In the play’s comedic subplot, an asylum-keeper named Alibius hides away his young wife at home so that other men cannot approach her. In expressing his insecurities to his waiting man, Lollio, Alibius uses a metaphor that compares individuals in a relationship to plants:
ALIBIUS: My wife is young.
LOLLIO : So much the worse to be kept secret, sir.
ALIBIUS : Why now thou meet’st the substance of the point:
I am old, Lollio.LOLLIO : No sir, ’tis I am old Lollio.
ALIBIUS : Yet why may not this concord and sympathize?
Old trees and young plants often grow together,
Well enough agreeing.LOLLIO : Ay sir, but the old trees raise themselves higher and broader than the young plants.
ALIBIUS : Shrewd application!
Alibius expresses his feelings of insecurity regarding his status as the older husband of a much younger wife. He first defends his position, arguing in a metaphor that “Old trees and young plants often grow together,” which suggests that a couple consisting of a younger and older individual can make a good and natural match. Lollio, however, further develops his employer’s metaphor, noting that “old trees raise themselves higher and broader than the young plants.” Lollio’s complex metaphor emphasizes the gap between the old and the young, and in particular, suggests that the older partner can be too distant from the younger partner to closely monitor them. Alibius recognizes the perceptiveness of Lollio’s metaphor, and confirms his plan to prevent his wife from leaving their home.
In the comedic subplot, a wealthy young gentleman named Antonio disguises himself as a “fool” in order to gain admittance to an asylum. His motivation is to get closer to Isabella, the beautiful young wife of a doctor named Alibius, who runs the asylum. After exposing his true identity to Isabella, Antonio uses a metaphor that compares “Love” to a “cunning poet”:
ISABELLA : You are a fine fool indeed!ANTONIO : Oh, ’tis not strange:
Love has an intellect that runs through all
The scrutinous sciences, and like
A cunning poet, catches a quantity
Of every knowledge, yet brings all home
Into one mystery, into one secret
That he proceeds in.
At first, Isabella reacts to Antonio’s plot with annoyance, suggesting that he truly is a “fool” for attempting to impersonate one. Antonio, however, defends his absurd scheme. “Love,” he claims, “has an intellect that runs through all / The scrutinous sciences.” The man who is in love, in other words, becomes an expert in all sorts of different subjects in order to better pursue and woo the woman whom he loves. Further, he argues, love is “like / A cunning poet,” who similarly gains “a quantity” or small amount of “every knowledge” in order to combine them into “one mystery” or “one secret.” A poet, then, must have a shallow understanding of many different topics in order to craft a good poem.
In the final scene of the play, a desperate Beatrice confesses her involvement in the murder of Alonzo to Alsemero in the hopes of convincing him of her virginity and ongoing loyalty to him. Disgusted, Alsemero uses a series of metaphors that express his strong disapproval of her actions:
ALSEMERO : Oh thou shouldst have gone
A thousand leagues about to have avoided
This dangerous bridge of blood. Here we are lost.BEATRICE : Remember I am true unto your bed.
ALSEMERO : The bed itself’s a charnel, the sheets shrouds
For murdered carcases.
First, he argues that she should have walked “A thousand leagues” in order to avoid “This dangerous bridge of blood.” His heavily metaphorical language casts the murder of Alonzo as a “bridge” or shortcut that, while helping Beatrice to achieve her goal quickly, has nevertheless placed her in grave danger. When she insists, again, that she has been “true unto your bed,” or in other words, faithful to him sexually, Alsemero metaphorically compares their wedding bed to a “charnel,” or a place where human bones are kept and stored. Further developing this metaphor, Alsemero describes the bedsheets as “sheets shrouds,” or the cloth wrapped around the deceased in preparation for burial. Alsemero’s metaphors in this scene, then, suggest that her willingness to commit unconscionable acts of murder in the name of love has corrupted that love.
