Chapter I: Story of a Madman
A madman in Persia, the following saidTo Cyrus : "Oh heir, of the realm of Jamshed!If kingdom and fortune with Jam had remained,The crown and the throne, when would you have obtained?If the wealth of Karun you were able to save,It remains not; you take what in bounty you gave."
Words in this poem
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- bounty n.
- Goodness, kindness; virtue; worth. [OE. bounte goodness, kindness, F. bonté, fr. L. bonitas, fr. bonus good, for older duonus; cf. Skr. duvas honor, respect.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter I: Story of a Madman 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: Story of a Madman, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/1-37.html, id L29542.
Form and metre
Chapter I: Story of a Madman is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
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 --AABB said · jamshed · remainedA · obtainedA · saveB · gaveB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A madman in Persia, the following said | 11 | ·/··/˘·/˘˘· |
| To Cyrus : "Oh heir, of the realm of Jamshed! | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| If kingdom and fortune with Jam had remained, | 11 | ·/˘·/˘···˘/ |
| The crown and the throne, when would you have obtained? | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| If the wealth of Karun you were able to save, | 12 | ····˘/··/˘·· |
| It remains not; you take what in bounty you gave." | 12 | ·˘/·····/˘·· |
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.