_Metaphor and Allegory._
A Metaphor differs from a simile, in form only, not in substance. In a
simile the two different subjects are kept distinct in the expression,
as well as in the thought: in a metaphor, the two subjects are kept
distinct in thought only, not in expression. A hero resembles a lion,
and upon that resemblance many similes have been made by Homer and other
poets. But instead of resembling a lion, let us take the aid of the
imagination, and feign or figure the hero to be a lion. By this
variation the simile is converted into a metaphor; which is carried on
by describing all the qualities of a lion that resemble those of the
hero. The fundamental pleasure here, that of resemblance, belongs to
thought as distinguished from expression. There is an additional
pleasure which arises from the expression. The poet, by figuring his
hero to be a lion, goes on to describe the lion in appearance, but in
reality the hero; and his description is peculiarly beautiful, by
expressing the virtues and qualities of the hero in new terms, which,
properly speaking, belong not to him, but to a different being. This
will better be understood by examples. A family connected with a common
parent, resembles a tree, the trunk and branches of which are connected
with a common root. But let us suppose, that a family is figured not
barely to be like a tree, but to be a tree; and then the simile will be
converted into a metaphor, in the following manner.
Edward’s sev’n sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were sev’n fair branches, springing from one root:
Some of these branches by the dest’nies cut:
But Thomas, my dear Lord, my life, my Glo’ster,
One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
Is hack’d down, and his summer leaves all faded,
By Envy’s hand and Murder’s bloody axe.
_Richard II. act 1. sc. 3._
Figuring human life to be a voyage at sea:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
_Julius Cæsar, act 4. sc. 5._
Figuring glory and honour to be a garland of fresh flowers:
_Hotspur._---- Would to heav’n,
Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!
_Pr. Henry._ I’ll make it greater, ere I part from thee;
And all the budding honours on thy crest
I’ll crop, to make a garland for my head.
_First Part Henry IV. act 5. sc. 9._
Figuring a man who hath acquired great reputation and honour to be a
tree full of fruit:
-------------------- Oh, 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 lov’d 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.
_Cymbeline, act 3. sc. 3._
I am aware that the term _metaphor_ has been used in a more extensive
sense than I give it; but I thought it of consequence, in matters of
some intricacy, to separate things that differ from each other, and to
confine words within their most proper sense. An allegory differs from a
metaphor; and what I would chuse to call _a figure of speech_, differs
from both. I shall proceed to explain these differences. A metaphor is
defined above to be an operation of the imagination, figuring one thing
to be another. An allegory requires no operation of the imagination, nor
is one thing figured to be another: it consists in chusing a subject
having properties or circumstances resembling those of the principal
subject; and the former is described in such a manner as to represent
the latter. The subject thus represented is kept out of view; we are
left to discover it by reflection; and we are pleased with the
discovery, because it is our own work. Quintilian[26] gives the
following instance of an allegory,
O navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus. O quid agis? fortiter occupa portum.
_Horat. lib. 1. ode 14._
and explains it elegantly in the following words: “Totusque ille Horatii
locus, quo navim pro republica, fluctuum tempestates pro bellis
civilibus, portum pro pace atque concordia, dicit.”
There cannot be a finer or more correct allegory than the following, in
which a vineyard is put for God’s own people the Jews.
Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the
heathen, and planted it. Thou didst cause it to take deep root, and
it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, and
the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. Why hast thou then
broken down her hedges, so that all which pass do pluck her? The
boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast doth devour
it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven,
and behold and visit this vine, and the vineyard thy right hand
hath planted, and the branch thou madest strong for thyself.
_Psalm 80._
In a word, an allegory is in every respect similar to an hieroglyphical
painting, excepting only, that words are used instead of colours. Their
effects are precisely the same. A hieroglyphic raises two images in the
mind; one seen, which represents one not seen. An allegory does the
same. The representative subject is described; and it is by resemblance
that we are enabled to apply the description to the subject represented.
In a figure of speech, neither is there any fiction of the imagination
employ’d, nor a representative subject introduced. A figure of speech,
as imply’d from its name, regards the expression only, not the thought;
and it may be defined, the employing a word in a sense different from
what is proper to it. Thus youth or the beginning of life, is expressed
figuratively by _morning of life_. Morning is the beginning of the day;
and it is transferred sweetly and easily to signify the beginning of any
other series, life especially, the progress of which is reckoned by
days.
