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Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Act 1, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Jealousy:
Attempting to convince Camillo to lay aside his suspicions that his wife is conducting an affair, Flamineo metaphorically compares a jealous husband to a man who sees the world through glass:
FLAMINIO
Now should
you wear a pair of these spectacles and see your wife tying her shoe, you would imagine twenty hands were taking up of your wife’s
clothes, and this would put you into a horrible, causeless fury.CAMILLO
The fault there, sir, is not in the eyesight.FLAMINIO
True, but they that have the yellow jaundice think all objects they look on to be yellow. Jealousy is worser: her fits present to a man, like so many bubbles in a basin of water, twenty several crabbed faces; many times makes his own shadow his cuckold-maker.
Flamineo sets up an extended metaphor in which a man examines the world through a pair of faceted glass “spectacles.” Because of the cut of the glass, everything he sees is magnified by twenty. When that man sees his wife “tying her shoes,” he mistakenly imagines that “twenty hands” are taking off her clothing. Flamineo then uses another metaphor that similarly compares jealousy to a form of distorted vision. An individual with “yellow jaundice” (a disease that causes skin and eyes to appear yellow), he claims, imagines the whole world to be “yellow.”
Next, Flamineo employs a common allegorical figure in Renaissance literature: “Jealousy.” The allegorical figure of jealousy, Flamineo claims, causes “fits” in men that make them see the world as if through a “basin of water” filled with “bubbles.” The victim of Jealousy, then, “makes his own shadow / his cuckold-maker,” or in other words, suspects his own reflection of carrying out an affair with his wife. Flamineo uses these metaphors and allegorical figures in order to persuade Camillo to set aside his fears.
Act 3, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Undigestible Words:
The lawyer who leads the case against Vittoria in court for the murder of her husband uses highly technical language that is difficult to understand. Vittoria, hoping to gain favor from the jury and onlookers, uses an extended metaphor to describe and satirize the jargon of the legal profession:
LAWYER
Hold your peace!
Exorbitant sins must have exulceration.VITTORIA
Surely, my lords, this lawyer here hath swallowed Some ’pothecary’s bills or proclamations,
And now the hard and undigestable words
Come up like stones we use give hawks for physic. Why, this is Welsh to Latin.
The lawyer, a satirical and stereotypical representation of the legal profession, opts for needlessly complicated language during the trial. Rather than saying “punishment,” for example, he says “exulceration,” which literally means “the removal of an ulcer.” Vittoria mocks his language, hoping to get the audience on her side. In a metaphor, she states that the lawyer has “swallowed” a medical prescription (full of complex scientific language) or otherwise some royal “proclamations,” which typically employed extravagant and lofty language.
Furthering this digestive metaphor, she claims that the lawyer has not been able to digest the “hard” words he has swallowed, and now vomits them up “like stones we use give hawks for physic.” Here, she references the common early modern belief that overheated hawks swallow stones to cool down and then vomit them back out. Last, she metaphorically compares his speech to “Welsh,” the language of Wales, which was often thought of as an incomprehensible language in English literature of the time.
Act 4, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Patient as the Tortoise:
After Brachiano and Vittoria carry out their plot to murder Isabella by poison, Isabella’s brother, Francisco, is enraged and desires to avenge her swiftly. Monticelso uses a series of metaphors and similes, primarily drawing from the animal kingdom, in order to persuade Francisco to carry out his revenge slowly and carefully:
That’s not the course I’d wish you. Pray, observe me:
We see that undermining more prevails
Than doth the cannon. Bear your wrongs concealed,
And, patient as the tortoise, let this camel
Stalk o’er your back unbruised. Sleep with the lion,
And let this brood of secure, foolish mice
Play with your nostrils, till the time be ripe
For th’bloody audit and the fatal gripe.
Aim like a cunning fowler: close one eye,
That you the better may your game espy.
Francisco, Monticelso claims, must remember that “undermining,” or the digging of tunnels underneath enemy lines, is more effective in war than more direct means such as “the cannon.” He urges Francisco to be “patient as the tortoise,” and to patiently permit himself to be stepped on, with the knowledge that he will ultimately be “unbruised.” Next, he argues that Francesco should sleep in the manner of a lion, who allows “foolish mice” to “play” with his whiskers until they let their guard down and can be killed in a final “bloody audit.” Last, he reminds Francisco of the figure of the “fowler,” or a hunter of birds, who closes “one eye” in order to see his prey more clearly. Monticelso’s various metaphors and similes all stress the same point: Francisco will be more effective in carrying out his revenge if he is patient.
