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Simile

Simile is the explicit comparison between two things using “like” or “as”.

Simile is an example of:
Comparison

The Forms of Things Unknown

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For all the power of his poetry, volume of his vocabulary and sheer prolific output, Shakespeare seemed intent on telling us that we cannot know, truly know, what we most want to know, or even think we already know. We know this on several levels.

We’re frustrated enough that he left no correspondence, no diary, no memoir, no hand-written manuscripts.
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Characters, Actors and Figurative Language

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Early in Henry VIII, Anne Bullen, young and beautiful, considers the prospect of a prosperous future. In the same scene, Anne’s companion, the old lady, sardonically remarks on her lost youth and unfulfilled aspirations for wealth and position at court. The contrast of these two characters is clear, but Shakespeare uses more than casting, makeup, costumes, or even the subject matter of their opening dialogue,
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Animal Imagery

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Animal imagery dominates Henry VI, Part 3, as in two passages here:

Margaret
And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds

The trembling lamb environèd with wolves.
Had I been there, which am a silly woman,
The soldiers should have tossed me on their pikes
Before I would have granted to that act…
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The Snare of Vanity

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In Act 2, Scene 1 of Julius Caesar, Decius Brutus uses “betrayed” to mean fooled, tricked or misled. A person can escape a unicorn by hiding behind a tree; a bear can be misled by seeing itself in a mirror; an elephant can be tricked into falling into a hole; a lion caught in a trap; and men seduced by flatterers.
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Double Cherries and Drops of Water

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In A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Helena’s expression of love as a union that makes a couple one inseparable being —

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
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Plagiarizing Himself

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Shakespeare often reused images and metaphors, stealing from himself. The simile in Friar Lawrence’s musing from Romeo and Juliet,

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.

is echoed in the metaphor of the third quatrain of  Sonnet 73.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
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Love and Water

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The Comedy of Error’s concluding dialogue between Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse neatly ties up an underlying theme of this farce, that true love — brotherly, marital or other — renders the lovers indistinguishable, “Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother.” But this metaphor of the mirror at the end of the play is a shift from the similes of drops of water that recurred previously.
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O, for a muse of fire

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O, 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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Source:
Act 1
Scene Prologue
Line 1

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In sooth I know not why I am so sad

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Antonio
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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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 1

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The Sadness of the Merchant

Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly

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Roderigo
Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
Iago
’Sblood, but you’ll not hear me!
If ever I did dream of such a matter,
Abhor me.
Roderigo
Thou toldst me thou didst hold him in thy hate.
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You do not meet a man but frowns

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First Gentleman
You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers’
Still seem as does the King’s.Ellipsis

Second Gentleman
But what’s the matter?

Howsoe’er ’tis strange,
Or that the negligence may well be laughed at,
Yet is it true,
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An untimely ague Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber

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Buckingham
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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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 2

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What, has this thing appeared again tonight?

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Horatio
What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
Barnardo
I have seen nothing.
Marcellus
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us.

Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 26

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Angelo, There is a kind of character in thy life

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Duke
Angelo,
There is a kind of character in thy life,
That to th’ observer doth thy history
AlliterationFully unfoldHyperbaton
. Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so properAnastrophe as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
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All this was ordered by the good discretion

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Norfolk
All this was ordered by the good discretion
Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.

No man’s pie is freed
From his ambitious finger.

Buckingham
The devil speed him! No man’s pie is freed
From his ambitious finger.Metaphor
What had he
To do in these fierce vanities?
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 59

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You look not well, Signior Antonio

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Gratiano
You look not well, Signior Antonio.
You have too much respect upon the world.
They lose it that do buy it with much care.
Believe me, you are marvelously changed.
Antonio

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.

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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 77

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Connected Notes:
The Sadness of the Merchant

O, where is Romeo? Saw you him today?

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Lady Montague
O, where is Romeo? Saw you him today?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
Benvolio
Madam, an hour before the worshiped sun
Peered forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drove me to walk abroad,
Where underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from this city side,
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 118

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