Oh hadst thou, cruel! Been content to seize
Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!
Answer: These remarkable and conspicuous opening lines have been taken from the Canto-I of “The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope, the great 18h century poet. These two lines expose Belinda’s lamentation over the loss of her favorite lock this lock is designed to evoke sympathy, but it is full of frivolity and vanity.
Belinda says that the Baron has been very cruel in clipping her favorite lock of hair. He would not have resented his action much if he had clipped some bunch of hair that was not so prominent as this particular lock. He might have clipped any hair but should have spared this lock. Belinda calls Baron-cruel. She asked why he could not feel satisfied by cutting off some hair from another part of my head so that her loss had not been so prominent. Why could he not spare that lock of hair and cut off some other bunch? With his own hand he will cut off that part of the hair which the Baron’s plundering scissors have spared: He had made it a habit to part of her hair in two black locks. The two locks together used to lend new charms to her fair neck. The one remaining lock now finds it alone and appears to be unattractive. This remaining lock understands that it will meet the same fate that its companion has met. It wants those scissors to put an end to its life by cutting it off and invites the irreverent hands of the Baron to repeat his impious act.
To sum up, we may say that there is an obvious touch of obscenity in the expression “any hairs but these”. “Any hairs” include public hair.
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