There is, perhaps, no example of retrospective imagination (it is at once so dramatic, so poetic) like the opening words of Gloucester in the play of _Richard III_.
Before Shakespeare’s day, drama and poetry lived very much apart—one may say entirely separate in the Greek; no less so than chemical science and geology may do at the present time: Shakespeare, in much of his work, made them one.
“Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;”
in this the action is dramatic, the verbal structure metaphoric.
“Nor made to court an amourous looking-glass;”
“He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a lute,”
surpasses both, as not being metaphoric, yet poetic as well as dramatic.
“To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph,”
is most perfect in drama-poetic expression. It is exquisite in its contempt; it is ever visible in its movement; it is ludicrous too. Here lies the highest triumph of poetry, to do that which ordinary speech can barely effect in any single sentence—to attain to the most beautiful expression without a single metaphor; that is, by absolute simplicity of speech.
Of course, metaphor is a great resource in composition; it involves not only the fact, but its simile in one and the same epithet.
“Whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul,”
has as strong a simile in it, through “harrow up,” as is contained in the expression—
“Thy matted and combined locks to part … Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
But the last is pure poetry; the other is dramatic poetry.
Of course, pure poetry has the highest quality of all; it is so sincere, so convincing, that it requires no help to render it beautiful and effective.
The whole address in _Hamlet_ delivered by the Ghost is free from metaphor with few exceptions towards the end, as—
“Make thy two eyes like stars dart from their spheres;”
These two lines are the only exceptions. They are mighty, and at the very summit of human art, but in this respect do not actually reveal more than may be set forth in a pure simplicity of diction.
This great truth of truths was known to David and Solomon. It came to them as the only means through which the interests of a pure humanity could be enlarged on, and made to reach the heart.