Chapter I: On the Transitoriness of the World
The world is a realm that is transient, oh son !Do not hope for fidelity here, for there's none !Did not Solomon's throne, on the wind swiftly fly,Both morning and ev'ning (on him safety lie!),And have you not seen that it vanished at last?Happy he, who with knowledge and justice has passed!From the centre, the man bore Prosperity's ball,Who laboured to comfort the great and the small.The people were useful who held the fruit fast ;Not those who collected and left it, at last.
Words in this poem
- centre v. i.
- To be placed in a center; to be central.
- laboured a.
- Bearing marks of labor and effort; elaborately wrought; not easy or natural; as, labored poetry; a labored style.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter I: On the Transitoriness of the World is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Garden of Fragrance: being a complete translation of the Bostan of Sadi from the original Persian into English verse, by G. S. Davie (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1882), Internet Archive, the G. S. Davie translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Saadi, Chapter I: On the Transitoriness of the World, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/1-34.html, id L29539.
Form and metre
Chapter I: On the Transitoriness of the World is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCCDDCC sonA · noneA · flyB · lieB · lastC · passedC · ballD · smallD · fastC · lastC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The world is a realm that is transient, oh son ! | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Do not hope for fidelity here, for there's none ! | 11 | ····˘/˘···· |
| Did not Solomon's throne, on the wind swiftly fly, | 11 | ··/˘····/˘· |
| Both morning and ev'ning (on him safety lie!), | 11 | ·/˘·····/˘· |
| And have you not seen that it vanished at last? | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Happy he, who with knowledge and justice has passed! | 12 | /˘···/˘·/˘·· |
| From the centre, the man bore Prosperity's ball, | 11 | ··/˘···˘/˘· |
| Who laboured to comfort the great and the small. | 11 | ·/˘·/˘····· |
| The people were useful who held the fruit fast ; | 11 | ·/˘·/˘····· |
| Not those who collected and left it, at last. | 11 | ···˘/˘····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.