Chapter VIII: Story on Making a Good Use of the Tongue
A man rubbed the ears of a boy very hard,Saying, "Frivolous talker ! with fortune ill-starred !I gave you an axe to cut firewood up fine;I said not, ' The wall of the mosque undermine!'"The tongue to give thanks and to praise with you got;For to backbite, the grateful man uses it not.The Koran and advice have their way through the ear ;False accusing and falsehood, take care not to hear!Two eyes, for beholding God's wonders, are well,Not on faults of a friend or a brother to dwell.
Words in this poem
- backbite v. i.
- To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (as absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). [2nd back, n., + bite]
- beholding a.
- Obliged; beholden.
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter VIII: Story on Making a Good Use of the Tongue 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 on Making a Good Use of the Tongue, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/8-6.html, id L29724.
Form and metre
Chapter VIII: Story on Making a Good Use of the Tongue is 10 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 AABBCCDDEE hardA · starredA · fineB · undermineB · gotC · notC · earD · hearD · wellE · dwellE
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 man rubbed the ears of a boy very hard, | 12 | ···˘·····/˘· |
| Saying, "Frivolous talker ! with fortune ill-starred ! | 12 | /˘/˘˘/˘·/˘·· |
| I gave you an axe to cut firewood up fine; | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
| I said not, ' The wall of the mosque undermine!'" | 11 | ········/˘· |
| The tongue to give thanks and to praise with you got; | 11 | ··········· |
| For to backbite, the grateful man uses it not. | 12 | ··/··/˘·/˘·· |
| The Koran and advice have their way through the ear ; | 12 | ·˘/·˘/······ |
| False accusing and falsehood, take care not to hear! | 12 | ·˘/˘·/······ |
| Two eyes, for beholding God's wonders, are well, | 11 | ···˘/˘·/˘·· |
| Not on faults of a friend or a brother to dwell. | 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.