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A wondrous bag with both her hands she binds, Like that where once Ulysses held the winds; There she collects the force of female lungs, Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues. A vial next she fills with fainting fears, Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears. The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away, Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day. Sunk in Thalestris’ arms the nymph he found, Her eyes dejected and her hair unbound. Full o’er their heads the swelling bag he rent, And all the furies issued at the vent. Belinda burns with more than mortal ire, And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. Meaning. Towards the end of Canto IV, Umbriel acquires a “wondrous bag” and a “vial” from the Queen of Spleen, the ruler of a subterranean world. Her world is filled with nightmarish creatures contorted by the effects of spleen (thought in Pope’s day to be the medical cause behind a variety of forms of bodily dysfunction, particularly those pertaining to women’s bodies). At his request, the queen fills the bag with all kinds of female despair (“the force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues”) while she fills the vial with “fainting fears, / Soft sorrows, melting griefs and flowing tears.” When Umbriel arrives back in the surface world, he empties this bag over Thalestris and Belinda, causing Belinda to burn “with more than mortal ire” over the loss of her lock and causing Thalestris to fan “the rising fire.” Clearly all this fuss over what is essentially a ruined hairdo is ridiculous, so at first glimpse it might appear that Umbriel’s dumping off all these emotions over the two women (and thus inciting such extreme responses to the missing lock) is all that’s going on. But Pope is actually playing a much subtler game here – Belinda and Thalestris are already distressed at the lock’s loss before Umbriel does this, as evidenced by Belinda’s “dejected eyes” and “unbound hair,” so it’s very difficult to say where her own feelings end and where those forced on her by Umbriel begin. This means that, once again, Pope is toying with his reader by raising questions about the nature of agency and moral judgement. Here, he once again stresses that this is a world where it’s impossible to tell to what extent someone is acting according to their own free will, and so it means that moral judgements become increasingly fraught, challenging the Christian idea that it’s always possible to sort good from evil.