Note 493 — RAPE OF THE LOCK. (continued 2)
Reading edition
A new character introduced in the subsequent editions, to open more clearly the moral of the poem, in a parody of the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus in Homer.—Pope.
The parody first appeared when the Rape of the Lock was inserted in the quarto of 1717. In the previous enlarged editions, which contained the machinery, the sixth verse was followed by what is now verse thirty-seven:
To arms, to arms! the bold Thalestris cries.