The prostrate fails and begs with ardent eyes - The Rape Of The Lock - The Uncovered English

The Rape of the Lock

Alexander Pope

" The prostrate fails and begs with ardent eyes
Soon to obtain and long prossess with prize"

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Who falls prostrate and where ?
What does he desire to obtain and why ?
Can he 'long posses the prize' ?

Lord Petre, the Baron of the poem falls prostrate before an alter erected with twelve bulky French Romances.

Belinda cherishes two locks of hair which gracefully hung in equal curls behind her smooth ivory neck to enhance beauty. The Baron desires to obtain Belinda's beautiful locks of hair.

Beautiful women attracts a man with a single lock of hair. With her mazy lock Belinda keeps an admirer prisoner victim to the beauty of her delicate locks. The Baron admires these locks. He is enamoured of them to the point of madness. So he wants to obtain them as prize.

The Baron beggs to love "to obtain and long possess the prize." But "The pow'rs gave ear, and granted half his pray'r." Accordingly he fails to long possess the prize. It rises up in the sky and becomes a constellation.

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