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Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. Meaning. This description of Belinda’s locks of hair occurs on her journey to Hampton Court, during which she is spotted by the Baron. Here Pope describes the locks as able to ensnare men with their remarkable beauty. In doing so, Pope is able to emphasize a number of key ideas in the poem about beauty and gender. For instance, the idea that Belinda’s hair is able to metaphorically overpower men’s “mighty hearts” and hold them captive subverts the more traditional idea that men are meant to be dominant and women are meant to be submissive. Characters like the Baron certainly buy into this idea, seeing Belinda’s hair (and by extension Belinda herself) as a “prize” to be won either through “force” or through “fraud.” This is turn reinforces the idea that perhaps in this superficial world, female vanity like Belinda’s is not always as superficial as it seems and can instead contribute to a kind of female empowerment.