Romeo and Juliet Metaphors and Similes Quotes

Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2. It is almost dawn and time for the young lovers to say their farewells. Juliet tells Romeo that she wants him to go – but not too far. In a metaphor she likens him a pampered person’s pet bird that is kept tied to a silk thread. She uses a simile to compare the bird (Romeo) to a "poor prisoner." The imagery shows Juliet’s desire to keep Romeo close to her so that he doesn’t fly away.

The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. Friar Laurence uses striking imagery to paint a vivid picture of the dawn’s mixture of light and darkness, while reminding us also of the uncertainty and danger of the lovers’ situation. In the passage morn is personified as smiling and night as frowning. The departing darkness is compared in a simile to a staggering drunkard trying to get out of the sun’s path. "Titan’s fiery wheels" is an allusion to the Greek sun god who drove a chariot of fire.

The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave that is her womb.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. Friar Laurence uses a number of metaphors when he compares mother earth to nature’s womb, because it gives birth to living things, and also to its tomb, because the dead are buried there. This resonates with the play’s central human story and paradox – the young lovers Romeo and Juliet are seeking love, but instead find death. Foreshadowed here is the tragic ending of the play, when the lovers die and are buried in the earth.

And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. In his soliloquy Friar Laurence speaks about the wonders of the earth. From its metaphorical womb, many different animals and plants emerge, each with its own unique skills and special virtues. All of these find nourishment from the earth. His monologue celebrates the diversity of life.

Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. As Friar Laurence tends to his medicinal herbs, he speaks of the competing powers of good and evil contained within the tiny flowers. They can be used to produce poison or medicine. The plants are a metaphor for human nature. The passage is foreshadowing of the wrong decisions that the lovers Romeo and Juliet make leading to their deaths. This is the poison the friar speaks about. The passage also highlights the theme of appearance vs reality, a flower may appear pretty but if you eat it it can poison you.

Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. Friar Laurence says that the dual nature of poison and medicine found in herbs, is also present in people. People have two sides to their nature, one evil and the other good. A metaphor compares this duality to "opposed kings." The friar also warns that where the evil side is stronger that becomes a cancer that kills. This is foreshadowing of how Romeo and Juliet, though they love each other, will be destroyed by the hatred surrounding them.

I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
That’s by me wounded: both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. Romeo speaks in cryptic metaphors to Friar Laurence. He explains how he has eaten with his enemy, they have wounded one another, but the friar has the medicinal remedy to cure them both. This is Romeo’s poetic way of saying that he and Juliet have been inflicted by Cupid’s arrows and their wounds can be healed by the friar marrying them.

Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4. Mercutio jokes that Romeo is back to his normal self again and is no longer miserable in love. Using a simile, he dismisses love as foolish, "like a great natural" means like a great fool. He believes that Romeo’s romantic yearnings for Rosaline were all to do with sexual frustration. The fool trying to "hide his bauble in a hole" is a double entendre suggesting sexual intercourse. Mercutio has a rather cynical view of love, seeing it more as sexual desire than Romeo’s idealized view of romantic love.

And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:
Within this hour my man shall be with thee
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4. Romeo uses marine imagery when he tells the Nurse that his servant will bring a rope ladder so that Romeo can climb up the Capulets’ wall to be with Juliet that night. In a metaphor he compares the rope ladder to a ship’s rigging that leads to the highest point of the mast. "The high top-gallant" is the highest mast of a ship.

He is not the flower of courtesy, but I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 5. The Nurse has just returned from meeting Romeo and gives her judgement of him. Using a flower metaphor, she tells Juliet that Romeo is not the most polite man in the world. But in a simile she says that he makes up for it by having the gentleness of a lamb. Romeo’s more gentle and romantic side stands in contrast to the roughness and brashness of some of his kinsmen and friends, such as the bawdy Mercutio. The Nurse subsequently gives her approval to the relationship between Romeo and Juliet.

