William Shakespeare Similes. Frank J. Wilstach, comp. 1916. A Dictionary of Similes

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CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

William Shakespeare


Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.	1
Age like winter bare.	2
Alike as my fingers is to my fingers.	3
Alone, like one that had the pestilence.	4
Amazed, as one that unaware Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood.	5
Anger is like a full-hot horse, who being allowed his way, self-mettle tires him.	6
As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint.	7
Behold mine arm Is like a blasted sapling, withered up.	8
Asleep, As Cerberus at Thracian poet’s feet.	9
Barred, like one infectious.	10
Brain as barren As banks of Libya.	11
Bearded like the pard.	12
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure and no pace perceived.	13
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s song.	14
Another stain, as big as hell can hold, Were there no more but it.	15
Bitter as coloquintida.	16
Bitter to me as death.	17
Black as Acheron.	18
Black As if besmear’d in hell.	19
Black as incest.	20
Black as ink.	21
Black as Vulcan in the smoke of war.	22
Like a mildewed ear, Blasting his wholesome brother.	23
Bloody as the hunter.	24
Blue as bilbery.	25
Blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt not.	26
Blush … like a black dog, as the saying is.	27
Boundless as the sea.	28
Bountiful As mines of India.	29
Bowed like bondmen.	30
Breaking his oath and resolution, like A twist of rotten silk.	31
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds, The better to beguile.	32
Brief as the lightning in the collied night.	33
Broad and general as the casing air.	34
Brown in hue as hazel nuts.	35
Burn like mines of sulphur.	36
Calm as virtue.	37
Carouse together Like friends long lost.	38
Carved like an apple-tart Here’s snip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and slash, Like a censer in a barber’s shop.	39
Catch at us, like strumpets.	40
Chaste as Diana.	41
Chaste as ice.	42
Chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.	43
Chaste as the icicle.	44
Chaste as unsunned snow.	45
Cheap as lies.	46
Cheap as stinking mackerel.	47
Checked like a bondman.	48
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp.	49
Had wet their cheeks, like trees bedashed with rain.	50
Chide as loud As thunder.	51
More clamorous than a parrot against rain.	52
Clawed like a parrot.	53
Clean as a sound sheep’s heart.	54
Clear As morning roses newly washed with dew.	55
Clear as the summer’s sun.	56
Clear As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.	57
Countenance as clear as friendship wears at feasts.	58
Clear as founts in July.	59
Cold as a dead man’s nose.	60
Cold as a snowball.	61
My belly is as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the veins.	62
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.	63
That comfort comes too late; ’Tis like a pardon after execution.	64
Comfortless As frozen water to a starved snake.	65
Commands like a full soldier.	66
Common as the stairs That mount the Capitol.	67
Concave as a covered goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.	68
Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped, Doth burn the heart to cinders.	69
Confident, as is the falcon’s flight.	70
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds.	71
But I am as constant as the northern star Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament.	72
Contention, like a horse full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose, and bears down all before him.	73
Contract and purse thy brow together As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain Some horrible conceit.	74
Countenance as clear as friendship wears at feasts.	75
Wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans, Still we went coupled, and inseparable.	76
Cowardly as a wild duck.	77
Cream and mantle, like a standing pond.	78
Creep like shadows.	79
Creeping like snail Unwillingly to school.	80
Crest-fallen as a dried pear.	81
Crow like chanticleer.	82
Curd, like eager droppings into milk.	83
Curst, and shrewd as Socrates’ Xantippe.	84
Cursing like a very drab.	85
More dangerous, than baits to fish.	86
Dark as Egypt.	87
Dark as Erebus.	88
Dark as hell.	89
Dark as ignorance.	90
Their influence darts Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins of desolate society.	91
Dead as earth.	92
Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.	93
The venom clamours of a jealous woman poison more deadly than a dog’s tooth.	94
Deaf as the sea.	95
Dear as my finger.	96
As dear to me as life itself.	97
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty.	98
As soon decay’d and done As is the morning’s silver-melting dew.	99
Deep as hell.	100
Deep as the sea.	101
Degraded, like a hedge-born swain That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.	102
These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume.	103
Difference … between jet and ivory.	104
His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered.	105
Dive, like buckets, in concealed wells.	106
Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch.	107
Doubtful it stood; As two spent swimmers, that do cling together And choke their art.	108
Droops … like over-ripen’d corn Hanging the head of Ceres’ plenteous load.	109
Dropped, as by a thunder-stroke.	110
