Volpone: Metaphors 6 key examples

According to the contemporary understanding of black magic that Jonson references, if a conjurer wished to summon a demon, they would have to work within a summoning circle that offered protection from the devilish forces at hand and, if they were to leave the circle at any point in the ritual, they would fall prey to the demon. The hyperbolic simile of Corvino’s statement comes from his comparison of his wrath and the wrath of hell itself.

This scene builds upon a pervasive theme of gendered expectation and behavior in Volpone—Celia is expected to be the model Renaissance woman, a complacent companion to her husband. Corvino’s anger comes from his baseless suspicion that she has been acting on her own accord. Jonson’s depiction of Corvino’s rage satirizes the stereotype of Italian husbands exerting extreme control over their wives by taking it to a dark and violent extreme.

In keeping with the strain of comparisons between characters and animals throughout the play, Lady Would-Be first rebukes Celia's betrayal by casting her as a "chameleon harlot"—that is, a sex worker who changes allegiances like a chameleon changes colors. Then, following-up this remark with an equally vicious idiom, Would-Be accuses Celia of "vying tears with the hyena," or "crying like a hyena." In the Elizabethan English of the time, this phrase would have been akin to "crocodile tears," which is a contemporary expression used to describe emotional insincerity. Indeed, Would-Be denounces Celia's emotion as a performance that is not to be trusted.

While no character escapes Volpone looking good, Jonson is particularly critical in his portrayal of women throughout the play. This depiction of the interaction between Lady Would-Be and Celia relies on contemporary stereotypes of women as distrustful and deceitful by their very nature, and it pits Jonson's two dueling-stereotypes of femininity (Would-Be's exuberant rebelliousness and Celia's quiet obedience) against each other. 

The running metaphor Mosca uses for his works of manipulation and trickery is that of a work of theater, but here he invokes the imagery of music and musical performance—their success in court, Mosca insists, was a "masterpiece," a "rare [...] music out of discords." In this metaphor, the chaotic accusations that overlap and intersect between the various characters of the play as they begin to turn on one another are compared to discordant tones in a piece of music (and, by Volpone, to a "torrent" of water, as in a flood). Out of this "discord," Mosca has somehow managed—like a brilliant composer—to find a melody and to create his masterpiece.

A character's skill with language is the measure of their worth in Volpone, and over the course of the play Mosca emerges as an artist in his own right. As a wordsmith, Mosca can create his own realities through acts of artful deception that Jonson draws in parallel with his own composition of the play at large. It is this ability that lands Mosca in trouble with Volpone in the closing scenes of the play, and his talent will eventually be his undoing, as Volpone turns him in to the court.

Volpone has left his "hole," or burrow—that is, he has left his house, which is where Mosca now plots against him. Mosca's plan to fleece Volpone for his fortune, meanwhile, builds upon this metaphor when Mosca opts to give it the name of "the fox-trap." Mosca is now using the language of the hunt and establishing himself as the hunter—an aristocratic occupation befitting his newfound disguise as a member of the nobility, which he displays for Volpone and the audience at the beginning of this scene.

Mosca's great strength in Volpone is his ability to manipulate his identity and his status through the versatility of his language, and moments like this soliloquy show his skill in full form, thus creating some dramatic irony for the audience—only they are privy to the nature of Mosca's ambition, as he sets out to write his own story by moving against Volpone.

Volpone (or, the actor playing Volpone) compares the applause of the audience to be the seasoning on a plate of gourmet food—the final touch that makes the dish complete. All that is needed to finish the performance is a dash of applause—and the actor has the nerve-wracking obligation to stand before the audience and wait for it to come.

Although a strong narrative drives Volpone, and although it occasionally takes itself seriously, Jonson is also self-conscious about his work's status as theater. Volpone does not pretend to be a representation of reality, that is. Its brutal satire hinges on the fact that the actors and audience are both in on the ridiculousness. What's more, the tension between theater and reality is central to Jonson's exploration of vice in 17th-century Italy.

At last, it would seem that Volpone’s lies have caught up with him. He has spent the whole play pretending to be sick and dying, and now he uses the metaphor of actual illness and physical injury to highlight his predicament: he is bleeding out and needs Mosca to help “sear up this vein” to stop the flow. Language has power in Volpone, and this soliloquy presents the effect of Volpone’s own words as capable of causing actual, physical damage to the man. Whereas previously in the play Volpone has treated gold and gifts like medicine that could “cure” him, now his game has run out—no amount of money will spare him from the judgement of the Venetian court.