THE RAPE OF THE LOCK BY ALEXANDER POPE

Know further yet: whoever fair and chaste
Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embraced.
For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease
Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.

Know further yet ........ what shapes they please.

REFERENCE
(i) Poem: The Rape of the Lock
(ii) Poet: Alexander Pope
CONTEXT
(i) Occurrence: Canto I
(ii) Content: Belinda arises to prepare for the day's social activities. After an elaborate ritual of dressing and primping, she travels on the Thames River of Hampton Court Palace, where a group of wealthy young societies are gathering for a party. Among them is the Baron, who has already made up his mind to steal a lock of Belinda's hair. At party, the Baron takes up a pair of scissors and cuts off the coveted lock of Belinda's hair. Belinda is furious. She initiates a scuffle between the ladies and the gentlemen to recover the severed curl. The lock is lost in the confusion of this mock battle.
EXPLANATION
     In these lines the poet describes about the birth and power of sylphs. The poet, through the mouth of a sylph, Ariel, says that there are four kinds of spirits; salamander, nymphs, gnomes and sylphs. These are all the allotropes of dead persons. Those women who were "fair and chaste" and rejected mankind, after their deaths, their souls went to air and they became sylphs. Here "fair and chaste" are very ironical words. These suggest that those women were, in fact, flirt and coquette. They were full of spleen and vanity and their spirits were too full of dark vapours to ascend to the skies. So they became the spirits of the air. Secondly he says that the sylphs are very powerful spirits. They are "freed from mortal laws" Now they have become divine beings and are no more subject to death. Moreover, they can change their sex and shape with ease. Ariel, a sylph, appears in the shape of a handsome young man in Belinda's dream. 

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