These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6. Friar Laurence uses a gunpowder simile and kiss metaphor to show how rash love and going too fast can be dangerous and lead to a destructive ending. He is warning Romeo about acting impulsively and advising him to cool his extreme passion. This is after Romeo dares "love-devouring death" to try to come between him and his love for Juliet. The Friar is worried that their hasty marriage could have violent and dangerous consequences. This is an example of foreshadowing, since the Friar’s fears become reality.

The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6. Friar Laurence uses the metaphor of "the sweetest honey" to advise Romeo to moderate his love for Juliet. The Friar is concerned about the intensity of the passions between the young lovers. Love will last long if it is practiced in moderation, he counsels. The Friar is endeavoring to be the wise older head and voice of reason to the teenage lovers. Despite his concerns, Friar Laurence agrees to marry the couple, hoping that their marriage will help heal the feud between their warring families.

A lover may bestride the gossamer
That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6. As Juliet enters Friar Laurence’s cell, he comments that lovers are so light that they can walk on a spiderweb floating in the summer breeze, and still not fall. So flimsy is earthly joy, he says in in this vivid simile. He believes that the young lovers are standing on "vanity" or unreal pleasure. He feels that their relationship needs a stronger foundation.

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6. Juliet, about to get married to Romeo, speaks about the power of true love. In a metaphor she compares love to wealth. She contends that anyone who can count how much they have is poor, while she is so rich in love she cannot count half her wealth. Conceit is personified as a braggard and beggar.

O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
Alla stoccata carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1. Mercutio mocks Romeo for being cowardly for not accepting Tybalt’s challenge to fight. So Mercutio draws his sword to fight in Romeo’s place and defend his honor. He uses a metaphorical insult comparing Tybalt to a "rat-catcher." What Mercutio doesn’t know is that Romeo’s reluctance to fight a Capulet is because he is secretly married to one – Juliet. This an example of dramatic irony since the audience already knows this.

ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO: No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1. After being stabbed by Tybalt in his fight with him, Mercutio uses similes to downplay the seriousness of his wound to Romeo. Ever the lover of wit and wordplay even when dying, Mercutio uses a joke and pun to say that he will be a "grave man" tomorrow. He is playing on the double meaning of "grave," which can mean serious or a man in his grave. Mercutio’s dark pun is filled with bitter and tragic irony. It is foreshadowing not only his own death but also that of his best friend Romeo, senseless casualties of the bitter fuel between the warring Montagues and Capulets.

A plague o’ both your houses!
They have made worms’ meat of me.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1. The fatally injured Mercutio curses both Montague and Capulet families for his senseless death. Even as he is dying, he is able to apply his cynical wit to expose the pointlessness of the bloody quarrel between the two houses. In the second line he uses a dramatic metaphor to compare himself to a meal for worms. He becomes the first casualty of the feud, which marks a turning point in a play that witnesses a great deal further violence and death. There is irony here in that Mercutio doesn’t belong to either of the feuding house. He therefore had no reason to become involved in the fight, except for his own hot-headedness.

O, I am fortune’s fool!

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1. Using a metaphor comparing himself to "fortune’s fool," Romeo believes that he has been the victim of fate. Romeo has killed Tybalt in a moment of passion after Tybalt slew his friend Mercutio. Romeo feels that he had no choice in the matter but his action was dictated by fate, a force more powerful than him. There is an element of remorse in Romeo’s words. Before Mercutio’s killing he had done everything possible to avoid a fight with him.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2. In this sexually charged passage by Juliet, she yearns for the pleasure of her wedding night. Using erotically charged imagery and language, she looks forward to the "amorous rites" of lovers. Night is personified and curtain is used as a metaphor for darkness. Though only approaching her 14th birthday, Juliet is presented as a woman and a sexual one at that. This shows the very physical nature of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship. When it comes to strong physical desire and her longing to be "love performing," Juliet is Romeo’s equal. In the final two lines the motifs of light and dark are used – lovers can see by the light of their own beauty or, if love is blind, then it is best in the night.
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