Chapter III: Story of the Flute-player
A sugar-lipped youth on a flute could so play,That like reeds in the fire tender hearts burned away.His father would frequently scold him in ire,And set the soft flute that offended on fire.To his son's sweet performance he listened one night;The music perplexed and confounded him, quite.He was saying, while sweat down his face trickled free,"The flute has, at last, raised a burning in me!"You know not why rapturous men, in a trance,Keep snapping their fingers whenever they dance?A door opens wide by God's grace in their mind,And their fingers they snap at all human in kind.They may lawfully dance in the thought of the Friend,For each of their sleeves does a soul comprehend.I admit that in swimming you're clever and neat,And when nude can strike out with your hands and your feet.Let the robes of deceit, name and fame be dispersed !For a man becomes weak if in garments immersed.Worldly love is a veil by which nothing is gained;When you snap the attachments, the Lord is obtained.
Words in this poem
- snapping
- a. & n. from Snap, v. Snapping beetle. (Zoöl.) See Snap beetle, under Snap.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter III: Story of the Flute-player 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 Flute-player, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/3-27.html, id L29619.
Form and metre
Chapter III: Story of the Flute-player is 20 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ playA · awayA · ireB · fireB · nightC · quiteC · freeD · meD · tranceE · danceE · mindF · kindF · friendG · comprehendG · neatH · feetH · dispersedI · immersedI · gainedJ · obtainedJ
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 sugar-lipped youth on a flute could so play, | 12 | ·/˘·˘······· |
| That like reeds in the fire tender hearts burned away. | 12 | ·····//˘··˘/ |
| His father would frequently scold him in ire, | 11 | ·/˘·/˘˘···· |
| And set the soft flute that offended on fire. | 12 | ······˘/˘·/˘ |
| To his son's sweet performance he listened one night; | 12 | ····˘/˘·/˘·· |
| The music perplexed and confounded him, quite. | 12 | ·/˘˘/˘·˘/˘·· |
| He was saying, while sweat down his face trickled free, | 12 | ··/˘·····/˘· |
| "The flute has, at last, raised a burning in me!" | 12 | ······˘·/˘·· |
| You know not why rapturous men, in a trance, | 11 | ····/˘˘···· |
| Keep snapping their fingers whenever they dance? | 11 | ·/˘·/˘˘/˘·· |
| A door opens wide by God's grace in their mind, | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| And their fingers they snap at all human in kind. | 12 | ··/˘····/˘·· |
| They may lawfully dance in the thought of the Friend, | 12 | ··/˘˘······· |
| For each of their sleeves does a soul comprehend. | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| I admit that in swimming you're clever and neat, | 12 | ·˘/··/˘·/˘·· |
| And when nude can strike out with your hands and your feet. | 12 | ············ |
| Let the robes of deceit, name and fame be dispersed ! | 12 | ····˘/····˘/ |
| For a man becomes weak if in garments immersed. | 12 | ···˘/···/˘˘/ |
| Worldly love is a veil by which nothing is gained; | 12 | /˘······/˘·· |
| When you snap the attachments, the Lord is obtained. | 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.