In this page, highlighted in  red, are  the English equivalents of "come" (Italian) or wie, als (German) as, like, how, in the same way.

• How in particular, simile and metaphor are commonly used in ordinary language.

• Metaphor is one of the effects that give poetry and Shakespeare in particular an eloquence, though such effects are also used in ordinary speech. (I saw red= I got angry, it dawned on me= I realised, )
• How Shakespeare’s writing is highly metaphoric . The examples are from Romeo and Juliet.

There are many metaphors within ordinary language which often we don't even notice. For example we say "to object" (English people don’t realise the metaphoric meaning of these Latin words. here the word means to "throw against", objectare).. An English word like "understand" is metaphoric "That which is under our standing position", that is, that which gives us sure footing and so we comprehend and "understand".

Besides these hidden etymologies, there are metaphoric expressions that are so common as to be taken for granted. These are called "sleeping metaphors", as for example "in the dead of night". We use adjectives in this extended metaphoric way when for example we judge something "cool" or say that a contentious question is "hot". In neither case do we just mean literally "cool" or "hot".

A simile is a more obvious and slower form of description. A simile has 2 elements that are put in comparison: X is like Y

e.g. To express the idea that someone is so insensitive, we say "she is like a Rhinoceros". We don’t mean in all ways! However the exaggeration is part of the effect. Here 2 nouns are joined through like. A less pictorial comparison is the simple "She’s as insensitive as a rhino.

Metaphor is more subtle. People have noticed that Shakespeare’s thinking is metaphoric. One metaphor provokes another thought. The thought seems to explode outwards under the influence of the original metaphor as if the metaphor represented a sort of lightening quick thought, that gives us intuitively, all possible meanings in an instant. Shakespeare’s language effects are often based on telescoped, compressed similes:

"On the whole metaphor is a short form of simile".)

Instead of saying "Our love is like a bud" he says more briefly (brevamente) "This bud of love" as if the simile is already taken for granted;( scontato) we don’t have time to rationally object. Metaphor has a quality of short hand. A metaphor doesn’t have 2 sharply differntiated sides of a comparison; ...X......is like .....Z....... but instead one term is smashed up (sciacciato) against another and a sort of explosion of sense occurs (succedere)

A metaphor doesn’t politely introduce itself (farsi conoscere) ("this love is like a bud"); it just says telegraphically, this mixed thing: "This bud of love..." As you listen to Shakespeare you find yourself buffetted here and there by the rush of meanings from this sort of highly coloured poeticalness since Shakespeare goes on opening up the initial metaphor.. "Summer’s ripening breath" is firstly a personification: summer is thought of as having "breath" and then there is the metaphor of this supposed (presunto) breath being ripening. Bur if summer were really a person it might have breath but not a "ripening breath". If it is simply "summer" it can indeed ripen,(maturare) though not with "breath" but maybe with nature’s form of breath, that is breezes (brezze) (though it’s not a breeze that ripens but warmth; (calore)- Of course since breath does also have warmth like the summer, the cross over of meanings is not rejected by our minds: there’s enough sense to enable the mind to make the connections over the gap of incomplete sense.) However, from a common sense point of view, what the metaphor is saying here is "unintelligible" but metaphor takes no notice of common sense. It enjoys making up meaningful nonsense. (nonsenso intellegibile!)

Shakespeare’s mind was congenial to metaphoric thinking, which is pictorial, and in an important way, a kind of pre-rational, feeling-thinking.

The fact that our imagination is contributing to the effect makes us imaginatively involved in the plays just as when we read-imagine a novel, rather than see it fully presented on the screen.. .

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, both of the lovers speak with excited metaphoric speech. This is fitting to their excited state of mind as when someone speaks in a rush, and so metaphor here seems natural rather than artificial.

This is a contracted simile which might read: "the darkness of the night which covers my face from you is like a mask that people wear to hide their feelings and identity". But Juliet with her typically I-will-not-play-games-and-hide-my-feelings, tells Romeo that she has feelings to blush at, while telling him that they are hidden! And then the words of "the mask of night is on my face" are so beautiful, so tender, and soft with warm Italian night; so warm that the air seems to envelope the face. Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben Jonson referred rather disapprovingly to the speed with which Shakespeare wrote and this is apparent from the language. Each word sets the memory bells ringing, the images crowd in flashing strange cross references. So "masks", which are painted and prompts the ideas of blush which being red is called "painted" . There is this strange inter weaving of mask / night / blush / paint.

• Think of sleeping metaphors in your own language. Translate them into English.
• Write 6 similes about a boy or girl you know. Use LIKE. E.g. She’s like a rose
• Try and change the ideas into a metaphoric form of expression.eg. Her blossom cheeks blushed.

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