Broken Strings
One of the first examples of figurative imagery in the play is the reply of one gentlemen to another inquiring on the status of his cousin’s romantic opportunities:
“Faith, like a lute that has all the strings broke; nobody will meddle with her.”
Metaphor as Irony
A major character who has faked his death attends his funeral and is shocked to discover the behavior of his wife and kids in the wake of his demise, making the premature observation ironic in retrospect:
“A modest wife is such a jewel.”
Land
The entire plot of the play revolves around property and ownership and gamesmanship to lay title and possess ownership. Even so, one metaphorical description of property verges on the disturbingly sexual:
“O, that sweet, neat, comely, proper, delicate parcel of land! Like a fine gentlewomen i’the’waist, not so great great as pretty, pretty”
The Pessimist
One character puts his philosophy toward the dealings of fate and destiny into poetic terms, but fancy as his language may get, it’s still essentially the observation of the group’s Captain Bringdown:
“Let him that shoots up high, looks for the shaft,
And finds it in his forehead, so does hit
The arrow of our fate.”
Prostitution
A male character is trying to convince a female of the wisdom of plying her trade in prostitution. The language is metaphorical and undoubtedly lost to most modern audiences:
“Virginity is no city trade.”
