Hi Everyone!! This article will share A Musical Instrument Questions & Answers.
This poem is written by Henry Cuyler Bunner. In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of The Heart Of The Tree, At Tagore’s Shantiniketan and Shivaji’s Miraculous Escape so, you can check these posts as well.
A Musical Instrument Questions & Answers
Question 1: Why had Pan come to the river? What was he looking for?
Answer: Pan had come in search of a specific reed. He was looking for his beloved (Syrinx) who had transformed into a reed.
Question 2: What did he do to the reed? Was he cruel?
Answer: He cut the reed short and removed all leaves from its edges. Then he drew “the pith”- the central tissues and made it hollow. Finally, he notched holes into the reed and made it a musical instrument.
Yes, he was cruel as he did it out of revenge.
Question 3: Why did he need the reed? What was his music like?
Answer: He needed the reed to satisfy the fire of his revenge. His beloved had disapproved his proposal. So, he wanted to have her as a reed to take revenge.
His music was like overpowering a woman.
Question 4: Pan is half-man and half-beast. How is this illustrated in the poem?
Answer: When the speaker says that Pan is half-man and half -beast, this is true. He plays music feeling love for the women. It shows the quality of a man but he laughs sitting by the river after playing the music. It refers to the quality of a beast.
Question 5: Justify the title of the poem.
Answer: The title is apt for the poem. The whole poem is written for the musical instrument which is made of a reed. Pan takes out a reed from the river to make an instrument for playing music as his beloved has become a reed. He doesn’t know which reed she has transformed into. He thought to have her as a reed. That’s why he made the musical instrument of it and the poem ends with it. So, title of the poem is absolutely correct.
A Musical Instrument Questions & Answers
Question 6: Read the lines and answer the questions:
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
(a) Who is the speaker referring to?
Answer: The speaker is referring to the god of nature – Pan.
(b) What is the person doing?
Answer: Pan is wreaking havoc, destroying reeds, stamping and disturbing the river.
(c) Is the speaker happy with the person? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer: The speaker is not happy with Pan, rather he condemns him for his cruelty towards the peace of the river.
2. Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sate by the river.
(a) What was the ‘poor dry empty thing’?
Answer: The ‘poor dry empty thing’ was the reed which had once stood tall in the river but had now been reduced to a sorry state by the God, Pan.
(b) Why was it ‘notched’?
Answer: It was notched and holes were made into it to turn it into a flute.
(c) Who is the person sitting by the river and why does he have to ‘notch the thing’?
Answer: The God Pan is sitting by the river and he needed to notch the thing to shape it and fashion it into a musical instrument, the flute so he could create beautiful music.
3. To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,
For the reed which grows nevermore again
(a) Why does the speaker use the term ‘true gods’?
Answer: Pan, being half-man, half-beast in Greek mythology, was never considered a pure god but more of a rustic semi-god of nature. So, to differentiate, the poet uses the term true gods.
(b) What made the true gods sigh?
Answer: The true gods sighed because of the destruction caused by Pan and how it disrupted nature. His cruelty made them sigh.
(c) Why would the reed never grow again?
Answer: The reed was pulled out by its root and it would never be able to grow again. Pan cut its life short.
Question 7: A didactic poem presents a message to the readers. It teaches a lesson or has a moral. What lesson, do you think, the speaker has tried to teach the readers?
Answer: The poem shows how cruelty cannot be justified even if it leads to the creation of something beautiful. The destruction that took place led to the creation of something beautiful, however, that didn’t justify the destruction.
Question 8: This poem beautifully showcases how Pan in his urge to find Syrinx, creates havoc. However, if we look at it in the modern context, the human being is still causing mayhem in his quest to dominate nature. Do you agree? Give reasons to support your answer.
Answer: The poem is an interesting parallel with reality as humans have since time immemorial destroyed and exploited nature for their own selfish desires and the poem showcases something very similar in nature.
Question 9: Art is beautiful but at the same time it can be destructive. Discuss this with reference to this poem. How does the speaker use the legend of Pan to bring home the idea?
Answer: Art has two aspects of being beautiful but then again, it is destructive as well. The beautiful work of art that was the flute that Pan managed to create from the reed was only possible after a whole lot of destruction had ensued from Pan’s attempts to acquire the reed in the first place.
So, these were A Musical Instrument Questions & Answers.