Chapter VII: Story on Backbiting and Robbery
A person remarked, and I thought it was good,That better than backbiting, robbery stood.I replied, "Oh companion, with intellect crazed!At hearing you talk, I am greatly amazed!What good do you see in a criminal case,That you higher than backbiting give it a place?""Very well!" he replied, "thieves show rashness, enough ;By the strength of their manhood their stomachs they stuff.But not, so, the backbiting, meritless wight;Who blackened his book and secured no delight !"
Words in this poem
- backbiting n.
- Secret slander; detraction.
- rashness n.
- The quality of state of being rash.
- wight n.
- A whit; a bit; a jot. [OE. wight, wiht, a wight, a whit, AS. wiht, wuht, a creature, a thing; skin to D. wicht a child, OS. & OHG. wiht a creature, thing, G. wicht a creature, Icel. v]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VII: Story on Backbiting and Robbery 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 VII: Story on Backbiting and Robbery, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/7-14.html, id L29697.
Form and metre
Chapter VII: Story on Backbiting and Robbery 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 AABBCCDDEE goodA · stoodA · crazedB · amazedB · caseC · placeC · enoughD · stuffD · wightE · delightE
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 person remarked, and I thought it was good, | 11 | ·/˘˘/······ |
| That better than backbiting, robbery stood. | 11 | ·/˘·/·˘/˘˘· |
| I replied, "Oh companion, with intellect crazed! | 12 | ·˘/·˘/˘·/˘·· |
| At hearing you talk, I am greatly amazed! | 11 | ·/˘····/˘˘/ |
| What good do you see in a criminal case, | 11 | ·······/˘˘· |
| That you higher than backbiting give it a place?" | 11 | ··/·/·˘···· |
| "Very well!" he replied, "thieves show rashness, enough ; | 12 | /˘··˘/··/˘˘/ |
| By the strength of their manhood their stomachs they stuff. | 12 | ·····/··/˘·· |
| But not, so, the backbiting, meritless wight; | 11 | ····/·˘/˘˘· |
| Who blackened his book and secured no delight !" | 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.