Ombre

The Rape of the Lock features two battles between the two main characters, Belinda
and The Baron. The first of these two happens in Canto III, and takes the form of a
game of Ombre.

A game of L’hombre in Brøndum’s Hotel By

Anna Palm de Rosa (1859-12-25/1924-05-02) [Public domain], via Wikimedia
CommonsOmbre is a card game invented in Spain and introduced to England
in the 17th century. The name of the game is derived from the spanish word
“Hombre”, which translates to “Man” in English. Ombre was referred to as El
Hombre in Spain, therefore, The Man. The reason behind this name is that the
game’s inventors saw that it requires “Thought and Reflection”, and these
were qualities attributed to men of quality (Gibbs 4). Henry Hucks Gibbs in his
book The Game of Ombre publish in 1878, describes ombre as a game that
requires “long practice and close attention” (3). Gibbs’ description makes
sense, for ombre has many rules and components that make it somewhat of a
complex game. In this section, the rules and components that are most
relevant to Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock will be discussed.
Table of Contents:
Tools and Players
Cards and their Strength
Trumps and their Strength
Rules
Wining the Game
Ombre in Canto III

Tools and Players:

Tools:
 Counting box (boîte de jetons) with
counters, made by Mariaval, le jeune (French, active by 1746), about 1750–70.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Public Domain. http://www.mfa.org
40 cards
 A plate to hold the pool
 Counters of different shapes and colors for each player
 Ombre-box, which is a box that has 4 trays to hold the counters
Players:

The number of players in ombre can range from two to four players. But the general
convention is for three people to play, as was the case in the poem. When this happens
the third player becomes a “Dealer” and holds no cards but still receives and pays like
the other players. The Dealer makes sure there is no mistake in the cards dealt.

Cards and their strength:

Red Suits: Diamonds ♦ and Hearts ♥

1. King
2. Queen
3.  Knave
4.  Ace
5. Two
6. Three
7. Four
8. Five
9. Six
10.  Seven
(no. 1 being the strongest, and no. 10 the weakest)

Black Suits: Spades ♠ and Clubs ♣

1. Ace
2. King
3. Queen
4.  Knave
5.  Seven
6. Six
7. Five
8. Four
9. Three
10. Two
(no. 1 being the strongest, and no. 10 the weakest)

Trumps and their strength:

Trumps are cards that are elevated above their usual ranks. When a trump is played, it
alters and declares which cards will follow. Superior trumps lead inferior ones,
meaning that when a first honour trump is played, a trump of a lower honour
necessarily follows.

1. The first honour trump is called Spadille, the Ace of Spades.

2. When a trump is declared, the second honour, called Manille, goes to the
weakest card in all suits. So, in Diamonds and Hearts: the Seven, and in Spades
and Clubs: the Two.
3. The third honour trump is called Basto, the Ace of Clubs.
Rules:
 Each player has 9 cards
 The remaining cards are called “Stock” and are placed in the middle of the box
 Each player looks at the cards in their hand, then determine wether they can get
sufficient tricks to win the game. Depending on this they say either “I play” or “I
pass”
 If a player says “I play”, the other players say “Good”, and this player becomes
the Ombre
 However, if another player thinks that they have a better chance than the
ombre, they say “Better” and become the Ombre instead
 The Omber plays a trump and decides which suit shall be trumps, the other
players reorganize their cards according to the altered sequence
 The Ombre discards from their hand cards that they do not think they will need
 The Ombre takes from the stock a number of cards equal to those they
discarded
 Every player takes and keeps their own tricks
Wining the Game:
The Ombre throws the first card of the trick, then the other players follow each with a
single card. The trick is then evaluated and the player who placed the strongest card
wins the trick.

To win a game of Ombre, one must gather a greater number of tricks than the most
successful of the other players.

There is a total of 9 tricks, to win, a player must gather 5 tricks, or 4 as long as they
make sure the other 5 are distributed between the other players.

Ombre in Canto III:

The narrator in Canto III describes an Ombre battle between Belinda and the Baron in
epic conventions.
This battle should be easier to understand with the help of the information about
ombre provided in this section. But to make keeping up with the game easier, this
video will show which cards were played by which player to win a trick. The video
will also show a count of the tricks won by Belinda and the Baron:

Interpretations
In this section, two interpretations of the battle of Ombre in Canto III will be
provided.
Table of Contents:

Meaning of Suits
A Love Affair
A Fierce Battle for Status and Wealth

To start interpreting the battle, it is useful to first look at the meanings associated with
the four suits of the cards:

Spades: Warrior class and nobility

Hearts: the clergy, and struggle for inner joy

Diamonds: merchant class, and excitement for creation of wealth

Clubs: peasantry class

These meanings will aid in understanding the different meanings that Alexander Pope
would have had behind the ombre battle.

