Shakespearean Metaphors

Shakespearean Metaphors

      We recently had some fun with puns. Shakespeare also used comparisons, or, more properly, metaphors in his plays. He describes one thing in terms of another? How can that be? Here is an example in which he describes the new moon in terms of a silver bow:

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New bent in heaven. [ A Midsummer Night’s Dream ]

      If we were to remove from this statement the stuff about the bow being newly bent in heaven ready to release its arrow, we have left only the notion of the new moon. We could say quite simply, “there’s a new moon tonight.” This is called literal language. When we say that the moon when it is new is like a silver bow, bent in heaven, we are speaking in figurative or metaphorical language. This is the language of poetry and the poetic imagination. This is Will Shakespeare.

      In the following exercises you will find the kind of comparison that says literally that one thing is like  or (depending upon the structure of the statement) as something else. The new moon was like a silver bow. This type of metaphor is often called a simile. 

     

       You are to extract from the comparison the literal statement. That is, you are to remove one side of the comparison, and take away the metaphor. (Often you can express the literal force of the metaphor with a word like very or easily.)

Example: 

I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs. [ As You Like It ]

I can easily get a great deal of melancholy out of a song. 

1. They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk. [Henry the Sixth]

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2.       Yet they say we are

        Almost as like as eggs. [The Winter’s Tale]

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3. His speech was like a tangled chain---nothing impaired, but all disordered.

                                             [ A Midsummer Night’s Dream]

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4.      And in his brain,

          Which is a dry as the remainder biscuit

      after a voyage.

                         [ As You Like It ]

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5. Love comforteth like sunshine after rain. [Venus and Adonis]

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6.      So we grew together,

           Like to a double cherry.

                        [ A Midsummer Night’s Dream]

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7.      Look like the innocent flower

           But be the serpent under ‘t. [Macbeth] 

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8.      Oh were it but my life, 

           I’d throw it down for your deliverance

      as frankly as a pin. [ Measure for Measure ]

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9.    Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat. 

       [ Romeo and Juliet]

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10. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,

          They kill us for their sport. [King Lear]

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11. Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.  

      [Henry the Fourth]  

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12. I take thy hand, this hand

      as soft as dove’s down and as white as it. 
      [ The Winter’s Tale ]

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