Chapter VI: Story of the Holy Man and the Sugar-cane
One had pieces of sugar-cane heaped on a plate,And went hither and thither, on buyers to wait.In the village he said to a God-fearing man :"Take a little and pay me the price when you can !"The sage of good origin gave, on his part,An answer that ought to be graved on the heart:"Perhaps you might fail to have patience with me ;But without sugar-cane I can very well be.The sugar in cane can no sweetness possess,When bitter exacting must after it press."
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- ought p. p.
- Was or were under obligation to pay; owed. [Orig. the preterit of the verb to owe. OE. oughte, aughte, ahte, AS. ahte. sq. root110. See Owe.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VI: Story of the Holy Man and the Sugar-cane 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 Holy Man and the Sugar-cane, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/6-7.html, id L29674.
Form and metre
Chapter VI: Story of the Holy Man and the Sugar-cane 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 94%).
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 plateA · waitA · manB · canB · partC · heartC · meD · beD · possessE · pressE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| One had pieces of sugar-cane heaped on a plate, | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| And went hither and thither, on buyers to wait. | 12 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| In the village he said to a God-fearing man : | 12 | ··/˘·····/˘· |
| "Take a little and pay me the price when you can !" | 12 | ··/˘········ |
| The sage of good origin gave, on his part, | 11 | ····/˘˘···· |
| An answer that ought to be graved on the heart: | 12 | ·/˘·····˘··· |
| "Perhaps you might fail to have patience with me ; | 11 | ˘/·····/˘·· |
| But without sugar-cane I can very well be. | 12 | ···/˘···/˘·· |
| The sugar in cane can no sweetness possess, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘˘/ |
| When bitter exacting must after it press." | 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.