PORTENTOUS THING

Portentous Things:
A Study of Shakespeares Use of Natural Metaphors in Julius Caesar
Esther R. Cunningham
Wheaton College

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Abstract

This essay analyzes a brief exchange between Casca and Cicero from William
Shakespeares Julius Caesar discussing the unnatural events happening in Rome. These events
are signs that something is wrong in Roman society. The analysis begins with an examination of
the power of metaphors to convey messages below the obvious surface. This examination is
followed by an evaluation of Shakespeares use of the word ambitious to describe both the
storm and Caesar himself. After discussing ambitious, this essay will turn to unpacking the
emphasis on fire in Cascas speech. This evaluation is followed by an assessment of the image
of a lion. By dissecting the metaphors that Shakespeare presents through the mouth of Casca,
this essay will show that Shakespeare uses natural metaphors to transversally connect Ancient
Rome to Elizabethan England.
Keywords: Shakespeare, metaphor criticism, transversal theater, Julius Caesar

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Portentous Things:

A Study of Shakespeares Natural Metaphors in Julius Caesar

Introduction
William Shakespeares plays subtly comment on the social and political state of
Elizabethan England. Because he holds, as he asserts through the mouth of Hamlet, The
purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as twere the mirror
up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure (III.2.18-22).1 His theater is not mere entertainment, like the
bear-baiting rings that were located next to his Globe Theater across the Thames from the
Queens palace. Shakespeare fully intends his theater to comment on the world around him. His
theater is engaging with cultural events through the stories that he writes.
However, because Queen Elizabeth was seen by the Elizabethans as both the head of the
country and the head of the Church of England, Shakespeare had to be creative in how his plays
addressed the issues of the day. All plays presented in Elizabethan England were reviewed by
the Master of the Revels who had the authority to prohibit any play from being performed.
While none of Shakespeares plays were ever forbidden from the stage (Shapiro 137),2 he was
aware that all of his writings were under strict scrutiny which in turn made him cautious in his
commentary on society.
But not only did Shakespeare have to consider the Master of the Revels and the risk of
losing his ability to produce plays or worse losing his head, he also had to worry about loosing
the interest of his audiences. If he did not present plays that were culturally relevant or attention
grabbing in some manner, his audiences would drift over to one of the many other theaters and
search for entertainment somewhere else. Shakespeare, like so many producers working today

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on Broadway or West End, was forced by the open market to write plays that would appeal to his
audiences. As one of the primary shareholders in the company, Shakespeare knew that he must
write plays that captured his audience and brought them back to see the same show again and
again.
One of the ways that Shakespeare was able to establish this delicate balance of cultural
commentary and audience appeal was through the metaphors he included in his text. Most of his
audience members and many of his competitors understood metaphors in a very Aristotelian
sense; meaning that they saw metaphors as ornamental decorations scattered throughout the play
to demonstrate the playwrights mastery of language and embellish and enhance and elevate the
language spoken on the stage. As Sister Miriam Joseph explains her understanding of metaphors
in his plays, Many of Shakespeares metaphors suggest the activity, aliveness, and freshness
commanded by Aristotle (Joseph 145).3 Many scholars take this simpler, Aristotelian
conception of metaphor to unpack Shakespeares metaphors from a literary perspective,
analyzing tenors and vehicles in order to better understand the characters and themes within
these timeless works.
While Shakespeares works benefit both from literary and theatrical analysis, the
rhetorician has a unique ability to understand how Shakespeares words were received by his
audience. The rhetorician can unpack the metaphors that are sprinkled through all of
Shakespeares plays and examine how they can connect to those who see and hear the story. The
rhetorician then follows in the footsteps of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their seminal
work Metaphors We Live by (1980). Lakoff and Johnson establish the groundwork for a
rhetorical concept of metaphors that allow scholars to unpack the power that a metaphor carries.
Ann Thompson and John O. Thompson continue this work by applying Lakoff and Johnsons

