At the opening of the poem, Belinda, a beautiful and wealthy young woman is asleep. Ariel, her guardian sylph, watches over her and sends her a dream which highlights what the role of the sylph is—namely to protect virtuous young women, though at times he makes the whole thing sound a tad sinister by suggesting that sylphs might control the action of mortals or get them into trouble. He is worried that some disaster is close at hand, though he is not sure what form it will take. He instead warns her through the dream to “beware of man.” Belinda then awakes and begins dressing herself for a day of social engagements. With the help of her maid Betty and that of her attendant sylphs, Belinda then completes the elaborate process of beautifying herself.
Looking exceptionally beautiful, Belinda then sails from London to Hampton court, and dazzles the crowd as she sails along. The two locks in which she has styled her hair look especially attractive, and the Baron eyes them in admiration—he has resolved to take one for himself, either by force or by theft. Before sunrise that morning, he had prayed for success to the God of love. As a kind of sacrifice burned a pyre made up of “French romances” (i.e., love stories), garters, gloves, and all the tokens of his romantic past, including love letters. Meanwhile, back in the present Belinda’s boat is still gliding along and Ariel is still troubled by the feeling that something horrible is going to happen. He summons a huge army of sylphs out of the air, and explains that he feels disaster is going to strike at any moment, though his idea of disaster is actually quite silly—that at worst Belinda might lose her virginity, but that it might also be something as trivial as a new dress getting stained, losing a piece of jewelry, or her lapdog dying. He instructs a number of sylphs to man different stations, including her fan, her lock, her watch, and her dog.
The boat arrives at Hampton Court and the lords and ladies disembark, ready to enjoy the pleasures of a day at court, in particular, gossip. Belinda soon sits down with two men to play a game of ombre. With a little help from her band of sylphs, Belinda begins the game well, declaring that spades are to be trumps, and quickly gaining the upper hand. The Baron, however, is quick to fire back and begins to dominate the game, and Belinda is close to being beaten. At the very last second, though, Belinda is able to win the final play, and reacts triumphantly.
Coffee is then served, which the smell of which revives the Baron and reminds him of his plan to steal the lock. Clarissa draws out a pair of scissors, like a lady equipping a knight for battle, and the Baron seizes them and prepares to snip off the lock. A whole host of sylphs descend on the lock, trying to twitch the hair and Belinda’s earring to gain her attention and alert her to the danger. And, although she looks around three times, the Baron simply evades her glance each time and then moves closer again. At this moment, Ariel accesses Belinda’s inner thoughts and sees that she has feelings for an “earthly lover.” He feels that this ill befits the “close recesses of the virgin’s thoughts.” Resigned to the fact that she is not as pure as he had hoped, Ariel gives up on stopping the Baron from snipping off the lock. The Baron crows with delight and Belinda screams in horror at what has happened.
While Belinda is sadly considering the wrong done to her, Umbriel, a gnome, flies down to another realm, the Cave of Spleen. Here, he encounters a number of unpleasant things, including the East wind which was thought to cause migraines, the figures of Ill Nature and Affectation, all kinds of horrible phantoms and contorted bodies (women turned into objects, men who are pregnant), and the Queen of Spleen herself, a kind of magical being who touches women with melancholy and hysterics. He asks her to affect Belinda with “chagrin” and she obliges, presenting him with a bag of “the force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs and passions, and the war of tongues” and a vial containing “fainting fears, / Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.”
When he returns, he finds Belinda in the arms of Thalestris, and promptly tips the bag over them. Thalestris is accordingly hugely distressed at the lock’s loss and Belinda’s now tarnished reputation. She goes to her own suitor, Sir Plume, and demands he confront the Baron, which he does to no avail, with the Baron declaring that he will not give up the lock while his nostrils still breathe air (i.e., while he is alive). But Umbriel, not content with having stirred up enough trouble already, then opens the vial over Belinda, who appears to give a long lamenting speech about the loss of the lock, wishing she had stayed at home or at least headed Ariel’s warning.
Still, the Baron is unmoved. At last, Clarissa quiets the group and makes her own speech, which essentially argues that this whole debate is silly—that everyone, including women themselves, places too much value on transient female beauty, and that women should instead invest their time and energy in being the best moral beings they can be. But her good sense is lost on the assembled company, and Belinda calls the women to arms.
A kind of mock courtly battle ensues, with fans, silks, and the ladies’ scowls for weapons, much to Umbriel’s delight. Belinda rushes at the Baron and blows snuff into his nose, with the help of the gnomes, fulfilling his earlier comment that the lock could only be taken from him if air stopped filling his nostrils. She then draws out a bodkin, threatening him with it. He tells her that he fears nothing in death but being separated from her and begs to live, burning with passion instead. She shouts at him to return the stolen lock, but miraculously the lock is gone. The narrator assures readers, however, that it ascended into the heavens, like Berenice’s locks, where it shall be viewed by the common people of London and astronomers alike. Unlike every other lock, however, this one will never grow gray, but will burn brightly in the sky as an eternal testament to Belinda’s spectacular beauty.
