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

by Alexander Pope

  2. Smithfield Muses: Implying that the vulgar amusements of the Smithfield meat market have invaded high society.

  3. you … the Great: i.e. the aristocracy is complicit in the corruption of court and City.

  6. Dunce the second: Recalling Dryden’s ‘Mac Flecknoe’, in which ‘Tom the second rules like Tom the first’; also, a covert hit at George II and George I.

  10. Pallas: Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, born fully grown from the head of Zeus (‘the Thunderer’).

  14. Gross … grave: i.e. heavy as her father Chaos, and solemn as her mother Night.

  19–20. thou … Gulliver: Swift, to whom the ‘Dunciad’ is dedicated, was Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and wrote satires under various personae: The Drapier’s Letters, attacking a scheme to debase the coinage (the ‘copper chains’ (24)); ‘Isaac Bickerstaff’, mocking quack astrology; and Lemuel Gulliver, ostensible author of Gulliver’s Travels.

  21–2. Cervantes … Rab’lais: Pope believed that Cervantes’s Don Quixote contained serious political satire, and that Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel was a freewheeling fantasy.

  25. Boeotia: Greek region renowned for stupidity; hence, Swift’s native Ireland, which he despised for its supine subservience to English rule.

  29–30. those walls … Monroe: The walls of the Bethlehem lunatic asylum (known as ‘Bedlam’), where Dr James Monroe attempted to cure patients of their ‘folly’.

  32. Cibber’s … brothers: Cibber’s father had carved statues of Melancholy and Madness at the gates of Bedlam; they were of stone, but ‘brazen’ suggests impudence.

  36. Emptiness: i.e. empty, rumbling stomachs.

  37. Proteus: Sea-god who constantly changes shape to resist capture; here, writers who keep changing pseudonyms to escape their creditors.

  39. Miscellanies: Ephemeral collections of little pieces; accented on the second syllable.

  40. Curll: Edmund Curll, publisher with whom Pope had long had a quarrel; far from being ‘chaste’, his products exploited scandal and obscenity; see also II, 3n., 71–2n. ff. Lintot: Bernard Lintot: see ‘Arbuthnot’, 62n. rubric: Red-letter pages hung up as publicity outside his shop.

  41. Tyburn: Site of public hanging of criminals, memorialized after their deaths in cheap broadside ballads.

  42. Merc’ries: ‘Mercury’ was a popular word in newspaper titles.

  43. Sepulchral lies: Flattering epitaphs over church tombs (sepulchres).

  44. New Year Odes: See ‘Arbuthnot’, 222n. Grub Street: See ‘Arbuthnot’, 111n.

  45. In clouded majesty: Borrowed from the moon rising in Paradise Lost, IV, 607.

  48. want … of ears: In extreme cases, offenders in the pillory might have their ears cut off.

  50. Who hunger … sake: Echoing Matthew 5:6: ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.’

  51. glass: Prudence was often depicted looking through a spyglass. approaching jail: Debtors’ prison that awaits penniless writers.

  52–4. Poetic Justice … praise: Poetic justice normally refers to the distribution of rewards and punishment at the end of a drama, but here it implies a preference for mercenary writing that pays for pudding (54), as against nobler writing that earns ‘empty’ praise.

  55. Chaos … deep: Recalling the creation of ‘waters dark and deep’, and Chaos as ‘the womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave’ (Paradise Lost, I, 11; II, 911).

  57. genial Jacob: The publisher Jacob Tonson; ‘genial’ implies ‘generative’ powers. third day: Playwrights received the box office take from a play’s third performance only.

  59. quick: Alive.

  61. Maggots: ‘maggot: whim; caprice; odd fancy’ (Dictionary), with a pun on scavenging larvae; ‘feet’ (62) likewise puns on the metrical units, known as feet, into which poetic lines were scanned.

  63. clenches: Puns.

  64. ductile: Malleable.

  74. Zembla: In the icy Arctic. Barca: In the Libyan desert.

  77. chaplets: ‘chaplet: a garland or wreath to be worn about the head’ (Dictionary).

  85. * *: Originally ‘Thorold’, the Lord Mayor in Theobald’s day (see headnote), but no longer appropriate for Cibber.

  86. Cimon: Athenian who won victories in battle and at sea; the Lord Mayor’s celebration took place both in the streets and on the river.

