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of the ship, and then compare it to the action of the plough, we have simile. The likeness may be stated frankly, or it may be implied. Most writers on poetics place the implied simile under the head of metaphor. Thus Nichol (Eng. Comp.) says that "He fought like a lion" is simile; "He was a lion in fight" is metaphor. Surely the latter is implied simile. Every one understands by "was" just about what one understands by "was like." The idea of comparison and likeness is present in both cases. But the metaphor boldly expresses one thing in terms of another, does not place the two objects before the mind. A simile, then, is where two objects are presented to the mind for comparison.

An implied simile is not a metaphor, and yet is bolder than the stated simile. It may be implied in several ways. Thus, by apposition : —

"The noble sister of Publicola,

The moon of Rome."— Coriol. v. 3.

"And those eyes, the break of day,

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Lights that do mislead the morn." — M. for M. iv.

"Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks." - Keats, Hyperion.

"Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal

The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne."

I.

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A splendid succession of comparisons, too long to quote, is the eulogy of England that Shakspere puts into the mouth of the dying Gaunt (Rich. II. II. 1); one is, — “this precious stone set in the silver sea.”

The simile may be implied by a dependent genitive case: "The dew of sleep"; "The milk of human kindness"; "The nunnery of your chaste breast." Here

note particularly that the two nouns are co-ordinates. "Dew" and "sleep" are co-ordinate, of equal value,comparison and compared. Different would be the case with such an expression as "the quiet of sleep," where "quiet" is simply a part or quality of "sleep." Further cf. "In cradle of the rude imperious surge" (2 Hen. IV. III. I).

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More distant is the implying by means of adjectives: Passionate, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom profound" (Tennyson, Maud); "Golden sleep"; "This working-day world."-There are many other ways of implying likeness. For instance (Merch, of Ven. 11. 5), "But stop my house's ears I mean my casements." Then, approaching the stated simile, we have the connection of comparison and compared by the "copula " is or are:

"He is the brooch indeed

And gem of all the nations." - Hamlet.

“A jewel in a ten times barred-up chest

Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.” — Rich. II. "Love is a sickness full of woes."-S. Daniel.

Other equivalents of is or are may be mentioned besides the one from Merch. of Ven. just given :

"Then her voice's music, call it

The well's bubbling, the bird's warble." — R. Browning. "The sullen passage of thy weary steps

Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set

The precious jewel of thy home-return."

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With a gesture Cleopatra implies the comparison, as

she points to the asp on her bosom, and asks (A, and C.

v. 2):

“Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,

That sucks the nurse asleep?"

§ 8. THE SIMILE — STATED.

Our early poetry is full of

This marks the extreme stage of the trope based on likeness. In development, the metaphor precedes the simile. The former can rest on a picturesque confusion of names 1 as in calling the bird's nest his "house" so Tennyson, speaking of the vanished inmate of a sea-shell, asks: "Did he stand at the diamond door of his house?" this metaphor; it calls the sky "the people-roof," the sea "foamy fields," and so on. All that was required was a common quality, and the immediate substitution of one object for another. Hence a great confusion, "mixing" of metaphors, as when the "mouth" (sc. door) of the ark is "locked." Much more art, more balance, is needed to pause in the current of poetry and hold two objects apart, painting carefully the details of the comparison, then returning to the main subject and proceeding quietly with the interrupted narration. This demands a higher poetic faculty, a more analytic, selfcontained faculty. Hence the superiority, in point of style, of the Homeric poems over our old English epos. The former are famous for their sustained similes; the latter has scarcely a simile worthy of the name, setting aside, of course, the later poems, where classical and sacred models now begin to exert their influence. are, therefore, not surprised to learn that Lessing, the experienced man of letters and brilliant critic, disliked, as a poet, the metaphor, and used in preference the sim

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1 Goldsmith (" Essay on the Use of Metaphors ") calls metaphor “a kind of magical coat by which the same idea assumes a thousand different appearances."

ile. Hegel notes that the simile is essentially oriental, the metaphor occidental. The simile came into our literature through the influence of Latin models and the love of sacred literature for allegory. The Bible is very fond of similes: "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!" But our primitive poetry ventured, at the best, only on such a timid flight as when it says that the ship glides over the water "most like a bird” (fûgle gelîcost). This fact, that the simile stands on a higher plane of poetical development than the metaphor, must be borne in mind when one is told that the metaphor is a 66 condensed" simile. It is so logically; not, however, chronologically.

The simile may be stated positively:

"Like the winds in summer sighing,

Her voice is low and sweet."

"Ponderous syllables, like sullen waves

In the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks." - Keats.

"Her feet beneath her petticoat,

Like little mice, stole in and out,

As if they feared the light."-Suckling.

The simile, being a formal comparison, should not state the familiar and obvious. The poet must give us an unexpected, yet fit and beautiful comparison. In general effect, the two things compared should be as unlike as possible, so that the one common trait shall gain in intensity from the general contrast. This is finely brought out in a passage of Browning's Paracelsus:

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Behind the outstretched city, which between,
With all that length of domes and minarets,

Athwart the splendor, black and crooked runs
Like a Turk verse along a scimetar."

See, too, the deposed Richard's famous simile of the well and buckets, Rich. II. IV. I.

The simile may be stated as a negative, or in degrees of comparison. This adds emphasis:

"The sea enraged is not half so deaf,

as we to keep this city.”

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More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!"

"That she may feel

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.”

– Othello, v. 2.

-Lear, II. 4.

The simile best fits the stately motion of epic poetry. A short simile is used with great effect in lyric poetry, or the drama; but when it is sustained and carried into detail, it is out of place in these, and belongs to the epic. So we find the famous Homeric similes of a most elaborate finish; cf. that at the end of the eighth book of the Iliad. In English, Milton has best followed this path. The fallen angels stand (P. L. 1. 612 ff.) —

"Their glory withered. As when Heaven's fire
Hath scath'd the forest oaks, or mountain pines,
With singed top their stately growth though bare
Stands on the blasted heath."

More like the Homeric simile and longer-too long to quote are such as that (P. L. III.) where Satan, as he looks down on the world, is compared to a military

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