Figures of speech are reserved for a separate section; but a metaphor
and allegory are so much connected, that it is necessary to handle them
together: the rules for distinguishing the good from the bad, are common
to both. We shall therefore proceed to these rules, after adding some
examples to illustrate the nature of an allegory. Horace speaking of his
love to Pyrrha, which was now extinguished, expresses himself thus.
------------ Me tabulâ sacer
Votivâ paries indicat uvida
Suspendisse potenti
Vestimenta maris Deo.
_Carm. l. 1. ode 5._
Again,
Phœbus volentem prælia me loqui,
Victas et urbes, increpuit lyrâ:
Ne parva Tyrrhenum per æquor
Vela darem.
_Carm. l. 4. ode 15._
_Queen._ Great Lords, wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss,
But chearly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow’d in the flood?
Yet lives our pilot still. Is’t meet, that he
Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,
With tearful eyes add water to the sea;
And give more strength to that which hath too much?
While in his moan the ship splits on the rock,
Which industry and courage might have sav’d?
Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!
_Third Part Henry VI. act 5. sc. 5._
_Oroonoko._ Ha! thou hast rous’d
The lion in his den, he stalks abroad
And the wide forest trembles at his roar.
I find the danger now.
_Oroonoko, act 3. sc. 2._
The rules that govern metaphors and allegories, are of two kinds: those
of the first kind concern the construction of a metaphor or allegory,
and ascertain what are perfect and what are faulty: those of the other
kind concern the propriety or impropriety of introduction, in what
circumstances these figures may be admitted, and in what circumstances
they are out of place. I begin with rules of the first kind; some of
which coincide with those already given with respect to similes; some
are peculiar to metaphors and allegories.
And in the first place, it has been observed, that a simile cannot be
agreeable where the resemblance is either too strong or too faint. This
holds equally in a metaphor and allegory; and the reason is the same in
all. In the following instances, the resemblance is too faint to be
agreeable.
_Malcolm._---- But there’s no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust.
_Macbeth, act 4. sc. 4._
The best way to judge of this metaphor, is to convert it into a simile;
which would be bad, because there is scarce any resemblance betwixt lust
and a cistern, or betwixt enormous lust and a large cistern.
Again,
He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause
Within the belt of rule.
_Macbeth, act 5. sc. 2._
There is no resemblance betwixt a distempered cause and any body that
can be confined within a belt.
Again,
Steep me in poverty to the very lips.
_Othello, act 4. sc. 9._
Poverty here must be conceived a fluid, which it resembles not in any
manner.
Speaking to Bolingbroke banish’d for six years.
The sullen passage of thy weary steps
Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home-return.
_Richard II. act 1. sc. 6._
Again,
Here is a letter, lady,
And every word in it a gaping wound
Issuing life-blood.
_Merchant of Venice, act 3. sc. 3._
The following metaphor is strained beyond all endurance. Timur-bec,
known to us by the name of Tamarlane the Great, writes to Bajazet
Emperor of the Ottomans in the following terms.
Where is the monarch who dares resist us? where is the potentate
who doth not glory in being numbered among our attendants? As for
thee, descended from a Turcoman sailor, since the vessel of thy
unbounded ambition hath been wreck’d in the gulf of thy self-love,
it would be proper, that thou shouldst take in the sails of thy
temerity, and cast the anchor of repentance in the port of
sincerity and justice, which is the port of safety; lest the
tempest of our vengeance make thee perish in the sea of the
punishment thou deservest.
Such strained figures, it is observable, are not unfrequent in the
first dawn of refinement. The mind in a new enjoyment knows no bounds,
and is generally carried to excess, till experience discover the just
medium.
Secondly, whatever resemblance subjects may have, it is wrong to put one
for another if they bear no mutual proportion. Where a very high and a
very low subject are compared, the simile takes on an air of burlesk;
and the same will be the effect, where the one is imagined to be the
other, as in a metaphor, or made to represent the other, as in an
allegory.
Thirdly, these figures, a metaphor in particular, ought not to be
extended to a great length, nor be crowded with many minute
circumstances; for in that case it is scarcely possible to avoid
obscurity. It is difficult, during any course of time, to support a
lively image of one thing being another. A metaphor drawn out to any
length, instead of illustrating or enlivening the principal subject,
becomes disagreeable by overstraining the mind. Cowley is extremely
licentious in this way. Take the following instance:
Great, and wise conqu’ror, who where-e’er
Thou com’st, dost fortify, and settle there!
