Chapter V: Story of the Lost Dinar
A Dinar, I have heard, from a needy man fell,And the poor fellow searched all around for it well.His head in despair he averted at last;It was found by another, unsought for, who passed.With good and bad fortune the pen travelled round,And we in the womb of the mother still bound.Mankind by their strength daily food do not eat,For the strong, the most needy, you often will meet !
Words in this poem
- dinar n.
- A petty money of accounts of Persia. [Ar. d, from Gr. denarius. See Denier.]
- averted a.
- Turned away, esp. as an expression of feeling; also, offended; unpropitious.
- womb n.
- The belly; the abdomen. [OE. wombe, wambe, AS. wamb, womb; akin to D. wam belly, OS. & OHG. wamba, G. wamme, wampe, Icel. vömb, Sw. v&mb, Dan. vom, Goth. wamba.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter V: Story of the Lost Dinar 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 Lost Dinar, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/5-7.html, id L29658.
Form and metre
Chapter V: Story of the Lost Dinar is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 AABBCCDD fellA · wellA · lastB · passedB · roundC · boundC · eatD · meetD
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 Dinar, I have heard, from a needy man fell, | 12 | ·˘/·····/˘·· |
| And the poor fellow searched all around for it well. | 12 | ···/˘······· |
| His head in despair he averted at last; | 11 | ···˘/·˘/˘·· |
| It was found by another, unsought for, who passed. | 12 | ····˘/˘····· |
| With good and bad fortune the pen travelled round, | 12 | ····/˘··/˘˘· |
| And we in the womb of the mother still bound. | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Mankind by their strength daily food do not eat, | 11 | //···/˘···· |
| For the strong, the most needy, you often will meet ! | 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.