Chapter III: Story of the Reply of the Maniac
Some one wrote to a person demented, like this :"Do you wish to see Hell or to gain Heav'nly bliss ?""Do not ask me concerning this point !" he replied;"I'll be pleased with whichever the Lord may decide !"
Words in this poem
- wrote v. i.
- To root with the snout. See 1st Root. [OE. wroten. See 1st Root.]
- demented a.
- Insane; mad; of unsound mind. [From Dement.]
- whichever pron.
- Whether one or another; whether one or the other; which; that one (of two or more) which; as, whichever road you take, it will lead you to town.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter III: Story of the Reply of the Maniac 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 III: Story of the Reply of the Maniac, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/3-16.html, id L29608.
Form and metre
Chapter III: Story of the Reply of the Maniac is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in anapaestic tetrameter.
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 thisA · blissA · repliedB · decideB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Some one wrote to a person demented, like this : | 12 | ·····/˘˘/˘·· |
| "Do you wish to see Hell or to gain Heav'nly bliss ?" | 12 | ············ |
| "Do not ask me concerning this point !" he replied; | 12 | ····˘/˘···˘/ |
| "I'll be pleased with whichever the Lord may decide !" | 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.