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work to Shakespeares metaphors on time in their 1987 book Shakespeare: Meaning &
Metaphor. Thompson and Thompson focus on the technical level of the text and how that
enables both actor and audience to better comprehend the text. I would like to build on this
dialogue and examine how the metaphors in Shakespeare not only enable a better understanding
of the text itself, but also allow Shakespeare to connect the world outside of the Globe Theater to
the world he creates on the Globes stage. In this essay, I will argue that Shakespeare represents
the political climate of Rome metaphorically to create a transversal relationship between ancient
and contemporary politics. Specifically, I will focus on his use of metaphors that focus on nature
to critique the past as a means of analyzing the present.
Background
Julius Caesar is a confusing play in which the title character dies halfway through the
script, leaving his ghost to loom over the remaining half of the play. In the half where Caesar is
alive, the conspirators must be extremely cautious with how they speak of Caesar since to speak
ill of the tyrant could lead to their death, as evidenced by the silencing of Murellus and Flavius
for pulling scarves off Caesars images (I.2.286-7). Discussions between the senators are
shadowed and caged. Metaphors abound, especially metaphors related to nature. But for these
Romans, these metaphors are not merely embellishing their classical rhetoric or simply
enhancing the enjoyment of their hearers. These metaphors connect the world of nature to the
world of politics.
Metaphors are a unique form of communication because there are many different levels
of meanings with varying degrees of accesibility. There is the surface level of the vehicle that
provides a vivid image for the tenor which is the meat of the discussion, the idea that the author
really wants his audience to understand. The job of the rhetorical critic is to unlock the

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metaphor. This does not mean just explaining the connection between the vehicle and the tenor.
The rhetorical critic must also unlock the frame of the metaphor. The metaphor used has its own
implicit meanings that reveal the worldview of the author and the society that would accept that
metaphor. No metaphor is neutral in its framing. But when the tenor and the vehicle are
combined, they create their own new meaning. And the rhetorical critic must be there to uncover
the assumptions that are hidden by the image of the tenor (Foss 2009, Osburn 1967, Smith and
Eisenberg 1987, Musloff 2011).4
In Shakespeares depictions of Rome, the Romans carry an intense respect for the natural
world, whatever happens in nature, storms, fires, earthquakes, all has implications for their social
and political world. Rome is what Michael Long calls a nature fearing society (78) in his book
The Unnatural Scene. Any grotesque catastrophe results from the the workings of its social
dynamics (78).5 And so any reference to nature in Julius Caesar, a play that aims at the heart of
what it means to be Roman, a play where the characters are constantly figuring out what qualities
make a man more or less Roman, any reference to the state of nature should be highly considered
as a metaphor for something happening in the political world of Rome.
One of the longest sections of Julius Caesar dealing with the natural world is an
exchange in Act 1, scene 3. Casca, a passionately bitter senator who tenses, ready to have his
hands speak the words his mouth cannot utter against Caesar, comments on the supernatural
things that he has just witnessed. These events have left Casca shaken and terrified for the state
of the world. And for good reason, for he describes the bizarre things he witnessed: a tempest
dropping fire, (1.3.10); a slave whose left hand did flame and burn/like twenty torches joined
yet felt no pain (1.3.16-18); a lion that strolled around without harming anyone (1.3.20-22); men
walking around on fire (1.3.24-25); and a bird of night that was hooting and shrieking during

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the daylight (1.3.26-28).6 This interaction is the last moment in the show before the plot to
assassinate Caesar is officially verbalized. For Casca cannot unburden his distress from these
irrational events even after his discussion with Cicero. So he continues to feed his fixation on
these sights by furthering the conversation with Cassius on the next page. This supernatural
superstition from Casca is what finally encourages Cassius to unfold and include Casca in his
scheme to kill Caesar.
Though the exchange between Cicero and Casca is brief and, at first glance, unnecessary
to plot development, this conversation is nevertheless vital to understanding the supernatural
symbols and metaphors that abound in Julius Caesar and all of Shakespeares works. Casca
makes several reference to unnatural events that he has observed and explains them as proof of
the gods displeasure with Rome. His explanation of the unnatural events falls into line with the
prevalent idea at Shakespeares time of the Great Chain of Being which placed all of the
monarchs authority directly from God. This scene metaphorically explains why Caesar must die
for Rome to be at peace.
From a textual analysis, we can tell that this speech is one of significance because it is the
first time that Casca speaks in verse. In his earlier dialogue with Brutus and Cassius, Casca
speaks in prose. But in this speech of divine significance, Casca heightens his language and uses
verse (90).7 In Shakespeare, prose and verse are not used interchangeably. Shakespeare often
used prose for characters of lower class or lower mental capacity while he uses verse as a means
of allowing the character to express him- or herself eloquently and expressively.8 So when
Casca speaks in prose, he describes plainly in prose the attempt to coronate Caesar. But in this
scene, when he is overwhelmed by these unnatural events he claims are sent by the gods, Casca

