The Rape of the Lock: Canto IV Summary & Analysis

Belinda is still quite upset about the loss of her lock, and her frustration and despair are deeper and more consuming than the despair of “ardent lovers robbed of all their bliss” and “tyrants fierce that unrepenting die.” In this moment, the sylphs leave her.

Umbriel, the gnome, a “dusky melancholy sprite,” appears and descends to the subterranean Cave of Spleen. When he first enters, he encounters the personified East wind languishing on a bed, away from the rays of the sun, with a migraine.

As he moves deeper into the Cave, Umbriel sees the Queen of Spleen’s two handmaids—Ill-Nature and Affectation. Ill-Nature is a withered old maid in a dress of black and white, with a heart full of spite for others. Affectation is youthful and sickly, and has been taught to speak with a lisp and to hang her head to the side. She is richly dressed, languishing on expensive bedding.

Umbriel continues through the Cave. A strange vapor hangs in the air, out of which strange shapes arise. These include women who are “expiring,” “glaring fiends,” “snakes,” “Pale spectres,” “gaping tombs,” “lakes of liquid gold” and “angels in machines.” There are also various bodies warped by the powers of spleen on all sides, including “living teapots,” men who are pregnant, and women who have been transformed into bottles and call out for corks. Umbriel passes along safely, holding a piece of “spleenwort” in his hand.

Eventually Umbriel reaches the Queen of Spleen herself. He hails her as the ruler of women between the ages of 15 and 50, making them either hysterical and ill or making them frantically attempt to compose poetry and plays. Umbriel explains that there is a beautiful woman who enjoys herself too much and looks down on the Queen’s powers, and he cites his past services for her, mentioning ruining women’s complexions, bringing about cuckoldry, rumpling up petticoats and bedding to make it seem like illicit sexual encounters have taken place where they haven’t, messing up a prude’s headdress, and killing a beloved lapdog. He then asks her to touch Belinda with “chagrin,” as this one act will create a great deal of discord.

Although it seems like the Queen of Spleen will reject Umbriel’s request, she does grant it. She binds together a bag for him like the one in which, according to myth, Ulysses once held the winds. This bag contains “the force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues.” She also gives him a vial which holds “fainting fears, / Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.” He is overjoyed and speeds back to the world above ground.

When Umbriel returns, he finds Belinda in the arms of Thalestris, a lady at court, who is lamenting the lock’s loss. She asks if it was for this that Belinda took such pains with her hair, doing everything from using “torturing irons” to straining her “tender head” with “fillets.” She worries that the Baron will put the lock on display for everyone to see and that Belinda’s reputation will be ruined. She further worries that being Belinda’s friend will reflect badly on her, and even that the Baron will have the lock placed in the center of a ring and display it on his hand for the rest of time.

Thalestris goes to her suitor Lord Plume, who is apparently particularly proud of his expensive snuff box and fashionable cane. He confronts the Baron and demands that he return the lock to Belinda, but the Baron refuses. He says that although it is a pity that Sir Plume speaks so finely in vain, he will not give up the lock while he breathes air through his nostrils.

Umbriel is not satisfied, however, and breaks the vial of “sorrows” over Belinda, who appears dejected. She gives a speech about how she wishes she had never tasted the pleasures of court and had stayed at home instead. She insists that the day was full of bad omens, including her dropping her “patch box” three times, “The 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 was too late. She wishes to tear off the remaining lock, feeling that it “tempts once more” the Baron’s “sacrilegious hands.”