Marriage A-La-Mode

Marriage A-La-Mode Metaphors and Similes

Ask those, who have smelt to a strong perfume two years together, what's the scent (metaphor)

In their first scene together, Rhodophil says to Palamede, "Ask those, who have smelt to a strong perfume two years together, what's the scent." He uses the metaphor of perfume and scent to describe the experience of growing weary of a lover—the fact that love loses its appeal after it loses its novelty, much like a scent.

Rhodophil and Doralice as lions (simile)

Rhodophil says that he and Doralice, when alone, walk "like lions," which means that she is going one way and he is going another. There's no passion left in the marriage because Rhodophil slights and ignores her. She's angry and frustrated, and makes her displeasure known.

"You are an admirer of the dull French Poetry, which is so thin, that it is the very Leaf-gold of Wit, the very Wafers and whip'd Cream of sense, for which a man opens his mouth and gapes, to swallow nothing" (metaphor)

In Act 4, Doralice attacks Melantha's beloved French, comparing Melantha's grasp of the foreign language and French poetry itself to a thin wafer, or to whipped cream. This metaphor signifies the fact that she thinks French poetry has absolutely no substance, even if it may be stylish.

“The sweetness cling'd upon my lips all day,/Like drops of Honey, loath to fall away.“ (simile)

Leonidas uses this simile to describe his first kiss with Palmyra, the fact that it lingered on his lips long after they had finished kissing.

"...to be shut up in a bed with her, like two Cocks in a pit" (simile)

After meeting his fiancee, Melantha, Palamede bemoans the fact that he will have to share a bed with her, and compares their union to two cocks fighting in a pit. This is not exactly a romantic image, and signifies that he is not very attracted to his wife-to-be.