On Being a Woman
Why is it, when I am in RomeI’d give an eye to be at home,But when on native earth I be,My soul is sick for Italy?
And why with you, my love, my lord,Am I spectacularly bored,Yet do you up and leave me—thenI scream to have you back again?
About this text
On Being a Woman is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sunset Gun: Poems (Boni & Liveright, 1928), English Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, On Being a Woman, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/on-being-a-woman.html, id L27445.
Form and metre
On Being a Woman is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic 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 AABB romeA · homeA · beB · italyB
- 2 AABB lordA · boredA · thenB · againB
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Why is it, when I am in Rome | 8 | ········ |
| I’d give an eye to be at home, | 8 | ········ |
| But when on native earth I be, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My soul is sick for Italy? | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And why with you, my love, my lord, | 8 | ········ |
| Am I spectacularly bored, | 8 | ··˘/˘˘˘· |
| Yet do you up and leave me—then | 8 | ········ |
| I scream to have you back again? | 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.