Chapter VII: Story of the Youth and his Saintly Admirers
Some admirers are seated around a fair lad,Saying, "Saintly are we and in holiness clad."Ask me !—from the wearing of time in decay—For a "faster" regrets, when he sees the stored tray.The goat, with the date-stones his appetite sates,For a lock and a chain guard the sack, full of dates.The oil-presser's ox, upon straw has to feed,For a tether prevents him from touching the seed.
Words in this poem
- saintly a.
- Like a saint; becoming a holy person.
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- tether n.
- A long rope or chain by which an animal is fastened, as to a stake, so that it can range or feed only within certain limits. [Formerly tedder, OE. tedir; akin to LG. tider, tier, Icel. tjo, Dan. töir. *64.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VII: Story of the Youth and his Saintly Admirers 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 Youth and his Saintly Admirers, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/7-31.html, id L29714.
Form and metre
Chapter VII: Story of the Youth and his Saintly Admirers 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 91%).
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 AABBCCDD ladA · cladA · decayB · trayB · satesC · datesC · feedD · seedD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Some admirers are seated around a fair lad, | 12 | ·˘/˘·/˘····· |
| Saying, "Saintly are we and in holiness clad." | 12 | /˘/˘····/˘˘· |
| Ask me !—from the wearing of time in decay— | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
| For a "faster" regrets, when he sees the stored tray. | 12 | ··/˘˘/······ |
| The goat, with the date-stones his appetite sates, | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| For a lock and a chain guard the sack, full of dates. | 12 | ············ |
| The oil-presser's ox, upon straw has to feed, | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| For a tether prevents him from touching the seed. | 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.