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Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought The close recesses of the virgin’s thought; As, on the nosegay in her breast reclined, He watched the ideas rising in her mind, Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art, An earthly lover lurking at her heart. Amazed, confused, he found his power expired, Resigned to fate, and with a sigh retired. Meaning. At this point in the canto, Ariel gains access to Belinda’s thoughts as the Baron makes to chop off her lock. He and the other sylphs try to alert her to the imminent danger before it is too late, but when Ariel does gain access to her mind, he is shocked by what he sees: “An earthly lover lurking at her heart.” Ariel has previously explained to the sleeping Belinda and the reader that it is his role as a sylph to protect her because she is “fair and chaste.” But here, he learns that she is not as chaste as she pretends to be with, as she cherishes thoughts of an “earthly lover.” He is then “Resigned to fate”—that is to the Baron’s stealing of the lock, an act with distinctly sexual undertones. The implication is that Ariel feels like Belinda is already no longer chaste and deserves to be violated. Here Pope once again illustrates the extremely harsh restrictions on female sexuality in this world. He also once again illustrates the slipperiness of the sylphs, who claim to be the wholly good guardians of the “fair and chaste.” In Canto I, Ariel sends a dream of a handsome young man (“A youth more glitt'ring than a birthnight beau”), tempting Belinda’s sexuality when he should be ensuring that she remains chaste. It seems especially fickle of him, then, to cast her away here and leave her to the machinations of the Baron on account of her failure to be chaste in her private thoughts, when he himself was tempting her sexuality earlier in the narrative.