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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
Act 1, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Sharp as My Needle:
After Posthumus leaves Britain on a boat in accordance with his exile by King Cymbeline, Imogen uses a simile and a metaphor that describe her love for him. Speaking with Pisanio, Posthumus’s loyal servant, she states:
I would have broke mine eyestrings, cracked them, but
To look upon him till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then
Have turned mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,
When shall we hear from him?
Related Themes:
Act 1, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Ladies' Flesh:
Annoyed by Posthumus’s insistence on the unrivaled virtues of his beloved Imogen, Iachimo claims that he could successfully seduce her with nothing more than a letter of introduction, a claim that Posthumus fiercely denies. In response, Iachimo uses a metaphor that compares the virtue of women to meat in order to argue that any woman can be corrupted eventually. Addressing Posthumus before the other courtiers in Italy, Iachimo states:
Unlock with LitCharts A+You are afraid, and therein the wiser. If you
buy ladies’ flesh at a million a dram, you cannot
preserve it from tainting. But I see you have some
religion in you, that you fear.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Get Ground:
When Posthumus arrives in Italy, he immediately begins to quarrel with the Italian and French courtiers about the virtue and worthiness of Imogen, antagonizing Iachimo, who feels that Posthumus must be exaggerating her good qualities. In response, Iachimo uses a series of military metaphors to support his argument that he could successfully seduce Imogen despite Posthumus’s confidence in her faithfulness:
Unlock with LitCharts A+With five times so much conversation I
should get ground of your fair mistress,
make her go back even to the yielding,
had I admittance and opportunity to friend.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Picked the Lock:
After secretly entering Imogen’s bedroom by hiding in a chest, Iachimo waits until she has fallen asleep before exiting the chest and taking careful notes about her bedroom and body in order to convince Posthumus that he was successful in seducing his wife. In describing his deceptive plot, Iachimo metaphorically compares seduction to the picking of a lock:
Unlock with LitCharts A+On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip. Here’s a voucher
Stronger than ever law could make. This secret
Will force him think I have picked the lock and ta’en
The treasure of her honor. No more. To what end?
Why should I write this down that’s riveted,
Screwed to my memory?
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Lawyer to Me:
After failing to woo Imogen with music, Cloten considers a more underhanded strategy. Planning to bribe one of Imogen’s female attendants, he uses a legal metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I know her women are about her.
What If I do line one of their hands? ’Tis gold
Which buys admittance—oft it doth—yea, and makes
Diana’s rangers false themselves, yield up
Their deer to th’ stand o’ th’ stealer; and ’tis gold
Which makes the true man killed and saves the thief,
Nay, sometime hangs both thief and true man.
What Can it not do and undo? I will make
One of her women lawyer to me, for
I yet not understand the case myself.
By your leave.
Act 2, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Chaste Dian Bathing:
Hoping to prove that he truly did spend the night in Imogen’s bedchamber, Iachimo uses hyperbole, allusion, and metaphor when describing the carvings on Imogen’s chimney with rich detail:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The chimney
Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece
Chaste Dian bathing: never saw I figures
So likely to report themselves: the cutter
Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her,
Motion and breath left out.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Counterfeit:
After Iachimo provides seemingly solid evidence that he was successful in his attempt to seduce Imogen, Posthumus uses metaphors and allusions to express his disillusionment with Imogen in particular but also with women generally:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Is there no way for men to be but women
Must be half-workers? We are all bastards;
And that most venerable man which I
Did call my father, was I know not where
When I was stamp'd; some coiner with his tools
Made me a counterfeit: yet my mother seem'd
The Dian of that time so doth my wife
The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance!
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Read in Me:
Belarius attempts to discourage his two young wards, Arviragus and Guiderius, from traveling to the court to offer their services to the King who, unbeknownst to them, is their true father. He uses a number of metaphors that suggest that service and loyalty are not rewarded in the royal courts:
Unlock with LitCharts A+O boys, this story
The world may read in me: my body's mark'd
With Roman swords, and my report was once
First with the best of note: Cymbeline loved me,
And when a soldier was the theme, my name
Was not far off: then was I as a tree
Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,
A storm or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Unfledged:
Though they care deeply for Belarius, who has raised them as his own children, Arviragus and Guiderius remain unconvinced by his argument that they should avoid the courts and stay in the remote countryside. Guiderius uses a series of metaphors to express his dissatisfaction with his own lack of worldly experience:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged,
Have never wing'd from view o' the nest, nor know not
What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With your stiff age: but unto us it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.
Act 3, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Viperous Slander:
While accompanying Imogen to Milford Haven, where she expects to meet her beloved Posthumus, Pisanio feels that he must disclose the truth: that Posthumus suspects her of infidelity and plots to kill her in revenge. Finally, he shows her the letter that he received from Posthumus, and he uses a series of metaphors to describe the pain that the letter has inflicted upon her:
Unlock with LitCharts A+What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper
Hath cut her throat already. No, 'tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam?
