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Night of Scorpion Night of the Scorpion
Notes
18
NIGHT OF THE SCORPION
Read the poem once. It is about the night when the poet’s mother is bitten by a
scorpion.
I remember the night my mother
Was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
Of steady rain had driven him
To crawl beneath a sack of rice.
Parting with his poison – flash
Of diabolic tail in the dark room –
He risked the rain again.
The peasants came like swarms of flies
And buzzed the Name of God a hundred
Time to paralyse the Evil one.
With candles and with lanterns
Throwing giant scorpion shadows
On the mud-baked walls
They searched for him; he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in Mother’s blood they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of evil
balanced in this unreal world
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
ENGLISH 163
Night of the Scorpion Night of Scorpion
May the poison purify your flesh

Of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
They said, and they sat around
On the floor with my mother in the center,
Notes The peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through
groaning on a mat
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
My mother only said
Thank god the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.
- Nissim Ezekiel
INTEXT QUESTIONS 18.1

Can you answer the following questions?
1. Was it a dark night?
2. Had it been raining for long?
Let us, now, read the following lines once again.

I remember the night my mother
Was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
Of steady rain had driven him
To crawl beneath a sack of rice.
Parting with his poison – flash
Of diabolic tail in the dark room (-)
He risked the rain again.
164 ENGLISH

1. What drove the scorpion inside the house?
Notes
2. Where did the scorpion crawl?
3. Choose the correct option to complete the following sentence.
The word ‘flash’ means —
(i) a cowardly action
(ii) a quick and sudden action
(iii) a wicked action
4. Why does he call the tail ‘diabolic’?
Let us read further

The peasants came like swarms of flies
And buzzed the Name of God a hundred
Time to paralyse the Evil one.
With candles and with lanterns
Throwing giant scorpion shadows
On the mud-baked walls
They searched for him; he was not found
They clicked their tongues.

1. Who came into the house?
2. What is the scorpion referred to in the third line?
3. Why did the peasants say the name of God a hundred times?
4. Whose shadows were thrown on the walls?
5. Choose the correct option
The phrase ‘clicked their tongues’ expresses
(i) The peasants’ worries about the sting.
(ii) The peasants’ sorrow for the mother.
(iii) The peasants’ failure to find the scorpion.
6. Pick out a simile and a metaphor from the above lines.
ENGLISH 165
Let us read on
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in Mother’s blood they said.
Notes May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of evil
balanced in this unreal world
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh
Of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
They said, and they sat around
On the floor with my mother in the center,
The peace of understanding on each face.
1. (a) How many times ‘they said’ has been repeated?
(b) Who are ‘they’ in the above lines?
(c) Why did they want the scorpion to sit still?
The peasants, in the above lines, are praying for the woman. They begin
each prayer with the world ‘may’. The repetitive use of the word is known
as chanting. It also shows here the peasant’s concern for the suffering woman.
2. List the prayers that the peasants make for the mother
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
166 ENGLISH
Let us read further

More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through Notes
groaning on a mat
My father, sceptic, rationalist
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
My mother only said
Thank god the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.

1. The poet says that his father who was a rationalist tried everything. Why did
he do so? Pick out the correct answer from the options given below:
(i) because the father had changed
(ii) because the father wanted to do what others were doing
(iii) because the father was deeply concerned
2. Why did the mother feel relieved?
OVERALL QUESTIONS
1. Who is the ‘I’ in the poem?
2. What does the poem say about a mother?
ENGLISH 167
CHECK YOUR ANSWERS

Intext Questions 18.1
Notes 1. Yes, it was a dark night
2. Yes, it had been raining for long.
1. continuous rain
2. under a sack of rice
3. (ii) a quick and sudden action
4. because it poisons the person it stings
1. the peasants
2. the evil one
3. to paralyse the evil one
4. the peasants’ shadows were thrown on the walls
5. the peasants’ failure to find the scorpion
6. Simile- peasants came like swarm of flies.
Metaphor – giant scorpion shadows
1. (a) six times (b) They are peasants
(c) because they believed that with the movement of the scorpion, the poison
moved in the mother’s body.
2. (i) May he sit still.
(ii) May the sins of the previous birth be burned away.
(iii) May the suffering decrease the misfortunes of next birth.
(iv) May the sum of evil become diminished.
(v) May the poison purify the flesh.
1. (iii) because the father was deeply concerned.
2. because the scorpion bit her and spared her children.
OVERALL QUESTIONS
1. Poet
2. Mother loves her children more than herself. She wants to save her children
from every kind of pain.
168 ENGLISH

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Night of Scorpion Night of the Scorpion

NIGHT OF THE SCORPION

May the poison purify your flesh

INTEXT QUESTIONS 18.1

Let us, now, read the following lines once again.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 18.2

Let us read further

INTEXT QUESTIONS 18.3

INTEXT QUESTIONS 18.4

1. (a) How many times ‘they said’ has been repeated?

(b) Who are ‘they’ in the above lines?

(c) Why did they want the scorpion to sit still?

Let us read further

INTEXT QUESTIONS 18.5

(i) because the father had changed

(ii) because the father wanted to do what others were doing

(iii) because the father was deeply concerned

2. Why did the mother feel relieved?

CHECK YOUR ANSWERS

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