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum.	111
Droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.	112
Dry as dust.	113
Dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage.	114
Dull as night.	115
Duller than a great thaw.	116
Easy as a down-bed.	117
Easy as lying.	118
Easy as to set dogs on sheep.	119
Easy as thanks.	120
I was of late as petty to his ends, As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf To his grand sea.	121
An eye, like Mars, to threaten and command.	122
Her eyes, as murder’d with the view, Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew.	123
Thy eyes’ windows fall, Like death, when he shuts up the day of life.	124
His eye Red as ’twould burn Rome.	125
His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret.	126
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath’d their light, And canopied in darkness sweetly lay, Till they might open to adorn the day.	127
Fair as any mother’s child.	128
Fair as day.	129
Fair as text B in a copy-book.	130
Her face as fair as tho’ she had look’d on Paradise, and caught its early beauty.	131
Falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again.	132
False as dice.	133
False as dicers’ oaths.	134
False as hell.	135
False As stairs of sand.	136
False as water.	137
False … as wolf to heifer’s calf.	138
Familiar as his garter.	139
Familiar in his mouth as household words.	140
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs.	141
As far from help as limbo is from bliss.	142
So far from sounding and discovery, As is the bud bit with an envious worm, Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.	143
Fast As lagging fowls before the northern blast.	144
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum.	145
Entrap the hearts of men, faster than gnats in cobwebs.	146
Faster than thought or time.	147
Fat as butter.	148
Fat as tame things.	149
Fat and fulsome to mine ear As howling after music.	150
Fawned like hounds.	151
As corn o’ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear Is almost chok’d by unresisted lust.	152
Trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon’s bells.	153
Fearful as a siege.	154
Feed like an oxen at a stall.	155
Firm as faith.	156
Firm as rocky mountains.	157
As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib’s rush for Tom’s fore-finger, as pancake for Shrove-Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the friar’s mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.	158
Fleeter than the roe.	159
Flow as hugely as the sea.	160
Fluent as the sea.	161
Fly like chidden Mercury from Jove.	162
Like falcon to the lure, away she flies.	163
Fly like thought.	164
Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield, They basely fly.	165
Follow, as the night the day.	166
Fonder than ignorance.	167
Fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings.	168
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun: it shines everywhere.	169
Foul as slander.	170
Foul as Vulcan’s stithy.	171
Free as mountain winds.	172
Freer than a jailer.	173
Fresh as a bridegroom.	174
Fresh as Dian’s visage.	175
Fresh as morning’s dew distill’d on flowers.	176
Frets like a gummed velvet.	177
Fruitful as the free elements.	178
Fruitful as the land that feeds us.	179
As full of labour as a wise man’s art.	180
Full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat.	181
Full of spirit as the month of May.	182
As full of sorrows as the seas of sands.	183
As fat and fulsome to mine ear As howling after music.	184
Gabble like tinkers.	185
Gaunt as a grave.	186
Broad and general as the casing air.	187
Gentle as the cradle-babe.	188
They are as gentle As zephyrs blowing below the violet.	189
Gently as any sucking dove.	190
Thou art As glorious to this night, being o’er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals.	191
Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught.	192
Glowed like plated Mars.	193
Gorgeous as the sun at midsummer.	194
Gray as glass.	195
Green as leeks.	196
Grew like the summer’s grass.	197
Grin like lions Upon the pikes o’ the hunters.	198
Gripe as hard Cassibelan.	199
Gross as a mountain.	200
Gross as ignorance made drunk.	201
Ground, Like a thousand vanquish’d men in bloody flight.	202
Grew like the summer grass.	203
Hacked like a hand-saw.	204
Her hair, like golden threads, play’d with her breath.	205
Hung like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard.	206
His listless hand Hung like dead bone within its withered skin.	207
Hangs like flax on a distaff.	208
Hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me.	209
Hang upon him like a disease.	210
Hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife upon her husband’s neck.	211
She hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear.	212
Happy as the fairest of all.	213
Hard as steel.	214
Hard as the palm of ploughman.	215
Hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.	216
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end.	217
Hasty as fire.	218
Hasty, like a Scotch jig.	219
I do hate him as I do hell pains.	220
Hate is as an unfilled can.	221
Hateful as Cocytus’ misty mouth.	222
Hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.	223
Haunt thee like a wicked conscience.	224
I hang the head As flowers with frost, or grasses bent with storms.	225
All in a heap, like a slaughtered lamb.	226
As far from help as limbo is from bliss.	227
High as heaven itself.	228
Hollow as a ghost.	229