Who canst defend as well as get;
And never hadst one quarter beat up yet;
Now thou art in, thou ne’er will part
With one inch of my vanquish’d heart;
For since thou took’st it by assault from me, }
’Tis garrison’d so strong with thoughts of thee}
It fears no beauteous enemy. }
For the same reason, however agreeable at first long allegories may be
by their novelty, they never afford any lasting pleasure: witness the
_Fairy Queen_, which with great power of expression, variety of images,
and melody of versification, is scarce ever read a second time.
In the fourth place, the comparison carried on in a simile, being in a
metaphor sunk, and the principal subject being imagined that very thing
which it only resembles, an opportunity is furnished to describe it in
terms taken strictly or literally with respect to its imagined nature.
This suggests another rule, That in constructing a metaphor, the writer
ought to confine himself to the simplest expressions, and make use of
such words only as are applicable literally to the imagined nature of
his subject. Figurative words ought carefully to be avoided; for such
complicated images, instead of setting the principal subject in a strong
light, involve it in a cloud; and it is well if the reader, without
rejecting by the lump, endeavour patiently to gather the plain meaning,
regardless of the figures:
A stubborn and unconquerable flame
Creeps in his veins, and drinks the streams of life.
_Lady Jane Gray, act 1. sc. 1._
Copied from Ovid,
Sorbent avidæ præcordia flammæ.
_Metamorphoses, lib. ix. 172._
Let us analize this expression. That a fever may be imagined a flame, I
admit; though more than one step is necessary to come at the
resemblance. A fever, by heating the body, resembles fire; and it is no
stretch to imagine a fever to be a fire.
Again, by a figure of speech, flame may be put for fire, because they
are commonly conjoined; and therefore a fever may also be imagined a
flame. But now admitting a fever to be a flame, its effects ought to be
explained in words that agree literally to a flame. This rule is not
observed here; for a flame _drinks_ figuratively only, not properly.
King Henry to his son Prince Henry:
Thou hid’st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart
To stab at half an hour of my frail life.
_Second Part Henry IV. act 4. sc. 11._
Such faulty metaphors are pleasantly ridiculed in the _Rehearsal_:
_Physician._ Sir, to conclude, the place you fill has more than
amply exacted the talents of a wary pilot; and all these
threatening storms, which, like impregnate clouds, hover o’er our
heads, will, when they once are grasp’d but by the eye of reason,
melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.
_Bayes._ Pray mark that allegory. Is not that good?
_Johnson_. Yes, that grasping of a storm with the eye, is
admirable.
_Act 2. sc. 1._
Fifthly, The jumbling different metaphors in the same sentence, or the
beginning with one metaphor and ending with another, is commonly called
a mixt metaphor. Quintilian bears testimony against it in the bitterest
terms: “Nam id quoque in primis est custodiendum, ut quo ex genere
cœperis translationis, hoc desinas. Multi enim, cum initium a tempestate
sumpserunt, incendio aut ruina finiunt: quæ est inconsequentia rerum
fœdissima.” _L. 8. cap. 6. § 2._
_K. Henry._---------- Will you again unknit
This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,
And move in that obedient orb again,
Where you did give a fair and natural light?
_First Part Henry IV. act 5. sc. 1._
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The stings and arrows of outrag’ous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
_Hamlet, act 3. sc. 2._
In the sixth place, It is unpleasant to join different metaphors in the
same period, even where they are preserved distinct. It is difficult to
imagine the subject to be first one thing and then another in the same
period without interval: the mind is distracted by the rapid transition;
and when the imagination is put on such hard duty, its images are too
faint to produce any good effect:
At regina gravi jamdudum saucia cura,
Vulnus alit venis, et cæco carpitur igni.
_Æneid. iv. 1._
------------------ Est mollis flamma medullas
Interea, et taciturn vivit sub pectore vulnus.
_Æneid. iv. 66._
Motum ex Metello consule civicum,
Bellique causas, et vitia, et modos,
Ludumque fortunæ, gravesque
Principum amicitias, et arma
Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus,
Periculosæ plenum opus aleæ,
Tractas, et incedis per ignes
Subpositos cineri doloso.
_Horat. Carm. l. 2, ode 1._
In the last place, It is still worse to jumble together metaphorical and
natural expression, or to construct a period so as that it must be
understood partly metaphorically partly literally. The imagination
cannot follow with sufficient ease changes so sudden and unprepared. A
metaphor begun and not carried on, hath no beauty; and instead of light
there is nothing but obscurity and confusion. Instances of such
incorrect composition are without number. I shall, for a specimen,
select a few from different authors:
Speaking of Britain,
This precious stone set in the sea
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier lands.
