Female Inconstancy
My mistresse sayes she'll marry none but me;No, not if Jove himself a suitor be.She sayes so; but what women say to kindLovers, we write in rapid streams and wind.
Words in this poem
- jove n.
- The chief divinity of the ancient Romans; Jupiter. [L. Jupiter, gen. Jovis, OL. Jovis, nom. & gen. for Djovis; akin to E. Tuesday. See Tuesday, and cf. Jupiter.]
- suitor n.
- One who sues, petitions, or entreats; a petitioner; an applicant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Female Inconstancy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lucasta, Project Gutenberg ebook #703; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Richard Lovelace, Female Inconstancy, in Lucasta (1649), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #703, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lovelace-lucasta/female-inconstancy.html, id L13102.
Form and metre
Female Inconstancy is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AABB meA · beA · kindB · windB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My mistresse sayes she'll marry none but me; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| No, not if Jove himself a suitor be. | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| She sayes so; but what women say to kind | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Lovers, we write in rapid streams and wind. | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
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.