Chapter VI: Story of the Good Man and his House
I have heard that a man who was good and upright,For himself built a dwelling becoming his height.Some one said, "I'm aware that with means you're suppliedTo build a house statelier." "Stop !" he replied ;"What desire for arched ceilings comes into my mind?This same is sufficient, for leaving behind."In the way of a flood, oh youth, build not a seat !For to no one was such a house ever complete.It's against sense and reason and knowledge of God,That a trav'ller should build up an inn on the road.
About this text
Chapter VI: Story of the Good Man and his House 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 VI: Story of the Good Man and his House, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/6-13.html, id L29680.
Form and metre
Chapter VI: Story of the Good Man and his House 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 95%).
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 AABBCCDDEE uprightA · heightA · suppliedB · repliedB · mindC · behindC · seatD · completeD · godE · roadE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I have heard that a man who was good and upright, | 12 | ··········˘/ |
| For himself built a dwelling becoming his height. | 12 | ·˘/··/˘˘/˘·· |
| Some one said, "I'm aware that with means you're supplied | 12 | ····˘/····˘/ |
| To build a house statelier." "Stop !" he replied ; | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| "What desire for arched ceilings comes into my mind? | 12 | ·˘/··/˘····· |
| This same is sufficient, for leaving behind." | 11 | ···˘/˘·/˘·· |
| In the way of a flood, oh youth, build not a seat ! | 12 | ············ |
| For to no one was such a house ever complete. | 12 | ········/˘˘/ |
| It's against sense and reason and knowledge of God, | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘·· |
| That a trav'ller should build up an inn on the road. | 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.