The sylphs try to prevent —
a. the theft of the lock
b. umbriel from going to the cave of spleen
c. a fight between umbriel and the baron
d. belinda from hurting the baron

  A. The theft of the lock.

Explanation:

  The mock-heroic narrative poem was written by Alexander Pope. The poem satirizes a small incident by comparing it to the epic world of the gods.

  He introduced a system of Sylphs as guardians spirits of virgins. It was an attempt of parodized the gods and goddess of conventional epic.

  The story was written by the request of Pope´s friend, Lord Petre, about a true event. He cut a lock of hair from a woman named Arabella without permission and that created a breach between the two families. In the poem, Lord Petre is replaced by the Baron and Arabella by Belinda.

  When the Baron of the poem attempts to cut a lock of Belinda's hair, the sylphs interpose their airy bodies between the blades of the scissors.

  I hope this answer helps you.

answer: b (host)

viruses use the cells of living organisms to reproduce. the cell which is used by virus is called as "host cell". it is a living cell in which virus multiplies, example bacteria, plant or an animal cell.

in this, the virus is a parasite, which uses host cell for its benefit (reproduction) by using the cell machinary of host cell.