Chapter VII: Story of the Robber and the Grocer
A robber came out of the desert one day,And passed by the gate of Sistan, on his way.From a grocer, who tended a stall in the street,He purchased some victuals and dainties, to eat.The grocer purloined from him half of a " Dang";The thief, of dark deeds, thus commenced to harangue:"Consume Thou ! oh God! the night-robber, I pray !For the Sistani robs in the broad light of day."
Words in this poem
- grocer n.
- A trader who deals in tea, sugar, spices, coffee, fruits, and various other commodities. Grocer's itch (Med.), a disease of the akin, caused by handling sugar and treacle. [Formerly written grosser, orig., one who sells by the gross, or deals by wholesale, fr. F. grossier, marchand grossier, fr. gros large, great. See Gross.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VII: Story of the Robber and the Grocer 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 of the Robber and the Grocer, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/7-22.html, id L29705.
Form and metre
Chapter VII: Story of the Robber and the Grocer 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 97%).
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 AABBCCAA dayA · wayA · streetB · eatB · dangC · harangueC · prayA · dayA
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 robber came out of the desert one day, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘·· |
| And passed by the gate of Sistan, on his way. | 11 | ··········· |
| From a grocer, who tended a stall in the street, | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| He purchased some victuals and dainties, to eat. | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| The grocer purloined from him half of a " Dang"; | 11 | ·/˘˘/······ |
| The thief, of dark deeds, thus commenced to harangue: | 11 | ······˘/·˘/ |
| "Consume Thou ! oh God! the night-robber, I pray ! | 11 | ˘/·····/˘·· |
| For the Sistani robs in the broad light of day." | 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.