# Night of the Scorpion
**"Night of the Scorpion"** is a free-verse narrative poem by the Indian poet [Nissim Ezekiel](https://www.edgepedia.org/nissim-ezekiel) (1924–2004), first published in his collection *The Exact Name* (1965). It recounts, as a childhood memory, the night the speaker's mother was stung by a scorpion in a rural Indian village and the responses of the family, the villagers, and the mother herself.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) • [2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) It is Ezekiel's most anthologised poem and is set in school syllabuses across India and beyond.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Poet | Nissim Ezekiel (1924–2004), born in Bombay to a Bene Israel Jewish family, widely regarded as the father of modern Indian English poetry[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) |
| First publication | *The Exact Name*, Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1965[3](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3727066W/The_exact_name) |
| Form | Free verse narrative poem with no fixed rhyme scheme or meter, written in a conversational tone[4](https://poemanalysis.com/nissim-ezekiel/the-night-of-the-scorpion/0/) • [2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) |
| Opening situation | Ten hours of steady rain drive a scorpion beneath a sack of rice; it stings the speaker's mother and flees into the rain[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) |
| Most quoted image | "The peasants came like swarms of flies / and buzzed the name of God a hundred times / to paralyse the Evil One"[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) |
| Duration of the crisis | After twenty hours the poison lost its sting[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) |
| Final lines | The mother says only, "Thank God the scorpion picked on me / And spared my children", the poem's only direct quotation[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) • [1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) |
## The story the poem tells
The poem opens with recollection: "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."[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) After striking, the scorpion parts with his poison in a "flash of diabolic tail in the dark room" and risks the rain again, escaping before anyone can act.[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf)
The neighbors then arrive "like swarms of flies" and buzz the name of God a hundred times to paralyze the Evil One. Carrying candles and lanterns that throw giant scorpion shadows on the mud-baked walls, they search for the creature and fail to find it.[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) Their explanations for the misfortune follow a chain of folk belief: every movement of the scorpion moves the poison in the mother's blood, so they pray that it sit still; the sting will burn away the sins of her previous birth; her suffering will decrease the misfortunes of her next birth; the sum of evil in this unreal world will be balanced against the sum of good by her pain; and the poison will purify her flesh of desire and her spirit of ambition.[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf)
Two figures act against the chorus of prayer. The father, described as a sceptic and rationalist, tries "every curse and blessing, powder, mixture, herb and hybrid", and finally pours a little paraffin on the bitten toe and puts a match to it, a remedy that does more visible harm than the prayers.[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) • [1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) A holy man performs his rites to tame the poison with an incantation while the mother twists through and through, groaning on a mat.[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf)
The pain subsides on its own after twenty hours. The mother's only recorded words close the poem: "Thank God the scorpion picked on me / And spared my children."[2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) The mother's speech is saved for the last lines and is the only direct quotation in the poem.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
## Structure and form
The poem is written in free verse, without a fixed rhyme scheme or regular meter, and its plainness is deliberate: the unpatterned lines give the narration the natural flow of spoken recollection.[4](https://poemanalysis.com/nissim-ezekiel/the-night-of-the-scorpion/0/) • [1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) The narrative is chronological, moving from the sting, through the villagers' arrival and the failed remedies, to the mother's recovery.[4](https://poemanalysis.com/nissim-ezekiel/the-night-of-the-scorpion/0/)
Commentators divide the text differently. Poem Analysis describes an eight-stanza structure with stanzas of three to eighteen lines, an uneven arrangement that lets urgency and reflection alternate.[4](https://poemanalysis.com/nissim-ezekiel/the-night-of-the-scorpion/0/) Other teaching materials read it as two unequal parts, a long opening movement of about forty-seven lines carrying the incident and the villagers' response, followed by a short closing stanza of three lines containing the mother's words; the structural contrast underlines the irony of the ending.[5](https://hslcguru.com/class-12-alternative-english-chapter-11/) Christopher Wiseman, quoted in a critical study, noted the poem's loose, seemingly free-verse narrative structure, its abandonment of capitals at the start of lines, and the long paragraph set off abruptly from the three-line climax.[6](https://www.indianenglishlit.com/2022/12/night-of-the-scorpion-summary-and-critical-analysis.html)
## Poetic devices
Several devices carry the poem's effect:[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
- **Simile**: the peasants come "like swarms of flies", the poem's most quoted comparison, and the verb "buzzed" keeps the insect image running.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
