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Irony
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
Key Examples in All's Well that Ends Well
Act 1, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Bright Particular Star:
At the beginning of All’s Well That Ends Well, Helen reveals her sense of inadequacy; she feels she cannot win Bertram's love. She expresses this hopeless desire through a metaphor:
’Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular starAnd think to wed it, he is so above me
Related Themes:
Act 1, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Words Grafted:
As he reflects on a conversation about aging he had with Bertram’s father—a much-admired friend and advisor—the King mournfully declares:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Would I were with him! He would always say—
Methinks I hear him now; his plausive wordsHe scattered not in ears, but grafted them
To grow there and to bear. “Let me not live”—
This his good melancholy oft began
[...] —“Let me not live,” quoth he,“After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits[...]
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Explanation and Analysis—Beehive:
In the first Act of All’s Well That Ends Well, the King uses an evocative metaphor referencing a beehive. He does so to reflect on his mortality and his role in France as its leader:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I, after him, do after him wish too,
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolvèd from my hive
To give some laborers room.
Related Themes:
Act 1, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Presumptuous Suit:
Tearfully confessing her love for Bertram to his mother the Countess, Helen employs a metaphor of water, and visual and tactile imagery. On her knees before the Countess, Helen pleads:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope,
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still.
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Act 2, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Branch to Propagate:
Early in the play Helen speaks to the King, using metaphor and alliteration as tools of persuasion as she asks him—if she succeeds in curing his illness—to let her choose her own husband:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand
What husband in thy power I will command.
Exempted be from me the arrogance
To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy state;
But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Honor:
The King utilizes metaphor, personification, and employs some Elizabethan English dialect while discussing the concept of honor and reproaching Bertram for dismissing Helen:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She is young, wise, fair [...]
And these breed honor.
That is honor’s scorn
Which challenges itself as honor’s born
And is not like the sire.
Honors thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers. The mere word’s a slave
Debauched on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb
Of honored bones indeed.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Shut His Bosom:
In Act 3, Scene 1, the Duke of Florence speaks of his astonishment that France has chosen not to get involved in the ongoing conflict, using a combination of an idiom and a metaphor referring to an embrace. Shakespeare also employs personification, as this important figure declares:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
Would in so just a business shut his bosom
Against our borrowing prayers.
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Act 3, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Wrack of Maidenhood.:
Mariana uses hyperbole and allusion to warn Diana about men’s deceptive ways, specifically targeting the untrustworthy Parolles:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I know that knave, hang him! One Parolles, a filthy officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl.—Beware of them, Diana. Their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust are not the things they go under. Many a maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is example that so terrible shows in the wrack of maidenhood cannot for all that dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that threatens them.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 6
Explanation and Analysis—The Love of Laughter:
In this scene, the First and Second Lords and Bertram discuss a plan they have to expose Parolles as a coward. The First Lord uses alliteration and metaphor to foreshadow the upcoming disgrace of this villainous character:
Unlock with LitCharts A+O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum. He says he has a stratagem for ’t. When your Lordship sees the bottom of his success in 't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted [...] your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Ring of Honor:
Diana engages in a flirtatious dialogue with Bertram, employing metaphor and personification to emphasize the value of her honor and chastity:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Mine honor’s such a ring.
My chastity’s the jewel of our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors,
[...] Thus your own proper wisdom
Brings in the champion honor on my part
Against your vain assault.
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Act 4, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—The Grave of It:
In Act 4, Scene 3, the First Lord employs a metaphor to assure the Second he won’t repeat what he’s being told, using a metaphor referring to death. Shakespeare also employs dramatic irony as the First Lord declares:
Unlock with LitCharts A+When you have spoken it, ’tis dead, and I am the grave of it.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Herbs and Salads:
In Act 4, Scene 5, Lafew and the Fool use metaphor, imagery, and allusion to discuss Helen’s remarkable qualities. The conversation goes as follows:
Unlock with LitCharts A+LAFEW: ’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.
FOOL: Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather the herb of grace.
LAFEW: They are not herbs, you knave. They are nose-herbs.
FOOL: I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir. I have not much skill in grass.
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Explanation and Analysis—Briers:
Near the end of “All’s Well That Ends Well,” Helen employs alliteration and metaphor as she reflects on the future and the relationship between actions and consequences:
Unlock with LitCharts A+When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns
And be as sweet as sharp. We must away.
Our wagon is prepared, and time revives us.
All’s well that ends well. Still the fine’s the crown.
Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.
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