Chapter IX: Story of Jamshed and his Deceased Mistress
Jamshed had a favourite mistress who died ;A shroud, like the silkworm's, of silk he supplied.To her tomb, in a little time after, he went,With fervour to weep o'er her corpse and lament.When he saw that decay through her silk shroud had spread,Absorbed in deep thought, to himself he thus said :"I removed from the silkworm this substance by force ;The worms of the grave take it back from her corse.In this garden the cypress attains no great height,Ere the fierce wind of Fate roots it up from its site.Fate no picture with Joseph like beauty has hatched,That, like Jonah, the fish of the grave has not snatched."
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- fervour n.
- Heat; excessive warmth. [OF. fervor, fervour, F. ferveur, L. fervor, fr. fervere. See Fervent.]
- corpse n.
- A human body in general, whether living or dead; -- sometimes contemptuosly. [OF. cors (sometimes written corps), F. corps, L. corpus; akin to AS. hrif womb. See Midriff, and cf. Corse, Corselet, Corps, Cuerpo.]
- corse n.
- A living body or its bulk. [OF. cors, F. corps. See Corpse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter IX: Story of Jamshed and his Deceased Mistress 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 IX: Story of Jamshed and his Deceased Mistress, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/9-7.html, id L29741.
Form and metre
Chapter IX: Story of Jamshed and his Deceased Mistress 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 96%).
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 diedA · suppliedA · wentB · lamentB · spreadC · saidC · forceD · corseD · heightE · siteE · hatchedF · snatchedF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jamshed had a favourite mistress who died ; | 11 | ·˘·····/˘·· |
| A shroud, like the silkworm's, of silk he supplied. | 11 | ····/····˘/ |
| To her tomb, in a little time after, he went, | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| With fervour to weep o'er her corpse and lament. | 11 | ·/˘······˘/ |
| When he saw that decay through her silk shroud had spread, | 12 | ····˘/······ |
| Absorbed in deep thought, to himself he thus said : | 12 | ˘/˘····˘/··· |
| "I removed from the silkworm this substance by force ; | 12 | ·˘/··/˘·/˘·· |
| The worms of the grave take it back from her corse. | 11 | ··········· |
| In this garden the cypress attains no great height, | 12 | ··/˘·/˘˘/··· |
| Ere the fierce wind of Fate roots it up from its site. | 12 | ············ |
| Fate no picture with Joseph like beauty has hatched, | 12 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| That, like Jonah, the fish of the grave has not snatched." | 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.