  90. Settle: Elkanah Settle, who had served as official poet of the City earlier in the century; ‘one day more’ implies that poems like his were extremely short-lived.

  91. Shrieves: Sheriffs.

  96. City swans: The City poets, whose position died out after Settle’s time. the walls: Of the City of London.

  97. revolves: ‘revolve: to consider; to meditate on’ (Dictionary).

  98. Heywood: Thomas Heywood, seventeenth-century playwright and author of pageants for the City.

  100. imprest: ‘impress: to print by pressure; to stamp’ (Dictionary). His image is stamped or ‘impressed’ on his offspring.

  101. Bruin … care: According to an old belief, bear cubs were born shapeless and had to be licked into form. plastic: ‘having the power to give form’ (Dictionary).

  103. Prynne: William Prynne, seventeenth-century Puritan controversialist. Daniel: The novelist Daniel Defoe, who as a Presbyterian was a Dissenter from the Church of England. Both were punished in the pillory for writings that offended the government. For Defoe, see also II, 147n.

  104. Blackmore’s endless line: See ‘Essay on Criticism’, 463n.; ‘endless line’ puns also on the line of inheritance in which Eusden is Blackmore’s successor.

  105. Tate: Nahum Tate: see ‘Arbuthnot’, 190n.; also 258 below.

  106. mighty mad in Dennis: John Dennis championed poetic inspiration, which Pope interprets as actual insanity; see also ‘Essay on Criticism’, 270n.

  108. BAYS: Ever since Buckingham’s Rehearsal (see Argument note), traditional name for a bad poet; here, Cibber. monster-breeding: Creating deformed literary works.

  109. stage and Town: As a successful stage actor, Cibber pleased the fashionable ‘Town’; by implication, it was a mistake for him to turn author.

  110. coxcomb: See ‘Essay on Criticism’, 27n.

  111. transport: ‘rapture; ecstasy’ (Dictionary).

  112. pertness: ‘brisk folly; sauciness; petulance’ (Dictionary, citing this line).

  113. ill run at play: Bad luck with dice.

  114. Blanked his bold visage: Erased his usually confident expression.

  115. Swearing: Cibber was known for constant swearing. sate: Sat.

  118. a vast profound: Milton calls the chaos that preceded Creation ‘the vast profundity’ (Paradise Lost, VII, 229).

  122. future … Play: Struggling to compose the odes required of the Laureate, Cibber abandoned unfinished plays.

  126. sooterkins: ‘sooterkin: a kind of false birth fabled to be produced by the Dutch women from sitting over their stoves’ (Dictionary); thus, Cibber’s ‘dull heat’ produces literary abortions.

  128. stole: Cibber frequently adapted material from old plays.

  131. Fletcher’s half-eat scenes: Plays by the Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher, left in tatters by Cibber’s borrowings.

  132. frippery: ‘old clothes; tattered rags’ (Dictionary). crucified Molière: In The Non-Juror, Cibber’s adaptation of Tartuffe.

  133. of Tibbald sore: Theobald called his book Shakespeare Restored, claiming to recover correct readings, but Pope implies that Shakespeare suffered injury.

  134. blotted: Erased, rewrote; see ‘Preface to Shakespeare’, note 13.

  138. red and gold: In expensive bindings, just as parents might dress their children in finery.

  140. Quarles: Francis Quarles, whose aphoristic Emblems were illustrated with allegorical pictures.

  141. Ogilby: Scottish cartographer John Ogilby, poet and translator; by calling him ‘the great’, Pope may be remembering his own boyhood fascination with an illustrated edition of Ogi
lby’s Homer; he also translated Aesop’s Fables (327–8).

  142. Newcastle: Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, prolific seventeenth-century author and pioneer feminist; her coat of arms was stamped on the covers of her books.

  144. jakes and fire: Pages from unwanted books could be used in privies (‘jakes’) or to light fires.

  145. Gothic: Medieval (with pejorative connotations); as Johnson observed, it was incongruous for the pedantic Tibbald’s old-fashioned books to be reassigned to Cibber.

  146. Well purged … Banks, and Broome Well purged: i.e. empty of books by classical authors. John Banks and Richard Brome, seventeenth-century playwrights. Pope may have altered the spelling of Brome’s name to rhyme with ‘Rome’, often pronounced ‘Room’ at the time, but there may also be a covert dig at William Broome, who translated part of the Odyssey for Pope and was offended to find himself included in an earlier version of the ‘Dunciad’.

