Chapter V: Story of the Mountain Monk
Don't you know what a chief of the mountain monks spakeTo the man, who for fame ev'ry night kept awake?"Oh soul of your father, in purity strive !For you cannot from people advantage derive.Those men who in love with your actions have been,Have only your outward appearance yet seen.What price will a Houri-like maiden bring in,Who beneath her fine dress has a foul, leprous skin?You cannot in Heav'n by deceit get a place,For the veil will retire from your sinister face."
Words in this poem
- derive v. t.
- To turn the course of, as water; to divert and distribute into subordinate channels; to diffuse; to communicate; to transmit; -- followed by to, into, on, upon. [F. dériver, L. derivare; de- + rivus stream, brook. See Rival.]
- houri n.
- A nymph of paradise; -- so called by the Mohammedans. [Per. huri, hura, hur; akin to Ar. hur, pl. of ahwar beautiful-eyed, black-eyed.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter V: Story of the Mountain Monk 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 V: Story of the Mountain Monk, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/5-15.html, id L29666.
Form and metre
Chapter V: Story of the Mountain Monk 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 96%).
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 AABBCCCCDD spakeA · awakeA · striveB · deriveB · beenC · seenC · inC · skinC · placeD · faceD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Don't you know what a chief of the mountain monks spake | 12 | ········/˘·· |
| To the man, who for fame ev'ry night kept awake? | 12 | ··········˘/ |
| "Oh soul of your father, in purity strive ! | 11 | ····/˘·/˘˘· |
| For you cannot from people advantage derive. | 12 | ··˘/·/˘˘/˘˘/ |
| Those men who in love with your actions have been, | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Have only your outward appearance yet seen. | 11 | ·/˘·/˘˘/˘·· |
| What price will a Houri-like maiden bring in, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| Who beneath her fine dress has a foul, leprous skin? | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| You cannot in Heav'n by deceit get a place, | 11 | ·/˘···˘/··· |
| For the veil will retire from your sinister face." | 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.