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Belinda’s guardian sylph, who oversees an army of invisible protective deities. At the opening of the narrative, he explains to Belinda through a dream that he is tasked with protecting her beauty and chastity. He feels that some great disaster is looming in the near future and warns her to “beware of man.” Later, as Belinda is sailing to Hampton Court, Ariel calls up an army of sylphs to defend various parts of her, from including her hair, her earrings, and her fan. In the vital moment before the Baron snips off Belinda’s lock of hair, however, Ariel gives up helping Belinda. When he gains access to her inner thoughts at this moment, Ariel spies “An earthly lover lurking at her heart,” meaning she is perhaps not as chaste as she ought to be. Even though Ariel seems to want to protect Belinda, there is definitely something a little sinister about him, too. If he is so interested in Belinda’s chastity, why does he choose to send her a dream at the beginning which includes a young man designed to sexually appeal to her, “A youth more glitt'ring than a birthnight beau”? Some critics have also drawn comparisons between his opening speech to Belinda, at which point he “Seem'd to her Ear his winning Lips to lay,” and Satan’s speech to Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost in which he is “Squat like a Toad, close at the ear of Eve; / Assaying by his Devilish art to reach / The Organs of her Fancy.” Similarly, his name recalls Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, also a mischievous spirit. This allows Pope to suggest that there is something rather “tricksy” about the sylph, which in turn suggests rather a lot about the morality of the world of the poem. Ariel is, after all, meant to be regulating Belinda’s morality by ensuring her chastity, so his fickleness reinforces Pope’s satirical suggestion that good and bad are not as clear cut as they appear, especially not in such a vain setting as the court.