Previous
Setting
Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Act 1, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Celia's Beauty:
In Act 1, Scene 5, Mosca reports back to Volpone that Corvino has a wife, Celia, of incalculable beauty. In a series of similes that rely on the imagery of light and whiteness, he relates her magnificence to his master:
O, sir, the wonder,
The blazing star of Italy! a wench
O’the first year! a beauty ripe as harvest!
Whose skin is whiter than a swan all over!
Than silver, snow, or lilies! a soft lip,
Would tempt you to eternity of kissing!
And flesh that melteth in the touch to blood!
Bright as your gold, and lovely as your gold!
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Miracle Medicine:
In Act 2, Scene 2, Volpone—disguised as a mountebank, a kind of medicine salesperson—tries to sell Celia a medicinal powder even more "valuable" than his elixir. In a flowery sales-speech befitting a peddler, he uses a set of similes to convey its value:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Here is a powder concealed in this paper of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word: so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world were but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse to the purchase of it.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 7
Explanation and Analysis—For Whom the Meal Ends:
In Act 5, Scene 12, justice—at last—arrives for Volpone's cast of ne'er-do-wells. After the court has heard the cases of Volpone, Mosca, Corbaccio, Voltore, and Corvino, the Avocatori is able to pass definitive judgement on the characters. After the 1st Avocatore announces their sentences, he concludes the trial with a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And these are all your judgements.
[…]
Which may not be revoked. Now
you begin,
When crimes are done and past, and to be
punished,
To think what your crimes are. Away with them!
Let all see these vices thus rewarded,
Take heart, and love to study ‘em. Mischiefs feed
Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
