resource guide
Bishop Hatto
KS3PoetryBishop Hatto by Robert Southey
How it works / Students get a copy of the poem, a series of questions and a storyboard.Try this! / Get students engaged with the poem through the storyboarding activity. For a more detailed storyboard that helps students to make decisions about lighting, angles, music, etc, see FilmCreating a film noir. You can extend the activity by giving different groups of students their own section of the poem to prepare. After storyboarding it they could perform a series of freeze-frames, or they could film it. You might even let them use their own mobile phones for this. They would then be able to text each other their section of the poem-film.
Or this! / An alternative approach would be to give them the ‘Bishop Hatto’ storyboard electronically and ask them to cut and paste sections of the poem into the appropriate boxes and then to find images on the web to illustrate the lines.
Or this! / Better still, get them to do this in a series of PowerPoint slides. If you want them to do it for homework then suggest they use BT’s Photo-movie tool, which is a handy, serviceable alternative to PowerPoint.
Or this! / Even better still, do a series of PowerPoint slides that each have a film of part of the poem, accompanied by a sound file of a student reading the appropriate section.
Or this! / Work on a number of other poems by Southey. He is underrated but engaging. Try ‘Inchcape Rock’ and ‘The Battle of Blenheim’.
Richard Durant
2007 - 7816
BISHOP HATTORobert Southey
The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet:
’Twas a piteous site to see, all around,
The grain lie rotting on the ground.
Every day the starving poor
Crowded around Bishop Hatto’s door;
For he had a plentiful last-year’s store,
And all the neighborhood could tell
His granaries were furnished well.
At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the poor without delay;
He bade them to his great barn repair,
And they should have food for winter there.
Rejoiced such tidings good to hear,
The poor folk flocked from far and near;
The great barn was full as it could hold
Of women and children, and young and old.
Then, when he saw it could hold no more,
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;
And, while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the barn, and burnt them all.
“I’ faith, ’tis an excellent bonfire!” quoth he;
“And the country is greatly obliged to me
For ridding it, in these times forlorn,
Of rats that only consume the corn.”
So then to his palace returned he,
And sat down to supper merrily,
And he slept that night like an innocent man;
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.
In the morning, as he entered the hall,
Where his picture hung against the wall,
A sweat like death all over him came,
For the rats had eaten it out of the frame.
As he looked, there came a man from his farm-
He had a countenance white with alarm:
“My Lord, I opened your granaries this morn,
And the rats had eaten all your corn.”
Another came running presently,
And he was pale as pale could be.
“Fly! My Lord Bishop, fly!” quoth he,
“Ten thousand rats are coming this way-
The Lord forgive you for yesterday!”
“I’ll go to my tower in the Rhine,” replied he;
“’Tis the safest place in Germany-
The walls are high, the shores are steep,
And the tide is strong, and the water deep.”
Bishop Hatto fearfully hastened away,
And he crossed the Rhine without delay,
And he reached his tower, and barred with care
All the windows, and doors, and loop-holes there.
He laid down and closed his eyes,
But soon a scream made him arise;
He started, and saw two eyes of flame
On his pillow, from whence the screaming came.
He listened and looked-it was only a cat;
But the Bishop he grew more fearful for that,
For she sat screaming, mad with fear,
At the army of rats that was drawing near.
For they have swum over the river so deep,
And they had climbed the shores so steep,
And now by the thousands up they crawl
To the holes and the windows in the wall.
Down on his knees the Bishop fell,
And faster and faster his beads did he tell,
As louder and louder, drawing near,
The saw of their teeth without he could hear.
And in at the windows, and in at the door,
And through the walls by thousands they pour;
And down from the ceiling and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before,
From within and without, from above and below-
And all at once to the Bishop they go.
They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the Bishop’s bones;
They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him!
ABOUT BISHOP HATTO
Archbishop of Mainz, according to tradition, was devoured by mice. The story says that in 970 there was a great famine in Germany, and Hatto, that there might be better store for the rich, assembled the poor in a barn, and burnt them to death, saying, “They are like mice, only good to devour the corn.” By and by an army of mice came against the arch bishop, and the abbot, to escape the plague, removed to a tower on the Rhine, but hither came the mouse-army by hundreds and thousands, and ate the bishop up. The tower is still called Mouse - tower. Southey has a ballad on the subject, but makes the invaders an army of rats.
“And in at the windows, and in at the door,
And through the walls by thousands they pour.
And down through the ceiling, and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before.
From within and without, from above and below,
And all at once to the bishop they go.
They have wetted their teeth against the stones.
And now they are picking the bishop’s bones;
They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him.”
A very similar legend is told of Count Graaf, a wicked and powerful chief, who raised a tower in the midst of the Rhine for the purpose of exacting tolls. If any boat or barge attempted to evade the exaction, the warders of the tower shot the crew with cross-bows. Amongst other ways of making himself rich was buying up corn. One year a sad famine prevailed, and the count made a harvest of the distress; but an army of rats, pressed by hunger, invaded his tower, and falling on the old baron, worried him to death, and then devoured him. (Legends of the Rhine.)
Widerolf, bishop of Strasburg (in 997), was devoured by mice in the seventeenth year of his episcopate, because he suppressed the convent of Seltzen, on the Rhine.
Bishop Adolf of Cologne was devoured by mice or rats in 1112.
Frei herr von Güttengen collected the poor in a great barn, and burnt them to death; and being invaded by rats and mice, ran to his castle of Güttingen. The vermin, however, pursued him and ate him clean to the bones, after which his castle sank to the bottom of the lake, “where it may still be seen.”
E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
BISHOP HATTO
Answer the following questions in your books (do not copy out the question, write in full sentences, make sure each part of the question is answered fully):
- Explain what is happening to the poor people in the first two stanzas.
- Why do these people turn to Bishop Hatto?
- Explain what Bishop Hatto does and his motives for doing so; support your answer with a quote from the poem.
- What effect does the line "But Bishop Hatto never slept again" in stanza7 have on you as the reader?
- What different reasons are there for why the rats have eaten the Bishop's picture?
- Why does the Bishop behave as he does after the rats consume his corn?
- What meanings might the line "...saw two eyes of flame" in stanza 13 have?
- What reasons might there be for the poet to include the cat being frightened of the rats?
- What is suggested by the line "To do the work for which they were sent" in stanza 15?
- Write a paragraph to explain what you think of the man Bishop Hatto.
- What happens to the pace and mood of the poem as it reaches the end?
- What examples of religious imagery can you find - give examples from the poem and explain why they are used.
- What makes "Bishop Hatto" a mysterious and supernatural poem?
- Write a paragraph outlining your own views about the poem (do you like it; favourite parts; moral behind the story; compare it to other poems, etc...).
© 2004 1 of 5
STORY BOARD - BISHOP HATTO NAME: ......
The summer and the autumn had been so wet...'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground
© 2004 3507.docPage 1 of 5