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The narrative voice opens the poem by meditating on how great suffering often emerges from trivial matters and mentions that the story that follows was first communicated to the poet by a “Muse” named “Caryl.” The narrative voice wonders what might motivate a lord to assault a lady and a lady to reject a lord. Belinda is lying in bed long after everyone else has gotten up, as she is kept asleep by her guardian sylph. As she sleeps, he sends her a dream of a handsome young man and whispers in her ear, having “Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay.” The sylph explains to her that a sylph is the guardian of a young and beautiful virgin. He further explains that after death all women’s souls return to the four elements from which they came. Fiery women become salamanders, “Soft yielding” women become water spirits, prudish women’s souls sink down into the earth and become gnomes, and “coquettes,” lighthearted and flirtatious women, become sylphs, which “flutter” through the air. These sylphs are tasked with protecting the chastity and pleasure of new “belles” entering society. Some young women, the sylph continues, are ruined because they are watched over by malicious gnomes instead of sylphs. Fortunately for Belinda, she is in the care of the sylphs, who will make sure to steer her right, though all the ups and downs of life in society and at parties. Sylphs also make sure that life stays glamorous and exciting for ladies, keeping things working properly in the “toyshop of the heart.” The ladies’ hearts reflect life at court, so the heart is metaphorically a place “Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive, / Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive,” all contrived by the sylphs. The sylph explains that his name is Ariel and that he has consulted the stars and seen that some disaster is close at hand. He isn’t sure exactly what form this will take, but he warns Belinda, the “pious maid,” to “beware of man.” The dog Shock has decided that Belinda has been sleeping for too long and wakes her up. She reads some love letters and soon forgets the importance of Ariel’s message. With the help of the sylphs and Betty, Belinda begins the elaborate process of dressing and grooming herself. Betty is figured as a pagan “priestess” while Belinda herself is the “goddess,” and the dressing table becomes an “altar” for these “sacred rites of pride.” Belinda needs a whole slew of items to get ready for the day, including “India’s glowing gems,” “all Arabia,” “tortoise” and “elephant” in the form of “combs,” and “Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.” The sylphs are crucial to arranging everything carefully (even though they are unseen), which means that Betty is “praised for labors not her own”.