English poetry -- History and criticism; Poetry -- Early works to 1800
Then also do we it sometimes to enforce a sence and make the word more
significatiue: as thus,
_I burne in loue, I freese in deadly hate
I swimme in hope, and sinke in deepe dispaire._
These examples I haue the willinger giuen you to set foorth the nature and
vse of your figure metaphore, which of any other being choisly made, is
the most commendable and most common.
[Sidenote: _Catachresis_, or the Figure of abuse]
But if for lacke of naturall and proper terme or worde we take another,
neither naturall nor proper and do vntruly applie it to the thing which we
would seeme to expresse, and without any iust inconuenience, it is not
then spoken by this figure _Metaphore_ or of _inuersion_ as before, but by
plaine abuse as he that bad his man go into his library and set him his
bowe and arrowes, for in deede there was neuer a booke there to be found,
or as one should in reproch say to a poore man, thou raskall knaue, where
_raskall_ is properly the hunters terme giuen to young deere, leane & out
of season, and not to people: or as one said very pretily in this verse.
_I lent my loue to losse, and gaged my life in vaine._
Whereas this worde _lent_ is properly of mony or some such other thing, as
men do commonly borrow, for vse to be repayed againe, and being applied to
loue is vtterly abused, and yet very commendably spoken by vertue of this
figure. For he that loueth and is not beloued againe; hath no lesse wrong,
that he that lendeth and is neuer repayde.
[Sidenote: _Metonimia_, or the Misnamer]
Now doth this vnderstanding or secret conceyt reach many times to the only
nomination of persons or things in their names, as of men, or mountaines,
seas, countries and such like, in which respect the wrong naming, or
otherwise naming of them then is due, carieth not onely an alteration of
sence but a necessitie of intendment figuratiuely, as when we cal loue by
the name of _Venus_, fleshly lust by the name of _Cupid_, bicause they
were supposed by the auncient poets to be authors and kindlers of loue and
lust: _Vulcane_ for fire, _Ceres_ for bread: _Bacchus_ for wine by the
same reason; also if one should say to a skilfull craftesman knowen for a
glutton or common drunkard, that had spent all his goods on riot and
delicate fare.
_Thy hands they made thee rich, thy pallat made thee poore._
It is ment, his trauaile and arte made him wealthie, his riotous life had
made him a beggar: and as one that boasted of his housekeeping, said that
neuer a yeare passed ouer his head, that he drank not in his house euery
moneth foure tonnes of beere, & one hogshead of wine, meaning not the
caskes, or vessels, but that quantitie which they conteyned. These and
such other speaches, where ye take the name of the Author for the thing it
selfe, or the thing conteining, for that which is contained, & in many
other cases do as it were wromg name the person or the thing. So
neuerthelesse as it may be vnderstood, it is by the figure _metonymia_, or
misnamer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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