Metaphor
Metaphor (met’-a-phor) is an implied comparison between two unlike things. “Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life / I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.” Richard III, 1.2.1
Notes on Metaphor
Quotes including the Figure of Speech Metaphor
How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st
Read the SonnetHow oft, when thou, my music, music play’stAnastrophe, Antanaclasis, Epizeuxis & Metaphor
Upon that blessèd wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,Anastrophe & Synecdoche
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,Personification
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.Metaphor & Personification
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,Catachresis
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.Ellipsis, Hyperbaton & Zeugma
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Read the SonnetLet me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.Synecdoche Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.Polyptoton
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,Metaphor
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.Litotes
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Read the SonnetShall I compare thee to a summer's day?Rhetorical Question
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,Metaphor & Hyperbaton
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;Personification
And every fair from fair sometime declines,Antanaclesis
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fadeMetaphor
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,Personification
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.Anaphora and Anadiplosis
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
Read the SonnetThat time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.Metaphor
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.Metaphor
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.Metaphor
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
O, for a muse of fire
Read the QuoteO, for a muse of fire that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!Metaphor
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!Anapodoton
Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
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In sooth I know not why I am so sad
Read the QuoteAntonio
In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you.
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,Epistrophe
What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.
And such a want-wit sadness makes of meHyperbaton
That I have much ado to know myself.
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Now is the winter of our discontent
Read the QuoteNowHyperbaton is the winter of our discontentMetaphor
Made glorious summerMetaphor by this son of York,Paronomasia
And all the clouds that louredMetaphor upon our houseMetonymy
In the deep bosom of the ocean MetaphorburiedHyperbaton & Ellipsis.
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An untimely ague Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber
Read the QuoteBuckingham
An untimely ague
Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber when
Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,Anaphora, Pun & Metaphor
Met in the vale of Andren.
Norfolk
’Twixt Guynes and Arde.
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback,
Beheld them when they lighted,
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I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honor
Read the QuoteLeonato
I find here that Don
Pedro hath bestowed much honor on a young
Florentine called Claudio.
Messenger
Much deserved on his part, and equally
remembered by Don Pedro.Anapodoton He hath borne himself
beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure
of a lamb the feats of a lion.
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Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
Read the QuoteLafew
—Was this gentlewoman
the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
excessive grief the enemy to the living
Countess
His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to
my overlooking.Ellipsis I have those hopes of her good
that her education promises.
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