HSC English First Paper | Unit: 4, Lesson: 2 | Human Relationships | Love and Friendship

1. Warm up activity:

□ Imagine how human relationships have changed over time. Boys and girls reading in the same class may become good friends. This was not possible a hundred years ago. Write a page describing the benefits of better human relationship.

Love and friendship are the two important demands of human life. Human life becomes unlivable in their absence. Though human beings need them badly, true love and friendship are difficult to find. The short song from William Shakespeare's (1564 -1616) play As You Like It laments the absence of true love and friendship in human life.

2. Now read the lyric and answer the questions that follow:

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 

Thou art not so unkind 

As man's ingratitude; 

Thy tooth is not so keen, 

Because thou art not seen, 

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly: 

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: 

Then heigh-ho, the holly! 

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 

That dost not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot: 

Though thou the waters warp, 

Thy sting is not so sharp 

As friend remembered not. 

High-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly...

3. Answer the following questions:

a. Why does the poet call the winter wind "unkind"?

b. What is worse than the winter wind?

c. Why does the poet imagine that the wind has tooth?

d. What has got sharper tooth than the winter wind?

e. Can the wind breathe? Why does the poet say that the wind's breath is rude?

f. What is the poet's observation about friendship and love?

g. Why does the poet find the sky bitter?

h. What kind of people forget received benefits?

i. What makes the sting of the sky sharp?

4. Make a summary of the song.

5. When writers give human characteristics and attributes to objects, it is called personification. Find out instances of personification in the poem. What ideas does the poet convey by using the device?

6. One of the charms of poetry is the music it creates with words. Read the song aloud and feel how the last word in each line matches in sound with the last words in other lines. The poet has followed a pattern here in rhyming. Identify the pattern by showing which word matches with which word in sound. You can mark each word i.e., a,b,c,d letters from the alphabet.

7. What is the general theme of the song? Do you think it is still valid? Give reasons for your answer.

8. Narrate two short events describing true love and friendship.

9. Find 5 noun words and 5 adjectival words from the poem and make sentences with them.

 If you want to read the next lesson of this unit please click the link below:
 Lesson 3: Photograph