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switches to verse. The heightened language highlights this small exchange, making this passage
worthy of study.
Some scholars have studied the contrast between verse and prose in Shakespeare and
other scholars have studied the different metaphors throughout Julius Caesar (Toole 1972),
which are both important studies allowing us to better understand the mastery Shakespeare has
over language and the effect his language has on the audience. But this essay seeks to explore
how Shakespeares use of metaphors both reflected the existing ideals of his society and how
they were effective for his society because of the Elizabethan conception of the order of the
world. Shakespeare uses the state of the natural world as a metaphor for the social and political
climate of a country through examining this brief exchange between Casca and Cicero which
describes unnatural events that point to unrest in Rome due to Caesars dictatorship.
Understanding Metaphors
In order to understand how Shakespeares metaphor were effective in speaking into his
society, it is important to understand the study of metaphor criticism. George Lakoff and Mark
Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live by (1980) argue that metaphors have the power to
shape how an audience views any object. In a metaphor, there are two elements: the tenor and
the vehicle. The opening chapter presents the example of Argument is War to explain that
connecting the ideas of argument, which is the tenor, and war, which is the vehicle used to
illuminate the tenor, has informed a cultural understanding of argument. However, the
connections of the two ideas not only highlights aspects of the idea being considered, but it also
hides many characteristics of that same idea. This is because the audience has certain
preconceived beliefs associated with an image that they are often unaware of. Our minds then

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place limits on the tenor based off the limitations that are subconsciously associated with the
vehicle.9
Andreas Musolff in his 2011 article Metaphor in Political Dialogue agrees with Lakoff
and Johnson and connects their exploration of metaphors to Shakespeares works. Refuting the
Aristotelian idea of a metaphor as mere literary embellishment, Musolff claims that
Shakespeares metaphors are used as part of a characters argument.10 The metaphor pushes the
characters argument forward by allowing the hearer to employ his knowledge of the vehicle to
enhance his understanding of the tenor. This is why Shakespeare needed to draw on images that
his audience was familiar with, otherwise the metaphor would be useless and the subtext would
remain unnoticed.
Ann Thompson and John Thompson also apply Lakoff and Johnsons work to
Shakepsearean metaphors. They push the understanding of metaphors beyond the Elizabethan
understanding of metaphors, which was highly Aristotelian. Sister Miriam Joseph explains in
her book Shakespeares Use of the Arts of Language that the Elizabethans were highly informed
by the Classical Greek and Roman tradition of using metaphors as decorative embellishments
(Jospeh 145). Although Shakespeare followed the rules of his education, Thompson and
Thompson argue that Shakespeare also used the metaphors in a more modern understanding
which means that the metaphors are necessary elements in the argument that actually contribute
to the understanding of the argument.
In Shakespeares plays, metaphors require close examination. Because of the religious
and political climate of Elizabethan England, playwrights needed to be just as shadowy and
cagey in their language as the Roman senators had to be in Julius Caesar. Before an Elizabethan
theater company could perform a play, it first had to clear the approval of the Master of the

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Revels (Shapiro 123). This man would closely examine the text to edit out any possibly
irreverent comments against her Royal Highness the Queen of England. For Elizabethan
England, doubting the Queen was on the same level of heresy as doubting the existence and
omnipotence of God. This is because of the Elizabethan belief in the Divine Right of Kings
which established the ruler as someone directly appointed by God, someone to whom God alone
had granted power. Any attempt to remove the monarch was an attempt to dethrone God.
The Great Chain of Being or the Divine Order structured how Elizabethan England
understood the connection between the natural world with the social order. When something is
wrong with the political sphere then the material world will reflect that discord in the social
hierarchy. Within the Great Chain, there was a hierarchy for all the different sections, divine,
political, social, natural. Everything has a specific place. If anything in the human sector is out
of order, the Elizabethans believed it would be reflected by widespread disorder and chaos in the
other spheres.
The Ambitious Ocean
Casca bursts onto stage in the middle of a thunder storm where he runs into Cicero.
When asked why he is breathless and scared (I.3.2), Casca begins to describe what he has
witnessed in the past and what he has just witnessed. One of the first things he describes is
thambitious ocean that did swell and rage and foam,/to be exalted with the threatening
clouds (I.3.7). Of particular interest to this study is the use of the word ambitious to describe
the ocean.
Throughout the rest of Julius Caesar, ambitious is used seven more times. But those
seven times all come in Act Three during the funeral orations of Brutus and Marc Antony as
descriptions of Julius Caesar. Brutus, noble and dignified, who loved Rome with purest love