 A Love Affair:
The Ombre battle in Canto III can be interpreted as a love affair between Belinda and
the Baron. The Baron fights in the game to conquer Belinda’s heart, while she
struggles at first to resist, but eventually gives in to his charms. This can be observed
by looking at the meanings behind the cards played by each of them, and the sequence
in which they were played.
Belinda starts strong winning her first trick with the Ace of Spades, as a noble
warrior, here for a fight and nothing else. She then gains another trick with Manillio,
the Two of Spades, the second honour in trump (see Trumps and their strength). But
her fourth trick, the one she gets before the Baron starts his streak, shows evidence of
weakness. The card she plays is the Jack of Clubs, the Jack being the fourth in
strength in the Black Suit (see Cards and their strength), and the Clubs associated with
peasantry signify her loss of strength.
In the weakness of Belinda’s last win, the Baron “trumps up evidence of love and
indiscretion” (Riechard 898). So he decides to dive in, in full force to claim this
golden chance that he sees. He plays and shows off with his best suit, the Diamonds.
The Diamonds, as mentioned above are associated with excitement. Therefore, the
Baron, with eagerness and high spirits “pours” his diamonds in “wild disorder”(III 16-
20). The Baron wins his third trick with the Knave/Jack of Diamonds against
Belinda’s Queen of Hearts. The narrator’s description of Belinda after this is:
“At this, the Blood the Virgin’s Cheek forsook,
A livid Paleness spreads o’er all her Look” (III 30-31)
Belinda starts to realize the Baron’s true intention, and her shock and embarrassment
at
 The Ace of Hearts
this realization strengthens the Baron’s position. In front of the Baron who is at his
fourth trick and “within an ace of taking the last of her cards, indeed the last of her
hearts”, Belinda falls in love and throws him the Ace of Hearts (Riechard 896). Thus,
wining the game, but by giving away her heart, both literally and metaphorically,
since the Ace of Hearts is a card with a heart in the middle.
  A fierce battle for status and wealth:
During the 18th century, the culture of gaming was wide spread and popular.
According to one scholar, “Time for play, once thought of as unproductive and
wasteful of time, energy, and potential earnings, began to be recognized as an
untapped source of profit” (Mullin 50). Gaming experienced a shift from a way to
pass time, to a legitimate way to acquire wealth. With this in mind, another way to
look at the Ombre battle presents itself. The Ombre battle can be seen as a fight for
monetary gain and glory.
In this sense, Belinda starts the battle as a nobility with her Ace of Spades. Then
follows it by the rest of  “her Sable Matadores”, Manillio and Basto (III 24). She
wins her first three tricks with trumps and becomes, as one scholar describes her, “the
warring hombre in the Game of Ombre”(Crehan 58). As mentioned in
the Ombre section, “Hombre” means man in Spanish, and it is the word the name for
ombre is derived from. When Belinda played a trump, she became “the Ombre” or
“the man” of the game. Since Ombre is a gambling game where players pay and
receive money, this also means that Belinda was gaining wealth from the pockets of
her male opponents (Gibbs 30).
After Belinda wins her fourth trick, the Baron losses his composure, for at this point,
his pride is hurt because he keeps losing against a woman. So he begins his attack:
“Now to the Baron Fate inclines the Field.
His warlike Amazon her Host invades” (24-25).
He wins his first trick with “Th’ Imperial Consort of the Crown of Spades.”, which is
the Queen of Spades. Since Spades are a warrior class, The Queen of Spades here
could refer to Belinda, the warrior queen. Thus, the Baron throws this card as a
challenge to Belinda, and tells her that he is about to take away her crown. He then
plays three Diamonds, with great excitement to gain wealth. But when the Baron
becomes almost sure of his victory, Belinda surprises him by throwing the Ace of
Hearts and wining the battle. With this interpretation, the Baron’s crime of taking a
lock of Belinda’s hair later in the canto can be seen as revenge sparked by his
shameful loss at the ombre battle.

The battle of Ombre in The Rape of the Lock can have different meanings and many
interpretations. Only two are provided here but if you can think of others, or add to the
two provided, feel free to do so in the comment section below: