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Behold, four Kings in majesty revered, With hoary whiskers and a forky beard; And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flower, The expressive emblem of their softer power; Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band, Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand; And particolored troops, a shining train, Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain. Meaning. This description of Belinda’s cards occurs at the beginning of Canto III, when she sits down to play a game of ombre with the Baron and one other gentleman. Pope chooses to narrate the game as if the cards were real noble figures and the game itself were a real battle. This allows him to once again humorously illustrate the silliness of life at court. The narrative voice treating the cards as if they were real kings and queens when they clearly are not suggests that Belinda and her companions take the game rather too seriously. In addition, it is worth understanding that most epics contain big battle scenes as one of many standard scenes (others include a sea voyage). Belinda’s travel down the Thames is a kind of parody of the epic sea voyage, and in conjunction with some of the other epic devices Pope is using, such as the heroic couplets and the opening invocation of the Muse, this sets the reader up to expect a big battle scene. The fact that the reader is presented not with a lofty battle sequence, but instead with “combat” which merely consists of a game of cards is thus comical, and once again highlights the triviality of court life in the poem by contrasting it with the weighty struggles of epic poetry.