Explicit and Inferred
RL.5.1
Read the text, then answer the questions.
Orpheus Looks Back
Orpheus played so well that rivers changed course to listen. When his wife Eurydice died, he went down to argue with the dead. He played to the ferryman, who took him free. He played to the three-headed dog, which lay down. He played to the king of the underworld, who wept, and who had never wept. The king gave one condition. Eurydice would follow him up, and he must not look back until both of them stood in the light. He climbed for a day. He could not hear her footsteps — the dead make none — and he had only the king's word. Ten paces from the daylight, he turned round. She was there. That was the last he saw of her.
- 1. What was the king's condition?
- 2. Why could Orpheus not hear Eurydice behind him?
- 3. Why did the king make that particular condition?
The Bell
Stanza one: The church has gone. They took the stone for walls and gateposts, load by load. Where the aisle was there is a field. Where the door was there is a road. Stanza two: The bell they could not sell or break. It hung in a barn for eighty years, green with the damp, out of the way, mute as a stone among the gears. Stanza three: Last spring they hung it in the school. It rings at nine and rings at three. The children do not know its age and ring it anyway, and it is free. Stanza four: So the building went, and the faith went, and the road runs where the door was cut, and still the sound the masons heard goes out at nine, and comes back, and stops.
- 1. Why does the poem say the children "ring it anyway"?
- 2. What happened to the stone of the church?
- 3. When does the bell ring now?
LessonPrint · RL.5.1 · Set 16 · free to copy for classroom use