Honest as the skin between his brows.	230
Hooted at like an old tale.	231
Hop as light as bird from brier.	232
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks, Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast; Ready, with every nod, to tumble down Into the fatal bowels of the deep.	233
Hot as coals of glowing fire.	234
Hot as gunpowder.	235
Hot as molten lead.	236
Hot as monkeys.	237
Hot as Perseus.	238
Huge as high Olympus.	239
Humbly as they used to creep To holy altars.	240
Humorous as winter.	241
Hungry as the sea, And can digest as much.	242
Hush as death.	243
Hushed as midnight.	244
Ignorant as dirt.	245
More inconstant than the wind.	246
Indistinct as water is in water.	247
Innocent as grace itself.	248
Wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans, Still we went coupled, and inseparable.	249
Invisible, As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple.	250
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh.	251
Jealous as a Barbary cock pigeon over his hen.	252
Keen as razor’s edge.	253
Kill one another by the look, like cockatrices.	254
Even as poor birds, deceived with painted grapes, Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw, Even so she languisheth in her mishaps, As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.	255
Comes too late; ’Tis like a pardon after execution.	256
Laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper.	257
Lawful as eating.	258
Leads them like a thing Made by some other deity than nature.	259
Lecherous as a monkey.	260
Level as the cannon to his blank.	261
Liberal as the casing air.	262
Lies like truth.	263
Trifles light as air.	264
No more like my father Than I to Hercules.	265
Alike as my fingers is to my fingers.	266
As like, as rain to water, or devil to his dam.	267
Like as eggs.	268
As like this as a crab is like an apple.	269
As like you, As cherry is to cherry.	270
She lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man’s revenue.	271
Loathsome as a toad.	272
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe Upon a dwarfish thief.	273
Speak as loud as Mars.	274
Love is like a child, That longs for everything that he can come by.	275
Love like a shadow flies, when substance love pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.	276
Love, that comes too late, Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried, To a great sender turns a sour offence, Crying, that’s good that’s gone.	277
Low as to the fiends.	278
As low as hell’s from heaven.	279
Luscious as locusts.	280
Lustrous as ebony.	281
Mad as Ajax.	282
More mad Than Telamon for his shield.	283
Mad as the vexed sea.	284
Magnanimous as Agamemnon.	285
Maliciously like poison.	286
Men, like butterflies, Shew not their mealy wings but to the summer; And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honour.	287
Cream and mantle, like a standing pool.	288
Meek, like a bankrupt beggar.	289
Melancholy as a gib cat.	290
Melancholy as a lodge in a warren.	291
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.	292
Merry as the day is long.	293
As merry, as when our nuptial day was done, And tapers burned to bedward.	294
Merry as crickets.	295
Mild as a dove.	296
For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich; And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honor peereth in the meanest habit. What, is the jay more precious than the lark, Because his feathers are more beautiful.	297
Modest as justice.	298
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes The youthful Phœbus.	299
Modest as a dove.	300
Momentary as a sound.	301
Mortal as an old man’s life.	302
Sweet and musical as bright Apollo’s lute strung with his hair.	303
Naked as the vulgar air.	304
Notched him like a carbonado.	305
Obedient as the scabbard.	306
Old as Sibylla.	307
Open as day, for melting charity.	308
Overcome us like a summer’s cloud.	309
O’erwhelming his fair sight, Like misty vapors when they blot the sky.	310
Pale as a clout in the versal world.	311
Pale, as if a bear was at his heels.	312
Pale as milk.	313
Pale lustre like the silver moon.	314
Pale as his shirt.	315
A sudden pale, Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose.	316
Parted thence, As pearls from diamonds dropped.	317
Pass’d by me As misers do by beggars.	318
Pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy.	319
Patient as a gentle stream.	320
Patient as the female dove.	321
Perfumed like a milliner.	322
It shall as level to your judgment pierce As day does to your eye.	323
Piercing as the mid-day sun.	324
And pity, like a naked, new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, hors’d Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.	325
Plain as the plain bald pate of Father Time himself.	326
Plain as way to parish church.	327
Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven.	328
Plead like angels, trumpet-tongued.	329
As plenty as blackberries.	330
Poor as Job.	331
Poor as winter.	332
Positive as the earth is firm.	333
Prate like one i’ the stocks.	334
More precious Than the rich-jewell’d coffer of Darius.	335
Prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep.	336
Pricks like thorn.	337
Prime as goats.	338
Cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless As water in a sieve.	339
Promises are like Adonis’ gardens, That one day bloom’d and fruitful were the next.	340
Proud as an enjoyer.	341
Pure as grace.	342
Pure as sin with baptism.	343
Quarrelous as the weasel.	344
Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth.	345
Quiet as a lamb.	346
Rage like an angry bear, chafed with sweat.	347
Ragged as Lazarus.	348
Rank as a fox.	349
Rank as any flax-wench.	350
Rash as fire.	351
Ravish like enchanting harmony.	352
Ready as a borrower’s cap.	353
Like an over-charged gun, recoil.	354
Red as fire.	355
Red as Mars.	356
Red as new-enkindled fire.	357
Red as Titan’s face.	358
Whose rage doth rend Like interrupted waters.	359
Resemble … As much as an apple doth an oyster.	360
Resounds like heaven’s thunder.	361
Rheumatic as two dry toasts.	362
And I as rich in having such a jewel, As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.	363
Rich … As is the ooze and bottom of the sea, With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.	364
Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury.	365
Rotten As ever oak or stone was sound.	366
Were she as rough As are the swelling Adriatic seas.	367
Ruled, like a wandering planet.	368
Ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning.	369
Sad as night.	370
Safe as Priam is in Ilion.	371
Scald like molten lead.	372
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper.	373
Hath more scars of sorrow in his heart Than foeman’s marks upon his batter’d shield.	374
Secure as sleep.	375
Sever’d, like a flight of fowl Scatter’d by winds and high tempestuous gusts.	376
Shaked like a coward.	377
Shake like a field of beaten corn.	378
Shakes, like a thing unfirm.	379
Would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp.	380
Sharp as my needle.	381
More sharp than filed steel.	382
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child.	383
Nose was as sharp as a pen.	384
Sharp as his spur.	385
Shine As gloriously as the Venus of the sky.	386
Shiver’d like an egg.	387
Short as any dream.	388
Curst and shrewd as Socrates’ Xanthippe.	389
Shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth.	390
Sighing like furnace.	391
Sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his A, B, C.	392
Sigh like Tom o’ Bedlam.	393
Simpler than the infancy of truth.	394
About the caldron sing, Like elves and fairies in a ring.	395
Sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.	396
Skilless as unpractis’d infancy.	397
Slanderous as Satan.	398
Slash, Like to a censer in a barber’s shop.	399
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy.	400
Like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender.	401
Slipp’d me like his greyhound, Which runs himself and catches for his master.	402
As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard.	403
Smart as lizards’ stings.	404
He smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell.	405
Smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber, Not as death’s dart, being laughed at.	406
Smooth as oil.	407
Smooth as monumental alabaster.	408
Snorting like a horse.	409
Soft as air.	410
Soft as sinews of the new-born babe.	411
Soft as the dove’s down.	412
Soft as the parasite’s silk.	413
Soft as young down.	414
Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp’d, Doth burn the heart to cinders.	415
Sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell, Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes; Then little strength rings out the doleful knell.	416
An evil soul, producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A good apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.	417
He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper.	418
As sovereign as the blood of hearts.	419
Sparkle like the beaten flint.	420
His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered.	421
Spotted like a pard.	422
I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.	423
Stain’d, as meadows yet not dry, With miry slime left on them by a flood.	424
Stand at your door like a sheriff’s post.	425
Stand Like wonder-wounded hearers.	426
Stood like a man at a mark with a whole army shooting at me.	427
Stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.	428
Like dumb statues, or breathing stones, Stared each on other.	429
Starts, like one that spies an adder.	430
Like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree.	431
Still as the grave.	432
Stretched along, like a wounded knight.	433
Confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ.	434
Strong as Pluto’s gates.	435
Strong as the axletree.	436
Strong as … rash gunpowder.	437
More stubborn-hard than hammer’d iron.	438
Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun, That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks.	439
Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours.	440
A point as subtle As Ariachne’s broken woof.	441
Subtle as the fox for prey.	442
Sure as bark on a tree.	443
Sure as day.	444
Sure as I live.	445
Sure as I have thought or soul.	446
Swart, like my shoe.	447
Swear like a comfit-maker’s wife.	448
Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.	449
Sweet as balm.	450
Sweet, and musical, As bright Apollo’s lute.	451
Sweet as damask roses.	452
Sweet as ditties highly penn’d, Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower.	453
Sweet as spring-time flowers.	454
Sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes, Or Cytherea’s breath.	455
Swell, like round and orient pearls.	456
Swift as a shadow.	457
Swift as breathed stags.	458
Swift as frenzy’s thoughts.	459
Swift as lead.	460
As swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love.	461
