The Rape of The Lock: Lines 703-710 - Summary & Analysis

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Lines: 703-710. A beau and.....sings he dies

      Summary: As Thalestris hurries through the crowd, killing people with her looks, a beau and a witling from among the throng die one in metaphor and the other in song. Dapperwit cries: "O heartless beauty, I have to suffer a living death," and thus dying in metaphor, drops beside his chair. Sir Fopling looks up despondingly, and the last words he utters are "These eyes are made so killing," taken from a song in the opera of Camilla. It is thus, that the dying swan lies on the banks of the Meander, overgrown with flowers, and while dying sings its last song.

      Critical Analysis: These lines describe part of the havoc caused by Thalestris among the ranks of men on the opposite side in course of the fight. These lines cleverly preserve in mock-heroic terms the feminine dignity which has been much impaired by the cracking of whale bones in the beginning of the poem.

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