The Patriot

Questions and their answers

Question 1. Read the extract given below and answer the questions
that follows.
There’s nobody on the house-tops now-
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles’ Gate-or, better yet,
By the very scaffold’s foot, I trow.

(a) What makes the speaker (the patriot) sorrowful ? What kind of
behaviour did the people show for him during his evil days ?
(b) What kind of gloominess pervaded the atmosphere and why ?
(c) How was the patriot treated a year ago ?
(d) Explain the line : ‘Just a paralysed few at the windows set’.
(e) What had made most of the people leave the town ?
(f) The poet brings out a sharp contrast between the past and the
present of the patriot. How ?
(g) What kind of mentality of the people does the poet bring to us in
the poem ?
(h) In the beginning to what extent were the people mad after their
leader ? After a year, how was the scene changed with the patriot ?
(i) What does the poet want to suggest in the poem The Patriot ? For
what do the words ‘Shamble’s Gate’ and ‘Scaffold’ stand ?
Answer.
(a) The speaker feels great sorrow to think that the people to whom he
struggled a lot and faced hardships to give them happiness and peace,
had grown entirely indifferent towards him and had shifted their
loyalties at other place. During his evil or adverse days, the people
showed great contempt for him. They treated him callously and cruelly.

(b) A year after, when he was being taken for death punishment, the
town seems to be desolated as there were only a few people sitting at
the windows of the house. Mostly people had gone to see the
interesting sight of his execution. It seemed as if there was a kind of
gloominess pervaded the atmosphere.

(c) Just a year ago when the patriot entered the city, people welcomed
him warmly. His paths were strewn with sweet smelling flowers and
myrtles. The church spires blazed with flags. They were shouting slogan
after slogan in his reception. They seemed to be showing their great
eagerness to get his glimpse.

(d) When the patriot was being taken to the place of execution, no one
was seen on the roof of the houses. Only a few invalid people who
could not walk to the place of execution, were seen sitting at the
windows of their houses. From there, they were seeing the sight of his
being carried to his execution point. Perhaps they were also full of
contempt against the traitor and deriving joy from this tragic and
pitiable sight.

(e) The best sight at the gate of the slaughter house or at the very foot
of scaffold made most of the people leave the town. The patriot’s being
hanged was the best sight in the eyes of the people and they did not
want to miss this sight so they left hurriedly for that place.

(f) According to the poet, the patriot (Arnold of Brescia) who was an
Italian hero, was once the worshipped and honourable hero of the
Italians but now he had fallen to humiliation and death. Only a year ago
he was warmly welcomed by his people for his glorious victory. Now, a
year after the day of reception, he fell on evil days. His
accomplishments were deemed as political offences. The people no
longer admired and loved him, but they showed great contempt for
him.

(g) The poet brings to us the fickle attitude of the people or the mob.
He shows how love, respect and honour given to someone is
momentary and it is subjected to erratic changes. Only a year ago, the
patriot was acknowledged as god-like by the public. He was given a
hero’s welcome on his arrival in the town, but after a year he was being
taken to the scaffold to be executed.

(h) In the beginning the people were so mad after their leader that they
were ready to offer him whatever he desired from them. If he had
asked them to offer him sun, moon and star from the sky, they would
have answered what else he desired. After a year, there was a
complete change in the attitude of the people towards their hero. He
fell on evil days. He was going to be persecuted and executed in public.
At this time, there was none to give him a hearty send-off. The people
were enjoying the scene of his execution. They insulted and humiliated
him beyond limits.

(i) The poem is a superb example of current political upheaval and

changed public opinion. The poet wants to suggest that nothing
remains the same in the world of politics. It is a world of self-interest
and selfish people who, for individual benefits, may go against the
common good of the country. ‘Shamble’s Gate’ was the place where
animals were butchered. It was the best place to afford a full view of
the execution of the patriot. Scaffold is a raised platform of timber on
which the criminal is executed.
Question 2. Read the extract given below and answer the questions
that follows
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year’s misdeeds.