- **Repetition and anaphora**: the insistent "they said… they said… they said" builds the peasants' chorus into something liturgical and slightly overwhelming; a critical study calls these words the choric refrain of the poem.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) • [6](https://www.indianenglishlit.com/2022/12/night-of-the-scorpion-summary-and-critical-analysis.html)
- **Imagery**: the "diabolic tail in the dark room", giant scorpion shadows on mud-baked walls, and the flame "feeding on" the mother.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
- **Irony**: the rationalist father resorts to curses and burning paraffin, while the search for the scorpion produces more scorpion shadows on the walls.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
- **Contrast**: peasants against father, faith against reason, communal noise against the mother's final quiet.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
## Themes and readings
The poem is usually taught as a contest between superstition and rationalism, set against the backdrop of rural Indian belief in karma, previous births, and spiritual purification through suffering.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) • [5](https://hslcguru.com/class-12-alternative-english-chapter-11/) The narrator, perhaps the poet himself, is skeptical that words alone can save his mother, but the peasants are permitted to work their verbal magic on the inert patient.[7](https://literariness.org/2025/06/23/analysis-of-nissim-ezekiels-night-of-the-scorpion/)
**Maternal love as the resolution.** The ending shifts the poem's center. The mother's utterance suggests the selflessness of the Indian mother, long evoked in traditional Indian epics and Hindu Vedic literature, and its matter-of-fact tone dispels the poem's earlier gravity with an anticlimactic, symbolic conclusion.[7](https://literariness.org/2025/06/23/analysis-of-nissim-ezekiels-night-of-the-scorpion/) The poet observes with detachment throughout, withholding his own emotion so that the peasants' world of superstition and the father's rationalism stand side by side without an open verdict.[6](https://www.indianenglishlit.com/2022/12/night-of-the-scorpion-summary-and-critical-analysis.html)
**Beyond the standard reading.** The poem's apparent simplicity, reinforced by its frequent use in school texts, has led some critics to read it only at the surface; a 2011 article by Santanu Ganguly in *Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities* proposed a reinterpretation that looks past the literal meaning, and the poem's simplicity has been compared to [William Blake](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-blake)'s, described there as skin-deep and hiding deeper meanings.[8](https://openurl.ebsco.com/contentitem/gcd%3A76974292?crl=f&id=ebsco%3Agcd%3A76974292&jrnl=09752935&sid=ebsco%3Aplink%3Acrawler-gcd) • [9](https://apjakgc.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ENGLISH_GG_Indian-English-Poetry.pdf) A 2025 comparative study placed the poem beside Kamala Das's "An Introduction", reading it as a narrative of collective response in which suffering is absorbed into communal ethics and inherited belief.[10](https://www.ierj.in/journal/index.php/ierj/article/view/5560)
## Place in Ezekiel's work
Nissim Ezekiel published *The Exact Name*, containing the poem, with [Writers Workshop](https://www.edgepedia.org/writers-workshop) in Calcutta in 1965, a 30-page collection of poems written between 1960 and 1964.[3](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3727066W/The_exact_name) His other collections include *A Time to Change* (1952), *The Unfinished Man* (1960), and *Hymns in Darkness* (1976); he received the [Sahitya Akademi Award](https://www.edgepedia.org/sahitya-akademi-award) in 1983 for *Latter-Day Psalms* and the [Padma Shri](https://www.edgepedia.org/padma-shri) in 1988.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/) • [2](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf) The poem remains in copyright, so the full text is read in authorized collections rather than reproduced freely.[1](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
## References
1. [Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel: Summary and Analysis, Literary Rides](https://literaryrides.com/learn/poetry/indian-english-poetry/nissim-ezekiel/night-of-the-scorpion/)
2. [Poems of Nissim Ezekiel (course material incl. full poem text), Dr Syed Hajira Begum, JSS College for Women](https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Department%20Files/Poems%20of%20Nissim%20Ezekiel_Dr%20Syed%20HajiraBegum.pdf)
3. [The exact name: poems 1960–1964, Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3727066W/The_exact_name)
4. [The Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel: Summary & Themes, Poem Analysis](https://poemanalysis.com/nissim-ezekiel/the-night-of-the-scorpion/0/)
5. [Class 12 Alternative English Chapter 11: Night of the Scorpion, HSLC Guru](https://hslcguru.com/class-12-alternative-english-chapter-11/)
6. [Night of the Scorpion, Summary and Critical Analysis, Indian English Lit](https://www.indianenglishlit.com/2022/12/night-of-the-scorpion-summary-and-critical-analysis.html)
7. [Analysis of Nissim Ezekiel's Night of the Scorpion, Literary Theory and Criticism](https://literariness.org/2025/06/23/analysis-of-nissim-ezekiels-night-of-the-scorpion/)
8. [Ganguly, Santanu (2011). In Flesh and Blood: Reinterpreting Ezekiel's "Night of the Scorpion", Rupkatha Journal](https://openurl.ebsco.com/contentitem/gcd%3A76974292?crl=f&id=ebsco%3Agcd%3A76974292&jrnl=09752935&sid=ebsco%3Aplink%3Acrawler-gcd)
9. [Indian English Poetry (course PDF), APJ Abdul Kalam Government College](https://apjakgc.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ENGLISH_GG_Indian-English-Poetry.pdf)
10. [Cultural Reflections in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel, IERJ](https://www.ierj.in/journal/index.php/ierj/article/view/5560)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Poetry works › Individual poems › Postwar twentieth-century poems (1945–1999)*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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