Chapter VII: Story of a Convivial Party
In my quarter one night an invitement was made ;Men assembled of ev'ry description and shade.When the voice of the minstrel arose from the street,With shouts of approval the sky was replete.To a fairy-faced maiden—a sweetheart of mine—I said, "Oh my beautiful idol, divine !Why do you not join the young men here to-night,And, candle-like, give to our gathering light ?"I heard the erect, silver-bodied one sayIn sweet tones to herself, as she glided away :"I'm not graced, like a man, with a beard and moustache,So, for me to carouse with young men would be rash."
Words in this poem
- invitement n.
- Invitation. Chapman.
- replete a.
- Filled again; completely filled; full; charged; abounding. [L. repletus, p. p. of replere to fill again, fill up; pref. re- re- + plere to fill, akin to plenus full: cf. F. replet corpulent. See Plenty, Replenish.]
- idol n.
- An image or representation of anything. [OE. idole, F. idole, L. idolum, fr. Gr. Wit, and cf. Eidolon.]
- graced a.
- Endowed with grace; beautiful; full of graces; honorable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VII: Story of a Convivial Party 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 a Convivial Party, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/7-28.html, id L29711.
Form and metre
Chapter VII: Story of a Convivial Party is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFF madeA · shadeA · streetB · repleteB · mineC · divineC · nightD · lightD · sayE · awayE · moustacheF · rashF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In my quarter one night an invitement was made ; | 12 | ··/˘···˘/˘·· |
| Men assembled of ev'ry description and shade. | 12 | ·˘/˘···˘/˘·· |
| When the voice of the minstrel arose from the street, | 12 | ·····/˘˘/··· |
| With shouts of approval the sky was replete. | 11 | ···˘/˘···˘/ |
| To a fairy-faced maiden—a sweetheart of mine— | 12 | ··/˘·/˘·/··· |
| I said, "Oh my beautiful idol, divine ! | 11 | ····/˘˘/˘˘/ |
| Why do you not join the young men here to-night, | 11 | ··········· |
| And, candle-like, give to our gathering light ?" | 12 | ·/˘···/˘/˘˘· |
| I heard the erect, silver-bodied one say | 11 | ···˘//˘/˘·· |
| In sweet tones to herself, as she glided away : | 12 | ····˘/··/˘˘/ |
| "I'm not graced, like a man, with a beard and moustache, | 12 | ··········/· |
| So, for me to carouse with young men would be rash." | 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.