Slow Revenge
Don Andrea frequently becomes frustrated and impatient with his companion, Revenge, throughout the play, inquiring about when his enemies will experience what they deserve. Revenge assure Andrea multiple times that he must be patient. Just before Act Three, Revenge says, "Thou talkest of harvest when the corn is green" (3.0). Here, Revenge uses a metaphor to compare Andrea's impatience to a farmer who picks unripe food for the harvest.
The Bloody Letter
While isolated in captivity, Bel-Imperia pens a letter to Hieronimo encouraging him to kill Lorenzo and Balthazar. However, because she does not have any ink, she writes the letter in blood. This bloody letter is a metaphor for Bel-Imperia's specific form of revenge, which involves self-sacrifice that will eventually turn into martyrdom by the play's end.
Isabella's Madness
As Isabella descends into lunacy (a point of contention in the play, as many argue that she is simply overcome by grief), her language becomes more and more figurative. At one point, she tells her maid that her soul "has silver wings," which allows her to see Horatio in Heaven (3.8). While one can interpret Isabella's description of her soul as a hallucination, it is also a metaphor for her desire to die and be reunited with her son in the afterlife.
Lorenzo's Location
In Act Three, Portuguese asks Hieronimo where he can find Lorenzo, to which Hieronimo replies, "Not far from thence, where murderers have built / A habitation for their cursed souls, / There in a brazen caldron fixed by Jove / In his fell wrath upon a sulfur flame" (3.11). This is a long-winded and elaborate way of saying that they can find Lorenzo in Hell. Hieronimo uses this metaphor to compare Lorenzo to a demon or cursed entity for the wrongs he has committed.
The Earth's Bowels
When Hieronimo gets the King's attention and has the opportunity to tell him about Lorenzo, he instead, in a fit of grief, attempts to dig a hole to Hell down which to throw Lorenzo. As he digs, he screams, "Away! I'll rip the bowels of the earth," using a metaphor to portray the earth as a body that he is stabbing. This metaphor helps emphasize Hieronimo's violent urges and his desire to foster destruction and death in the wake of his son's murder.