(a) Who was being led to the gallows ? What had he done ? What was
his state while moving to scaffold ?
(b) Do you think that the patriot was innocent ? Had he really
committed misdeeds or political offences ?
(c) In the earlier stanza, why does the patriot mourn when he was being
taken to the execution place and throws his eyes all around him ?
(d) What is the symbolical significance of ‘the rain’ ?
(e) When does the patriot for the first time undergo physical pain ?
(f) Which figure of speech has been used in the line ‘I go in the rain’ ?
What does it show ? What does the bleeding of his forehead and his
being dragged to death point symbolise ?
Answer.
(a) The patriot was being led to gallows. His heroic deeds were
considered as misdeeds and he had been declared a traitor and was
sentenced to death. The patriot who was once worshipped and
honoured by the people as their favourite hero, had now become the
prey of humiliation and contempt. As the people had shifted their
loyalties in changed circumstances, they had nn sympathetic attitude
towards him.

(b) In fact, the patriot was innocent. He had not committed any
misdeeds or , political offences. It was only out of misunderstanding of
the people that he was considered to be a traitor and was being put to
death. His death sentence was for wrong reason and although he had
tried to persuade the people to , listen to him, it had done no good to
him.

(c) When the patriot was being taken to the gallows, he mourns to see
the desolated like state of the town as there was none to welcome him.
He found the house-tops and streets empty. He feels highly sad at the
indifferent attitude of the people and they showed great contempt for
him.

(d) As well as making the patriot wet reducing his dignity, the rain can
be seen to symbolise how the patriot was innocent as he was washed
clean. As well as, rain in general represents corruption creating a
negative tense mood.
This describes the people who are clearly corrupt for hanging
somebody v who had done nothing.

(e) The patriot undergoes pain for the first time when the strong rope
which was tied tightly on his wrists, makes injuries on his wrists and
secondly when the people hurl the stones at him. The stone which hits
his forehead, gives him great pain. The bleeding of his forehead makes
him feel great pain.

(f) In the line ‘I go in the rain’, the poet has used the figure of speech
pathetic fallacy (a kind of personification). It shows to the distressed
mood and could be seen as a sign of the speaker’s inner crisis and
sadness. The bleeding of his forehead can be a symbol of the Crown of
Thoms and his being dragged . through the streets mimics the death of
Jesus.

Question 3.
Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
“Me?”- God might question; now instead,
Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.

(a) What thought makes the patriot feel ‘safer’ ?

(b) What does the patriot say in the line ‘Thus I entered and thus I go’ ?
(c) What is true about the rise and fall of glory ?
(d) Do you think that overambitiousness was the reason of patriot’s
downfall ?
(e) How does the patriot feel in the hour of his defeat and sorrow ?
How does he feel safe ?
(f) What does the patriot mean when he says, ‘In triumphs people have
dropped down dead’ ? Which figure of speech has been used here ?
Answer.
(a) As the poet firmly believes in God and in his judgement, he thinks
that God will truly judge that he had done nothing wrong in the world
and he was a man of pure heart. The people of this world misbehaved
with him by declaring him a traitor and criminal and he had wrongly
been sentenced to death. God will show mercy for him and give him a
place in his kingdom.

(b) Actually, the patriot entered the town as a hero a year ago when he
was given a warm reception by the people. The people in his welcome
covered the path with the petals of smelling flowers. They rang the
bells and shouted the slogans for him and decorated the chruch towers.
Thus the people showed their reverence for him, but a year later he
met with a tragic end. He received a harsh and humiliating treatment
from the public and was being publicly hanged with stones being pelted
at him. Now the people wished him to be killed.

(c) Nothing is stable in this world. It is also true to the rise and fall of
glory. Someone who rises high and touches the summit of glory, cannot
remain at the top for longer and his downfall is certain. The
circumstances are not always same, they are changing. The same thing
takes place with the patriot who, a year ago, was welcomed by the
public with roses and myrtles and after a year the same public hurls
stones at him because he was not in power and was declared a
criminal.

(d) Yes, it was patriot’s overambitiousness that during his glorious days
he could not think of his downfall. What led him towards his downfall
was his vaulting ambition. It can be deduced that the speaker took a
step too far and it was his error that led him to cross the boundaries
and consequently lose popularity.
(e) The patriot achieves a moral victory in the hour of defeat and
extreme. He feels that he has not been rewarded for his services on the
earth. If he had been rewarded, God would not have cared him. But,
now betrayed and deserted by the people he hopes he would be
rewarded by God in heaven. So he feels safe in the bosom of God.

(f) The patriot means to say that sometimes great heroes fall from their
climax and die, but such had not happened to him. If he had died in the
peak of his power, he would have been happy. The figure of speech
alliteration has been used here.