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humanly possible, speaks first to the Roman crowds so he can explain the bloody deed that the
people observe before them. He describes his love for Caesar as a person, praising Caesars
many accomplishments, yet Brutus defends his part in the conspiracy by saying but as he was
ambitious, I slew him (III.2.25-26). Marc Antony, who loved Caesar so much that the
conspirators considered killing him as well since they were afraid he would revenge Caesars
death or worse try to become a new Caesar (II.1.161-199), weeps over Caesars body. When
Marc Antony speaks to the people, then, he slyly reframes the portrait of Caesar that the noble
Brutus had presented. Marc Antony does this by using the constant refrain of But Brutus says
he was ambitious,/and Brutus is an honorable man (III.2.90-91).
When Shakespeare, who had an extensive vocabulary and the creativity to produce a new
word when he could not find an already existing one to suit his needs,11 repeats a word over and
over again within the same play, specifically in regards to the same character, it heightens the
significance of that word. Since ambitious seven out of eight times is used to describe Caesar,
it is important to note the one time that it is used in reference to something else. In Cascas
speech, ambitious is used to describe the ocean.
In Elizabethan conception of the Chain of Being, the sky was often used as a symbol for
God because, like God, the sky was the highest element in its section with the ocean far below it.
And as previously stated, any element that attempted to rise from its designated ranking
committed a sin that affected all those below it. So the ocean attempting to reach the heavens is
the ocean attempting to take a ranking that it does not belong in. Thus making the ocean
ambitious. By showing the ocean to be doing something wrong by trying to reach higher than it
should and then by using the word ambitious so selectively, Shakespeare connects the ocean to

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Julius Caesar. If the ocean is trying to reach too high, then Caesar is also trying to reach too high
in his political endeavors.
Elizabethans also structured their thinking of the world by the concept of the Four
Humors. They believed that every person was characterized by one of the four: Melancholic,
Phlegmatic, Choleric, or Sanguine (Paster and Brown 2012). Each of these different Humors
had different personality traits and characteristics associated with them. Interestingly for Julius
Caesar, the Choleric Humor, tied to the yellow liver, is defined by rage, anger, and ambition
(Fahey, 27) and would be understand as the Humor that inflames the spirit and incites action
(27), as well as describing a person full of ruthlessness and rage (30). So when Brutus uses the
word ambitious to describe Caesar, Shakespeare is counting on his audience to understand that
this means Brutus thinks of Caesar as a violent, dangerous, ruthless, Choleric person, one who is
not fit to be in office. This creates a transversal relationship between Shakespeares Roman
characters and his Elizabethan audiences because what is said onstage transcends time from the
Ancient Rome that is scripted and performed to the Elizabethan England that the audience is
currently living in.
A Tempest Dropping Fire
But not only is the choleric state associated with ambition, it is also associated with fire.
As Fahey comments, choler inflames the spirit (Fahey 27). Casca claims that the awful storm
is because humanity has tried to rise too high in the Chain of Being and, as a result, it incenses
[the gods] to send destruction (I.3.13). Fire represents the rashness, energy, and aggressiveness
that is connected in the Elizabethan mind to the Choleric disposition. Going again with the
principle that repetition illuminates what Shakespeare considers important, it should be noted
that fire is referred to eight different times in this exchange of just thirty-five lines.

