his pupils. She has just come upon a letter talking of
their love written by Abelard to a third person.
20 horrid bristling.
64 lambent radiant.
99 sudden horrors Eloisa is thinking of the castration of
Abelard ordered by her father to end the affair.
110 bade the world farewell in entering the nunnery.
133 You raised these hallowed walls Abelard founded the
nunnery.
177 the spouse The nun is regarded as the bride of Christ;
see also line 219.
212 Obedient slumbers taken from ‘Of a religious house’
by Richard Crashaw (c. 1612–49).
220 hymeneals wedding songs.
343 May one kind grave They were interred in adjoining
monuments.
ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADYThe identity of the lady and the reasons that brought her to
her misfortune remain mysterious.
8 a Roman’s part suicide.
9 reversion a legal term relating to the restitution of
property after a fixed period.
35 ball the world.
41 Furies deities who avenge familial wrongs in Greek
myth.
59 Loves representations of weeping Cupids on funeral
monuments.THE ILIAD OF HOMERThe translation of Homer: the Iliad was published in six
volumes between 1715 and 1720. Pope provided notes
which were intended as a running commentary and printed
below the text in all editions in his lifetime. The notes
referred to here can be looked up in the Twickenham edition
of Pope’s Homer in the appropriate book under the line
reference added in brackets. The titles at the head of each