptible."-P. and W. ¶ 147. more solid learning: this part of the description, which was appropriate when the hero was Theobald, a pedant and scholar, lost its point when Cibber was substituted. ¶ 148. Cf. Pope's note on Caxton and Wynkyn (next line): "A printer in the time of Edw. IV, Rich. III, and Henry VII; Wynkyn de Word, his successor, in that of Hen. VII and VIII. The former translated into prose Virgil's Æneis, as a history, of which he speaks, in his Proeme, in a very singular manner, as of a book hardly known." ¶ 153. De Lyra: "Nich. de Lyra, or Harpsfield (1519-75), a very voluminous commentator."-P. 154. Philemon: Philemon Holland (died 1636), a translator. (117) 156. defrauded pies: it was formerly the custom of cooks to put leaves of old books under their pies. 158. hecatomb-a sacrifice of many victims (Greek èkaróμßnékaτóv, hundred, and Bous, ox). ¶ 159. Commonplace: a book in which passages from authors, etc., are copied and indexed for future use; Pope thus implies that all Cibber's works are based on his borrowings. ¶ 167. “The first visible cause of the passion of the town for our hero was a fair flaxen full-bottomed periwig, which, he tells us, he wore in his first play of The Fool of Fashion."-P. and W. ¶ 168. the butt and bays: the poet laureate was formerly awarded a yearly butt of sack, and a laurel wreath with its berries, or bays. 169. A poet's fling at mercantile affairs, which were looked down upon by the "wits" of the age. ¶ 17072. A bias, in bowling, is a greater bulging, or (as here) a greater weight, on one side of a bowl, which makes the bowl curve instead of going in a straight line; if the bowler is skilful, this curving course is the surer, because it is not subject to accidental deviations due to inequalities in the alley. ¶ 188. once betrayed me into common sense: in his play, The Careless Husband, which Pope had praised in print; see p. 143, l. 24. (118) 202. box: dice-box. ¶ 203. White's: a London chocolate house, the rendezvous of gambling sharpers and their victims. the doctors: "False dice, a cant phrase used amongst gamesters; so the meaning of these four sonorous lines is only this, 'Shall I play fair or foul?'"'-P. and W. ¶ 208. Ridpath.... Mist: "George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying Post: Nathaniel Mist, of a famous Tory journal."-P. ¶ 209. Curtius: a hero of Roman legend; when an earthquake had opened a fissure in the Forum, and the soothsayers declared it could be closed only by the sacrifice of Rome's greatest treasure, Curtius, armed and on horseback, saying that Rome had no greater treasure than a Roman warrior, leaped into the abyss, which closed over him. ¶211. According to legend, when Rome was attacked by the Gauls, in 390 B. C., and a band of them had climbed up the walls near the Capitol, the cackling of geese gave timely warning. ¶ 222. Hockley-Hole: a spot outside the city walls, where there was a bear-garden. White's: see note on 1. 203. ¶ 231, 232. "It was a practice so to give the Daily Gazetteer and ministerial pamphlets (in which this B. was a writer), and to send them post-free to all the towns in the kingdom.”—P. and W. 233. Ward: "Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastic verse."-P. ¶ 234. Mundungus=bad tobacco. The line means that Ward's poems were sent to the colonies to be used in packing tobacco and that this was the only way they could be disposed of. ¶236. to pelt your sire: oranges were sold in the theaters, and actors sometimes were pelted with the peels. (119) 244. the master of the sev'nfold face. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, xiii. 2, “Clypei dominus septemplicis Ajax," and Dryden's translation, "The master of the sevenfold shield." The allusion is to Cibber's brazen effrontery; cf. "Cibberian forehead," l. 218. ¶250-52. Cid Perolla.... Caesar. King John: tragedies by Cibber. ¶ 253. "Nonjuror": see note on l. 132. ¶258. “Thulè”: “An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Amb. Philips, a northern author; . . . . an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing."-P. 262. Cf. "Mac Flecknoe," l. 110 (p. 32). 1269-72. Pope compares the Eneid, i. 12-18. ¶270. Quidnuncs: "A name given to the ancient members of certain political clubs, who were constantly enquiring, 'Quid nunc ?' 'What news?'"-P. Guildhall: the council hall of the city of London. .... (120) 281. less reading than makes felons 'scape: the allusion is to the so-called benefit of clergy, "originally the privilege of exemption from trial by a secular court, allowed to, or claimed by, clergymen arraigned for felony; in later times the privilege of exemption from the sentence, which, in the case of certain offences, might be pleaded on his first conviction by every one who could read.”—A New English Dictionary. ¶285. Plautus: the Roman writer of comedies, of the second century B. C. Corneille: Pierre Corneille (1606-84), the great French dramatist of the classical school. ¶286. Ozell: an obscure translator of French plays. 1290. Heideggre: "A strange bird from Switzerland, and not (as some have supposed) the name of an eminent person."-P. J. J. Heidegger, a Swiss, was manager of the opera house in Haymarket, London, and Master of the Revels under George II; his features were |