Chapter VII: Remarks on Avoiding Improper Attachments
A beautiful mistress will ruin your life;Go and make your home thriving by wedding a wife!It's improper to squander your love on a roseTo whom, ev'ry morning, a nightingale goes.Since, candle-like, ev'ry assembly she lit,Do not you, like a moth, round her flame further flit!Does the beautiful, affable woman adorned,Resemble the ignorant youth who is scorned?As a rosebud, fidelity breathe in her ear !And rose-like, all smiles, she will fall at your rear.But not so the stripling, wrapped up in his pride,Who resembles hard fruit that a stone can't divide.As a virgin of Paradise, view not his charms !He, too, has an aspect that ghoul-like alarms!If you kiss both his feet, he no care for you shows ;If you kiss, too, his dust, he no thankfulness knows.With your brains and your money you foolishly part,When to any man's child you surrender your heart.On another man's son, a bad look do not cast!For your own may return to you ruined, at last.
Words in this poem
- flit a.
- Nimble; quick; swift. See Fleet.
- rosebud n.
- The flower of a rose before it opens, or when but partially open.
- stripling n.
- A youth in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. [Dim. of strip; as if a small strip from the main stock or steam.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VII: Remarks on Avoiding Improper Attachments 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: Remarks on Avoiding Improper Attachments, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/7-29.html, id L29712.
Form and metre
Chapter VII: Remarks on Avoiding Improper Attachments is 20 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGBBHHII lifeA · wifeA · roseB · goesB · litC · flitC · adornedD · scornedD · earE · rearE · prideF · divideF · charmsG · alarmsG · showsB · knowsB · partH · heartH · castI · lastI
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 beautiful mistress will ruin your life; | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘·/˘·· |
| Go and make your home thriving by wedding a wife! | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘·· |
| It's improper to squander your love on a rose | 12 | ·˘/˘·/˘····· |
| To whom, ev'ry morning, a nightingale goes. | 11 | ····/˘·/˘˘· |
| Since, candle-like, ev'ry assembly she lit, | 11 | ·/˘···˘/˘·· |
| Do not you, like a moth, round her flame further flit! | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| Does the beautiful, affable woman adorned, | 12 | ··/˘˘/˘˘/˘˘/ |
| Resemble the ignorant youth who is scorned? | 12 | ˘/˘·/˘˘····˘ |
| As a rosebud, fidelity breathe in her ear ! | 12 | ··/˘·/˘˘···· |
| And rose-like, all smiles, she will fall at your rear. | 11 | ··········· |
| But not so the stripling, wrapped up in his pride, | 12 | ····/˘·˘···· |
| Who resembles hard fruit that a stone can't divide. | 12 | ·˘/˘······˘/ |
| As a virgin of Paradise, view not his charms ! | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| He, too, has an aspect that ghoul-like alarms! | 11 | ····/····˘/ |
| If you kiss both his feet, he no care for you shows ; | 12 | ············ |
| If you kiss, too, his dust, he no thankfulness knows. | 12 | ············ |
| With your brains and your money you foolishly part, | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘˘· |
| When to any man's child you surrender your heart. | 12 | ··/˘···˘/˘·· |
| On another man's son, a bad look do not cast! | 12 | ·˘/˘········ |
| For your own may return to you ruined, at last. | 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.