Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly, - The Rape Of The Lock - The Uncovered English

Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly, - The Rape Of The Lock - The Uncovered English

The Rape of the Lock

Alexander Pope

" Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly,
The light militia of the lower sky;"
Who are the light militia of the lower sky and why are they so called?

The Sylphs are the light militia of the lower sky.

Pope in 'The Rape Of The Lock' used Sylph Machinery for which he owes to the Rusicrucian mythology of a French book 'Le Comte de Gabalis.' According to Rusicrucians there are four type of spirits - Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymph and Salamander. The souls of light flirts after death go up the air and take the form of Sylphs and fly about in the fields of air. They have insect wings, thay are airy and insubstantial and they remain invisible to human eye. Pope called them 'light militia' that is light armed troops of the lower region of the sky. They are vigilent troops to protect Belinda. They form a military ring around Belinda to protect her when she sits in the box of a theatre or drives ring in the Hyde park or is carried in a Sedan chair. Pope uses the airy militia of the lower sky to highten the mock epic effect as they offer contrast to an epic scale of military combination. From another angle the Sylphs are light as they fail to protect Belinda's lock despite their vigilance.

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