  149. Caxton: William Caxton, the first printer of books in England. Wynkyn: Wynkyn de Worde, his colleague and successor.

  150. wood … cow-hide: Bookbinding materials (wood was used for heavy medieval books).

  151. saved by spice: Like embalmed mummies, valuable books were protected from bookworms by aromatic spices.

  152. Divinity: Theological writings; Pope has in mind the Complete Body of Divinity by Thomas Stackhouse, who had attacked Bishop Francis Atterbury (see ‘Arbuthnot’, 135–41n.).

  153. De Lyra: Nicholas de Lyra, fourteenth-century writer (though Pope was actually thinking of a sixteenth-century writer, Nicholas Harpsfield). front: ‘the face, in a sense of censure or dislike’ (Dictionary).

  154. Philemon: Philemon Holland, seventeenth-century physician who translated so many books that the shelves groan under their weight.

  156. tapers … pies: Books whose pages could have been used to light candles or line pie-plates.

  158. hecatomb: Sacrifice of a hundred animals (Greek). unsullied lays: Poems never ‘sullied’ by being bought.

  159. folio Commonplace: Large-format anthology of quotations, the ‘base’ of Bays’s writings since he has no ideas of his own.

  161. Quartos, octavos: Books of decreasing size at the top of the pyre.

  162. birthday ode: See ‘Arbuthnot’, 222n.

  163. Great Tamer: Dullness suppresses energy and imagination.

  165. good old cause: Puritan term for their crusade to overturn the monarchy, thus associating bad writing with political disloyalty.

  167. Sir Fopling’s periwig: For Sir Fopling, see ‘Rape of the Lock’, V, 63n. Cibber had been applauded for a spectacular wig.

  168. butt: Cask or ‘butt’, of wine that was a perquisite of the Laureate; see also 293 and note. bays: The laurels symbolic of his position.

  170. bias … bowl: In bowls (lawn bowling), ‘the weight lodged on one side of a bowl, which turns it from the straight line’ (Dictionary).

  181. wind-guns: Guns using compressed air rather than gunpowder.

  184. the load below: Large clocks were driven by heavy hanging weights.

  187. Daemon: Guardian spirit.

  191–2. on the stage … ampler lessons: i.e. if the characterization of fops in Cibber’s plays seems limited, his personal life furnishes a fine example of foppishness.

  195. had Heav’n: If Heaven had. save the State: Echoing Aeneas’ hope to save the ‘state’ of Troy.

  198. grey-goose weapon: Quill pen.

  199. my Fletcher: His copy of Fletcher’s plays, from which he has freely borrowed.

  200. once my better guide: Cibber once thought of entering the Church.

  202. box: In which dice were shaken.

  203. White’s: Gambling club to which Cibber belonged; also 321. amidst the doctors: Learned men, recalling the child Jesus ‘in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors’ (Luke 2:46); but ‘doctors’ was also a slang word for loaded dice.

  205. Party: Political faction, a reliable source of income for hack writers.

  208. Ridpath … Mist: George Ridpath and Nathaniel Mist, editors, respectively, of a Whig and Tory newspaper, with a pun on foggy ‘mist’ as well. On Ridpath, see also II, 149n.

  209. Curtius: Heroic Roman who threw himself into a chasm in the Roman forum because an oracle said Rome would be saved if its greatest strength were thrown into it.

  210. Commonweal: The Puritans’ term for England when they ruled.

  211–12. geese … Tories: The cackling of geese warned Rome of an attack by the Gauls. Bays/Cibber considers going over to the Tories, with their loyalty to monarchy, if they should pay better than the Whigs.

  213–14. the Minister … Queen: The prime minister Walpole, who had a close working relationship with Queen Caroline.

  215. Gazetteers give o’er: When Walpole resigned in 1742 after two decades in office, his propaganda organ, the Daily Gazetteer, adopted a more moderate policy.

  216. Ralph … Henley: James Ralph and John (‘Orator’) Henley, who had both ceased to write for the Whig ministry. For Ralph, see III, 165n., and for Henley, see ‘Donne’, 51n.

  219. squire: Unsophisticated country squires (as contrasted with peers (220)) appreciate Cibber’s brisk liveliness.

  222. Hockley Hole: See Horace, Satire, II, i, 49n.; also 326 below.

  224. bear and fiddle: Bear-baiting was preceded by fiddle music.

