Chapter VIII: Story of the Poor Man and his Skin Coat
One, naked, a direm by borrowing got,And a coat of raw hide, as a cov'ring, he bought.Shedding tears, he exclaimed, "Headstrong fortune, self-willed !Beneath this raw hide in a warm bath I'm grilled!"While the fool, under torture, was fuming away,From a dungeon one said to him, "Silence, I pray!You ought to give thanks to the Giver divine,That your limbs are not fastened with thongs, like to mine !"
Words in this poem
- dungeon n.
- A close, dark prison, commondonjon or keep of a castle, these being used as prisons. [OE. donjoun highest tower of a castle, tower, prison, F. donjon tower or platform in the midst of a castle, turret, or closet on the top of a house, a keep of a]
- ought p. p.
- Was or were under obligation to pay; owed. [Orig. the preterit of the verb to owe. OE. oughte, aughte, ahte, AS. ahte. sq. root110. See Owe.]
- giver n.
- One who gives; a donor; a bestower; a grantor; one who imparts or distributes.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VIII: Story of the Poor Man and his Skin Coat 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 VIII: Story of the Poor Man and his Skin Coat, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/8-10.html, id L29728.
Form and metre
Chapter VIII: Story of the Poor Man and his Skin Coat 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 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 AABBCCDD gotA · boughtA · willedB · grilledB · awayC · prayC · divineD · mineD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| One, naked, a direm by borrowing got, | 12 | ·/˘˘····/˘˘· |
| And a coat of raw hide, as a cov'ring, he bought. | 12 | ············ |
| Shedding tears, he exclaimed, "Headstrong fortune, self-willed ! | 12 | /˘··˘//·/˘·· |
| Beneath this raw hide in a warm bath I'm grilled!" | 12 | ···········˘ |
| While the fool, under torture, was fuming away, | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘˘/ |
| From a dungeon one said to him, "Silence, I pray! | 12 | ··/˘····/˘·· |
| You ought to give thanks to the Giver divine, | 11 | ·······/˘˘/ |
| That your limbs are not fastened with thongs, like to mine !" | 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.