_Richard II. act 2. sc. 1._
In the first line Britain is figured to be a precious stone. In the
following lines, Britain, divested of her metaphorical dress, is
presented to the reader in her natural appearance.
These growing feathers pluck’d from Cæsar’s wing,
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.
_Julius Cæsar, act 1. sc. 1._
Rebus angustis animosus atque
Fortis adpare: sapienter idem
Contrahes vento nimium secundo
Turgida vela.
The following is a miserable jumble of expressions, arising from an
unsteady view of the subject betwixt its figurative and natural
appearance.
But now from gath’ring clouds destruction pours,
Which ruins with mad rage our halcyon hours:
Mists from black jealousies the tempest form,
Whilst late divisions reinforce the storm.
_Dispensary, canto 3._
To thee, the world its present homage pays,
The harvest early, but mature the praise.
_Pope’s imitation of Horace, b. 2._
Oui, sa pudeur n’est que franche grimace,
Qu’une ombre de vertu qui garde mal la place,
Et qui s’evanouit, comme l’on peut savoir
Aux rayons du soleil qu’une bourse fait voir.
_Molliere, L’Etourdi, act 3. sc. 2._
Et son feu depourvû de sense et de lecture,
S’éteint a chaque pas, faute de nourriture.
_Boileau, L’art poetique, chant. 3. l. 319._
Dryden, in his dedication to the translation of _Juvenal_, says,
When thus, as I may say, before the use of the loadstone, or
knowledge of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without
other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the
French stage among the moderns, _&c._
There is a time when factions, by the vehemence of their own
fermentation, stun and disable one another.
_Bolingbroke._
This fault of jumbling the figure and plain expression into one confused
mass, is not less common in allegory than in metaphor. Take the
following example.
------------ Heu! quoties fidem,
Mutatosque Deos flebit, et aspera
Nigris æquora ventis
Emirabitur insolens,
Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ:
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat, nescius auræ
Fallacis.
_Horat. Carm. l. 1. ode 5._
Lord Halifax, speaking of the ancient fabulists: “They (says he) wrote
in signs and spoke in parables: all their fables carry a double meaning:
the story is one and entire; the characters the same throughout; not
broken or changed, and always conformable to the nature of the creature
they introduce. They never tell you, that the dog which snapp’d at a
shadow, lost his troop of horse; that would be unintelligible. This is
his (Dryden’s) new way of telling a story, and confounding the moral and
the fable together.” After instancing from the hind and panther, he goes
on thus: “What relation has the hind to our Saviour? or what notion have
we of a panther’s bible? If you say he means the church, how does the
church feed on lawns, or range in the forest? Let it be always a church
or always a cloven-footed beast, for we cannot bear his shifting the
scene every line.”
A few words more upon allegory. Nothing gives greater pleasure than this
figure, when the representative subject bears a strong analogy, in all
its circumstances, to that which is represented. But the choice is
seldom so lucky; the resemblance of the representative subject to the
principal, being generally so faint and obscure, as to puzzle and not
please. An allegory is still more difficult in painting than in poetry.
The former can show no resemblance but what appears to the eye: the
latter hath many other resources for showing the resemblance. With
respect to what the Abbé du Bos[27] terms mixt allegorical compositions,
these may do in poetry, because in writing the allegory can easily be
distinguished from the historical part: no person mistakes Virgil’s
Fame for a real being. But such a mixture in a picture is intolerable;
because in a picture the objects must appear all of the same kind,
wholly real or wholly emblematical. The history of Mary de Medicis, in
the palace of Luxenbourg, painted by Rubens, is in a vicious taste, by a
perpetual jumble of real and allegorical personages, which produce a
discordance of parts and an obscurity upon the whole: witness in
particular, the tablature representing the arrival of Mary de Medicis at
Marseilles: mixt with the real personages, the Nereids and Tritons
appear sounding their shells. Such a mixture of fiction and reality in
the same group, is strangely absurd. The picture of Alexander and
Roxana, described by Lucian, is gay and fanciful: but it suffers by the
allegorical figures. It is not in the wit of man to invent an
allegorical representation deviating farther from any appearance of
resemblance, than one exhibited by Lewis XIV. _anno_ 1664; in which an
overgrown chariot, intended to represent that of the sun, is dragg’d
along, surrounded with men and women, representing the four ages of the
world, the celestial signs, the seasons, the hours, _&c._: a monstrous
composition; and yet scarce more absurd than Guido’s tablature of
Aurora.
