Heine's "Widow or Daughter?"
Shall I woo the one or other?Both attract me--more's the pity!Pretty is the widowed mother,And the daughter, too, is pretty.
When I see that maiden shrinking,By the gods I swear I'll get 'er!But anon I fall to thinkingThat the mother 'll suit me better!
So, like any idiot assHungry for the fragrant fodder,Placed between two bales of grass,Lo, I doubt, delay, and dodder!
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- anon adv.
- Straightway; at once. [OE. anoon, anon, anan, lit., in one (moment), fr. AS. on in + an one. See On and One.]
- idiot n.
- A man in private station, as distinguished from one holding a public office. [F. idiot, L. idiota an uneducated, ignorant, ill- informed person, Gr. Idiom.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Heine's "Widow or Daughter?" is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Little Book of Western Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #9606; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eugene Field, Heine's "Widow or Daughter?", in A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9606, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-western-verse/heine-s-widow-or-daughter.html, id L24640.
Form and metre
Heine's "Widow or Daughter?" is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB otherA · pityB · motherA · prettyB
- 2 A-A- shrinkingA · er · thinkingA · better
- 3 ABAB assA · fodderB · grassA · dodderB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Shall I woo the one or other? | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Both attract me--more's the pity! | 9 | ·˘/·/··/˘ |
| Pretty is the widowed mother, | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| And the daughter, too, is pretty. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| When I see that maiden shrinking, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| By the gods I swear I'll get 'er! | 8 | ········ |
| But anon I fall to thinking | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
| That the mother 'll suit me better! | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| So, like any idiot ass | 8 | ··/˘/˘˘· |
| Hungry for the fragrant fodder, | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Placed between two bales of grass, | 8 | ·˘······ |
| Lo, I doubt, delay, and dodder! | 8 | ···˘/·/˘ |
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.