Swift as quicksilver.	462
Swift as stones Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.	463
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.	464
Swift as thought.	465
Swift in motion as a ball.	466
Swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s bucket.	467
Swifter than the moon’s sphere.	468
Swim like a duck.	469
Talks like a knell, and his hum a battery.	470
Tamer than sleep.	471
Then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather’d lily almost wither’d.	472
Tedious as a king.	473
Tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife.	474
So tedious is this day, As is the night before some festival To an impatient child, that hath new robes, And may not wear them.	475
Temperate as the morn.	476
Tender as infancy and grace.	477
Tenderly be led by the nose, As asses are.	478
Thick as honeycomb.	479
Thick as Tewksbury mustard.	480
Thick as thought could make ’em.	481
Thin of substance as the air.	482
A thought unknown is as a thought unacted.	483
Thunder as Jove himself does.	484
For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with the arms outstretch’d, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing.	485
So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition; Two lovely berries moulded on one stem; So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart, Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, Due but to one and crowned with one crest.	486
Join they all together, Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.	487
The power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.	488
Transparent as barricadoes.	489
Tremble like aspen leaves.	490
Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmation strong As proofs of holy writ.	491
Trimm’d like a younker prancing to his love.	492
Trot, like a servile footman, all day long.	493
Troubled, like a fountain stirr’d.	494
True as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre.	495
As true as truth’s simplicity.	496
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.	497
Keep as true in soul As doth that orbed continent the fire That severs day from night.	498
True as I live.	499
Turn him off, Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears, And graze in commons.	500
Turn o’ the toe like a parish-top.	501
Ugly as a bear.	502
Unarm’d as bending angels.	503
Undistinguishable, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.	504
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude.	505
Unlustrous as the smoky light That’s fed with stinking tallow.	506
Like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree.	507
’Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.	508
Upright as the cedar.	509
Upright as a wild Morisco.	510
Valiant as a lion.	511
Valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse.	512
Valiant as Hercules.	513
As valiant a man as Mark Anthony.	514
Less valiant than the virgin in the night.	515
Valorous as Hector of Troy.	516
Vanisheth as smoke from Ætna.	517
Vanish like hailstones.	518
I have ventur’d, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.	519
Vigilant as a cat to steal cream.	520
More vindictive than jealous love.	521
Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion.	522
Walk like sprites To countenance this horror.	523
Wanton as a child.	524
Wanton as youthful goats.	525
Warlike as the wolf.	526
Watch, like one that fears robbing.	527
Waved like the enridged sea.	528
Weaker than a woman’s tear.	529
Weaker than the wine.	530
Weary, with her hard embracing, Like a wild bird being tamed with too much handling, Or as the fleet-foot roe that’s tired with chasing, Or like the froward infant still’d with dandling.	531
Weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam.	532
Weeps like a wench that had shed her milk.	533
Welcome hither As is the spring to the earth.	534
The night to the owl and morn to the lark less welcome.	535
Whirled like a potter’s wheel.	536
White as a lily.	537
Soft as dove’s down and as white.	538
White his shroud as the mountain snow.	539
Teeth as white as whale’s bone.	540
Perfect white Show’d like an April daisy on the grass.	541
Whole as a fish.	542
Whole as the marble.	543
Wildly as some vex’d and angry sea madly throws up its ancient firm foundation.	544
Wild as young bulls.	545
Wild as haggards of the rock.	546
The other wild, Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still.	547
With a heart as willing As bondage e’er of freedom.	548
Wit … blunt as the fencer’s foils.	549
Withered like an old apple-John.	550
Like a blasted sapling, withered up.	551
Women are like roses, whose fair flower Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.	552
A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going right, being a watch, But being watch’d that it may still go right!	553
A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty; And, while it is so, none so dry and thirsty Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.	554
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears.	555
Wounds … show Like graves i’ the holy church-yard.	556
Dire yell, As when, by night and negligence, the fire Is spied in populous cities.	557
Yell’d out Like syllable of dolour.	558
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather, Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.	559

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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