  225–6. born in sin … Works damned: Audiences ‘damned’ unsuccessful plays (and books), as the human race was guilty of the original sin of Adam and Eve.

  227. purified by flames: Cibber burns his writings, as if in a religious sacrifice.

  228. more Christian progeny: i.e. his literary offspring can ascend to salvation after being purified; see 225–6n. above.

  229–30. maiden sheets … smutty sisters: Unsold and thus virginal writings are being sacrificed, contrasted with their streetwalker sisters who do find customers.

  231. Bland: Henry Bland, headmaster of Eton and friend of Walpole, wrote pro-government news-sheets that were permitted to circulate free of postal charges; he is imagined here as a beggar given special permission to beg beyond the limits of his own parish.

  233. Ward: Edward Ward, journalist who kept a tavern; his scurrilous London Spy is imagined as popular among expatriates in distant colonies (‘ape-and-monkey climes’).

  234. mundungus: Cheap tobacco from Jamaica. trucks: ‘truck: to traffic by exchange; to give one commodity for another’ (Dictionary).

  236. wrap … sire: Oranges were sold in theatres; wrapped in the pages of their ‘sire’ Bays, they could be used to pelt him.

  240. Shadwell: One of Cibber’s predecessors as Laureate; see also Horace, Epistle, II, i, 85n.

  244. sev’nfold face: i.e. an actor’s repertoire of expressions, with an allusion to the Greek hero Ajax’s ‘sevenfold shield’.

  245. Birthday brand: Firebrand, evidently one of Cibber’s odes for a royal birthday.

  248. involve: Envelop.

  250–53. the Cid … Nonjuror: All plays by Cibber: Ximena, or, The Heroic Daughter (adapted from Pierre Corneille’s Le Cid), Perolla and Izadora, Caesar in Egypt, Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John, and The Nonjuror.

  255. Priam: King of Troy who watches his city (‘Ilion’ (256)) burn at the end of the Trojan War.

  258. a sheet of Thulè: ‘It is an usual method of putting out a fire to cast wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of the opinion that this sheet was of the nature of the asbestos, which cannot be consumed by fire; but I rather think it an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing’ (Pope’s note).

  265. wait: ‘to attend; to accompany with submission or respect’ (Dictionary).

  266. confessed: Acknowledged.

  269. Great Mother: The mother-goddess Cybele of Asia Minor was known as Magna Mater.

  270. quidnuncs: What now? – a question constantly asked by gossipy members of political clubs. Guildhall: See Horace, Epistle, II, ii, 104n.

  271. opium: Lega
lly available, and used as a painkiller or to alleviate hunger.

  280. science: Knowledge in general. by the tail: A book’s index enables the user to locate information, a comparison borrowed from Swift’s satire A Tale of a Tub, VII: ‘the index by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail’.

  281. makes felons scape: In the Middle Ages felons could escape hanging by pleading ‘benefit of clergy’, proving that they could read.

  283. Small thanks … Greece: i.e. with only casual knowledge of recent French literature, and none at all of the classics.

  284. vamped: ‘vamp: to piece an old thing with some new part’ (Dictionary).

  286. Ozell: John Ozell, translator of foreign plays.

  290. Heideggre: John James Heidegger, Swiss theatrical promoter, widely considered the ugliest man in London; in bird form here he represents the Holy Spirit in a parodic Trinity, with Dullness as God the Mother and Cibber as the Son.

  292. the promised land: The Israelites’ destination when Moses led them out of Egypt.

  293. sack: White wine, a perquisite of the Laureate (see 168 and note), and especially welcome to the alcoholic Eusden.

  295. duns: Bill collectors.

  296. Withers … Gildon: George Withers and Charles Gildon, minor writers.

  297. high-born Howard: Edward Howard, son of the Earl of Berkshire, derided as a hopelessly bad poet by numerous seventeenth-century satirists.

  298. Fool of Quality: Lord John Hervey (see ‘Arbuthnot’, ‘Advertisement’ note), seen here as a royal jester or ‘fool’, but one of ‘quality’: ‘rank; superiority of birth or station’ (Dictionary).

  299. his: Eusden’s.

  301. Lift up your gates: Recalling Psalm 24:7: ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates … and the king of glory shall come in’, with Bays/Cibber as a parodic Messiah.

  302. viols: Violins in theatre orchestras. cat-call: Shrill whistle used by dissatisfied patrons.