In an allegory, as well as in a metaphor, terms ought to be chosen that
properly and literally are applicable to the representative subject. Nor
ought any circumstance to be added, that is not proper to the
representative subject, however justly it may be applicable figuratively
to the principal. Upon this account the following allegory is faulty.
Ferus et Cupido,
Semper ardentes acuens sagittas
Cote _cruentâ_.
_Horat. l. 2. ode 8._
For though blood may suggest the cruelty of love, it is an improper or
immaterial circumstance in the representative subject: water, not blood,
is proper for a whetstone.
* * * * *
We proceed to the next head, which is, to examine in what circumstances
these figures are proper, in what improper. This inquiry is not
altogether superseded by what is said upon the same subject in the
chapter of comparisons; because, upon trial, it will be found, that a
short metaphor or allegory may be proper, where a simile, drawn out to a
greater length, and in its nature more solemn, would scarce be relished.
The difference however is not considerable; and in most instances the
same rules are applicable to both. And, in the first place, a metaphor,
as well as a simile, are excluded from common conversation, and from the
description of ordinary incidents.
In the next place, in any severe passion which totally occupies the
mind, metaphor is unnatural. For that reason, we must condemn the
following speech of Macbeth.
Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murther sleep; the innocent sleep;
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of Care,
The birth of each day’s life, sore Labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.----
_Act 2. sc. 3._
The next example, of deep despair, beside the highly figurative style,
hath more the air of raving than of sense:
_Calista._ Is it the voice of thunder, or my father?
Madness! Confusion! let the storm come on,
Let the tumultuous roar drive all upon me,
Dash my devoted bark; ye surges, break it;
’Tis for my ruin that the tempest rises.
When I am lost, sunk to the bottom low,
Peace shall return, and all be calm again.
_Fair Penitent, act 4._
The metaphor I next introduce, is sweet and lively, but it suits not the
fiery temper of Chamont, inflamed with passion. Parables are not the
language of wrath venting itself without restraint:
_Chamont._ You took her up a little tender flower,
Just sprouted on a bank, which the next frost
Had nip’d; and with a careful loving hand,
Transplanted her into your own fair garden,
Where the sun always shines: there long she flourish’d,
Grew sweet to sense and lovely to the eye,
Till at the last a cruel spoiler came,
Cropt this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness,
Then cast it like a loathsome weed away.
_Orphan, act 4._
The following speech, full of imagery, is not natural in grief and
dejection of mind.
_Gonsalez._ O my son! from the blind dotage
Of a father’s fondness these ills arose.
For thee I’ve been ambitious, base and bloody:
For thee I’ve plung’d into this sea of sin;
Stemming the tide with only one weak hand,
While t’other bore the crown, (to wreathe thy brow),
Whose weight has sunk me ere I reach’d the shore.
_Mourning Bride, act 5. sc. 6._
The finest picture that ever was drawn of deep distress, is in
Macbeth[28], where Macduff is represented lamenting his wife and
children, inhumanly murdered by the tyrant. Struck with the news, he
questions the messenger over and over; not that he doubted the fact, but
that his heart revolted against so cruel a misfortune. After struggling
some time with his grief, he turns from his wife and children to their
savage butcher; and then gives vent to his resentment; but still with
manliness and dignity:
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle Heav’n!
Cut short all intermission: front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword’s length set him---- If he ’scape,
Then Heav’n forgive him too.
This passage is a delicious picture of human nature. One expression only
seems doubtful. In examining the messenger, Macduff expresses himself
thus:
He hath no children---- all my pretty ones!
Did you say all? what all? Oh, hell-kite! all?
What! all my pretty little chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!
Metaphorical expression, I am sensible, may sometimes be used with
grace, where a regular simile would be intolerable: but there are
situations so overwhelming, as not to admit even the slightest metaphor.
It requires great delicacy of taste to determine with firmness, whether
the present case be of that nature. I incline to think it is; and yet I
would not willingly alter a single word of this admirable scene.
But metaphorical language is proper when a man struggles to bear with
dignity or decency a misfortune however great. The struggle agitates and
animates the mind:
_Wolsey._ Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls as I do.
_Henry VIII. act 3. sc. 6._