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Spleen
Guardian spirit of the air, designed to protect virgins. Distinct from some of the other overtly malicious supernatural beings in the poem, such as Umbriel the gnome, the sylphs are at least superficially good. According to Ariel they are the souls of women now dead, and in particular those of beautiful and sociable women, noted for their “joy in gilded chariots” and “love of ombre.” In the poem they serve to protect Belinda’s chastity and her beauty, and they delight in the elaborate process of beautifying her for a day at court. However, the sylphs are perhaps a little shadier than they might initially appear. In a poem that mocks the vanity of court life, it appears unwise that such vain spirits should help govern mortals’ actions. The extent to which the sylphs are able to influence mortals’ actions is also unclear, and Pope hints that there might be something a little sinister about the relationship between Ariel and Belinda by choosing to echo Milton’s Paradise Lost. This modern epic depicts the fall of Adam and Eve, and many critics have noticed that there are uncomfortable verbal echoes of Satan tempting Eve (“Squat like a Toad, close at the ear of Eve; / Assaying by his Devilish art to reach / The Organs of her Fancy”) in Ariel’s having “Seem'd to her [Belinda’s] Ear his winning Lips to lay.”
Sylph Quotes in The Rape of the Lock
The The Rape of the Lock quotes below are all either spoken by Sylph or refer to Sylph. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Canto I
Quotes
For when the fair in all their pride expire,
To their first elements their souls retire:
The sprites of fiery termagants in flame
Mount up, and take a Salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
And sip with Nymphs, their elemental tea.
The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome,
In search of mischief still on earth to roam.
The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of air.
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With varying vanities, from every part,
They shift the moving toyshop of their heart;
Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive,
Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
This erring mortals levity may call,
Oh blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.
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Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air,
In the clear mirror of thy ruling star
I saw, alas! some dread event impend,
Ere to the main this morning sun descend.
But heaven reveals not what, or how, or where:
Warned by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware!
This to disclose is all thy guardian can:
Beware of all, but most beware of man!
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Canto II
Quotes
Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,
Or some frail China jar receive a flaw,
Or stain her honor, or her new brocade,
Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall.
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Canto III
Quotes
Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought
The close recesses of the virgin’s thought;
As, on the nosegay in her breast reclined,
He watched the ideas rising in her mind,
Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art,
An earthly lover lurking at her heart.
Amazed, confused, he found his power expired,
Resigned to fate, and with a sigh retired.
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The peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide,
To enclose the lock; now joins it, to divide.
Even then, before the fatal engine closed,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interposed;
Fate urged the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain
(But airy substance soon unites again),
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever and for ever!
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Canto V
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But fate and Jove had stopped the Baron’s ears.
In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half so fixed the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begged and Dido raged in vain.
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Get the entire The Rape of the Lock LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sylph Term Timeline in The Rape of the Lock
The timeline below shows where the term Sylph appears in The Rape of the Lock. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Canto I
...long after everyone else has gotten up, as she is kept asleep by her guardian sylph. As she sleeps, he sends her a dream of a handsome young man and whispers...
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Some young women, the sylph continues, are ruined because they are watched over by malicious gnomes instead of sylphs. Fortunately...
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The sylph explains that his name is Ariel and that he has consulted the stars and seen...
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With the help of the sylphs and Betty, Belinda begins the elaborate process of dressing and grooming herself. Betty is figured...
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...“tortoise” and “elephant” in the form of “combs,” and “Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.” The sylphs are crucial to arranging everything carefully (even though they are unseen), which means that Betty...
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Canto II
...by the idea that something terrible is going to happen. He summons an army of sylphs, which descends down onto the boat. The army is made up of sylphs in an...
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To protect Belinda, Ariel assigns various sylphs different tasks. Zephyretta will look after her fan, Brillante will look after her earrings, Momentilla...
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Fifty sylphs will look after Belinda’s petticoat, which is described as the “sevenfold fence” “stiff with hoops”...
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Canto III
...game of ombre with two gentlemen “to decide their doom” and arranges her cards. The sylphs glide down to perch upon the cards, their rank corresponding to the card value, apparently...
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...knight with his weapon. The Baron moves to chop off the lock. Suddenly, all the sylphs hurry to Belinda’s neck and attempt to fiddle with her hair and twist her earring...
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A sylph gets caught in the way and gets cut in half by the scissors, but he...
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Canto IV
...robbed of all their bliss” and “tyrants fierce that unrepenting die.” In this moment, the sylphs leave her.
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...tottering china shook without a wind,” and Shock behaving unusually. She even remembers that a sylph warned her that a disaster was to come, but that she didn’t understand until it...
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Canto V
...Then it shot along like a shooting star, more brightly than Berenice’s locks, and the sylphs watched on contentedly.
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