Chapter IV: Story of the Good Man seen in a Dream
A beneficent man who a good nature had,Spoke kindly of people whose natures were bad.After death, by a man in a dream he was seen,Who said, " Kindly tell what your trials have been?"A mouth like a rose, smiling sweetly, ope'd wide;In a voice like the nightingale's notes, he replied :"They did not address me with harshness of tone,For harshness to any I never had shown."
Words in this poem
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter IV: Story of the Good Man seen in a Dream 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 IV: Story of the Good Man seen in a Dream, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/4-29.html, id L29650.
Form and metre
Chapter IV: Story of the Good Man seen in a Dream is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 AA--BBCC hadA · badA · seen · been · wideB · repliedB · toneC · shownC
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 beneficent man who a good nature had, | 12 | ··˘/˘····/˘· |
| Spoke kindly of people whose natures were bad. | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| After death, by a man in a dream he was seen, | 12 | ············ |
| Who said, " Kindly tell what your trials have been?" | 11 | ··/˘···/˘·· |
| A mouth like a rose, smiling sweetly, ope'd wide; | 11 | ·····/˘/˘·· |
| In a voice like the nightingale's notes, he replied : | 11 | ·····/˘··˘/ |
| "They did not address me with harshness of tone, | 11 | ···/···/˘·· |
| For harshness to any I never had shown." | 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.