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First Casca reveals that this storm that he and Cicero are discussing is no normal
thunderstorm, it is in fact a tempest dropping fire (I.3.10). And then when he is interpreting
what this disorderly event could mean, Casca explains that it is because the world is
incens[ing] (I.3.14) the gods to send this destruction. The gods, the head of the divine section
of the Chain of Being, are punishing the world because someone, somewhere in Rome has upset
the prescribed order of society. Caesar has dared to disrupt the Democracy in favor of a tyranny
with himself as the head. Shakespeare is using the Elizabethan belief in the established order of
society to present an argument for maintaining the status quo.
Next Casca describes a common slave (I.3.15) whose left handdid flame and
burn/like twenty torches joined; and yet his hand/Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched
(I.3.16-18) [emphasis added]. And finally he describes Men, all in fire walking up and down
the streets (I.3.25). These startling images, unsettling to the hearer let alone the eye witness of
such a spectacle, are further proof of the disturbance that is ongoing in Rome. Chaos in the
Chain of Being can only be resolved by a return to the established order. Thus Cassius, when he
comes out later and speaks with Casca, says, If you would consider the true cause/Why all these
fires.../Why all these things change from their natural ordinance/why you shall find/That
heaven has infused them with these spirits/To make them instruments of fear and warning/Unto
some monstrous state (I.3.65-74). And then goes on to say that there is one specific man who is
most like this dreadful night (I.3.76), fearful, as these strange eruptions are (I.3.81). To
which Casca reveals the cause behind the chaos: Tis Caesar that you mean, is it not, Cassius?
(I.3.82).
A Lion Walking Surly by

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Casca is, understandably, so in shock of seeing a lion who simply glazed upon me and
went surly by/without annoying me (I.3.21-22). Lions, while unconnected to the four Choleric
states, are at the head of the animal section in the Chain of Being. And like the sky, as the head
of their section they are often used as metaphors for the heads of other sections. So like the
ambitious ocean, Shakespeare uses the lion as a metaphor for Julius Caesar, as Cassius makes
explicit when he says that he could name to thee a man/Thatroars/As doth the lion in the
Capitol (I.3.75-78). The head of the animal kingdom is doing something that is unnatural. Just
so, Caesar is doing something unnatural. Through this comparison, Shakespeare metaphorically
explains that the conspirators are justified in their assassination plot.
Conclusion
Casca himself highlights the importance of each of these abnormalities in the last four
lines of his speech to Cicero:
When these prodegies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say
These are their reasons, they are natural
For I believe they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon. (I.3.28-32)
Shakespeare, through the mouth of Casca, requires his audiences to note the images that Casca
has just presented and consider them metaphorically. They cannot be mere natural events; they
must be things that point upon something else. This is where Shakespeare involves his
audiences imaginations. He asks them to determine what each event means. And he assists
them in this journey by incorporating theories and structures that his audience will understand.
Shakespeare then pushes them to apply what Casca learns about the unnatural events to their
own society. He connects the time of Ancient Rome to Elizabethan England. He uses theater to
unite the past to the present.

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It is not possible in this space to examine where else in Julius Caesar that Shakespeare
advocates this transversal unity, let alone where he does it in the rest of his plays. But
Shakespeare is not the only playwright to write theater about a time past to speak into the time
present. A new musical Hamilton is sweeping Broadway and creeping its way into the hearts of
America one Stephen Colbert interview at a time. It is the number two album of 2015, the only
musical theater album on the list, according to Billboard music.12 In this show, the creator Lin
Manuel Miranda uses the story of the founding fathers to metaphorically speak into issues that
are dealt with today through modern music styles such as rap and hip hop. Because of the
cultural impact that a show like this has, rhetoricians should bridge the gap between rhetorical
studies and theater so that they can better explain the rhetorical significance that theater has on
its present audience through presenting past events. Rhetoricians should expose the hidden
claims that lie in each piece of theater so people know the messages behind what they are seeing
on stage.
Metaphors abound in all of theater. They are a beautiful way for playwrights to state
something innocuously and so allow the audience to come to the conclusion that the playwright
is trying to draw them to without the audience feeling manipulated. And it is the rhetoricians
job to uncover the metaphors that affect our culture, to uncover the hidden assumptions that are
creeping their way from stage to society. From Shakespeare to Miranda, theater has always
made a comment on political workings with varying degrees of subtly. Shakespeare, though,
with his iambic pentameter and Elizabethan cultural references, deserves special decoding in
order to understand how his text works. We should learn from one of the masters of the English
language and apply him to the rest of theater because theater is one of the many forms that make
it easy to transversally connect the past to the present.

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References

Fahey, Caitlin Jeanne. (2008). Altogether governed by humors: The four ancient
temperaments in Shakespeare. Graduate Theses and Dissertations. Retrieved from
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1229&context=etd
Foss, Sonja K. (2009). Rhetorical criticism: Exploration and practice (4th ed.). Long
Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc.
Joseph, Sister Miriam. (2013). Shakespeare's use of the arts of language. Mansfield
Centre, CT: Marino Publishing.
Kermode, Frank. (2000). Shakespeare's language. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Long, Michael. (1976). The unnatural scene: A study in Shakespearean tragedy.
London, UK: Methuen.
Murphey, John M. (2011). Barack Obama, the Exodus tradition, and the Joshua
generation. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 97 (4), 387-410. Retrieved from
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f624e847-024e-4f5f-95ce8ccad2f0c309%40sessionmgr4003&vid=1&hid=4101.
Musolff, Andreas. (2011). Metaphor in Political Dialogue. Language and Dialogue 1
(2), 191-206.
Osburn, Michael. (1967). Archetypal metaphor in criticism: The light-dark family.
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 53 (2), 115-126. Retrieved from

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http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=029b7df6-a60f-4f47-8916f2b0465caee6%40sessionmgr114&vid=1&hid=118.
Paster, G., & Brown, T. (2012, January 30). Four Humors - And there's the humor of it:
Shakespeare and the four humors. Retrieved December 16, 2015 from
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/shakespeare/fourhumors.html
Shakespeare, William. (2008). Hamlet. New York, NY: The Modern Library.
Shakespeare, William. (2007). Julius Caesar. New York, NY: The Modern Library.
Shakespeare, William. (2007). King Lear. New York, NY: The Modern Library.
Shapiro, James. (2005). A year in the life of William Shakespeare: 1599. New York,
NY: Harper Collins Publishers.
Smith, Ruth C., and Eisenberg, Eric M. (1987). Conflict at Disneyland: A root metaphor
analysis. Communication Monographs, 54 (4), 367-380. Retrieved from
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=98b557f2-6a45-433b-8b8184c39497a0e7%40sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=118.
Thompson, Ann, and John O. Thompson. (1987). Shakespeare, meaning & metaphor.
Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.
Toole, William. (1972). The Metaphor of Alchemy in Julius Caesar. Costerus 5: 135-51.
Weimann, Robert. (1974). Shakespeare and the study of metaphor. New Literary
History, 6 (1), 149-67.

1
Shakespeare, William. (2008). Hamlet. New York, NY: The Modern Library.
2
Shapiro, James. (2005). A year in the life of William Shakespeare: 1599. New York, NY:
Harper Collins Publishers.
3
Joseph, Sister Miriam. (2013). Shakespeare's use of the arts of language. Mansfield Centre,
CT: Marino Publishing.
4
Foss, Sonja K. (2009). Rhetorical criticism: Exploration and practice (4th ed.), chapter 8.
Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc.

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5
Long, Michael. (1976). The unnatural scene: A study in Shakespearean tragedy. London, UK:
Methuen.
6
Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. New York, NY: The Modern Library
7
Kermode, Frank. (2000). Shakespeare's language. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
8
For other examples of this phenomenon in Shakespeare, consider King Lear. Edward, the
banished son of Gloucster, originally speaks in beautiful verse when he is allowed in court.
Once he is forced to leave, he disguises himself physically and verbally as a beggar by switching
to speak now in prose. However, when he is leading his blind father, who is unaware that he is
in the presence of his son, and becomes afraid that his father could lose his life, Edward switches
back to his more natural verse style. His father notices this and says Methinks thy voice is
altered and thou speakest in better phrase and matter than thou didst (IV.5.10-11) proving that
even the characters on stage could tell the difference between verse and prose. Also, in Hamlet,
scholars are still debating over when Hamlet is truly or affectedly mad based off of the times that
he speaks in verse or prose.
9
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
10
Musolff, Andreas. (2011). Metaphor in Political Dialogue. Language and Dialogue 1 (2),
191-206.
11
According to http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/stats/, a website that has collected and
posted all the different plays, Shakespeare used 28,829 different words throughout all of his
writings and, of all those, 12,493 only appear once. Shakespeare did not repeat words
unintentionally.
12
As posted on http://www.billboard.com/photos/6792633/best-albums-of-2015/22