Metaphor

Saying one thing by means of another, without a word of comparison: instead of saying that something is like another thing, one says that it is. The image transfers to the subject the qualities of the thing with which it has been identified.

In Inferno

Master, I would greatly like to see him plunge into this broth before we leave the lake.

Calling the mud of the Styx "broth" places the sinner in a kitchen pot. The image lowers both the place and the man, and gives the desire to see him submerged the tone of a cruel jest.

Cantos V to VIII: The Incontinent, Dante to Virgil, after cursing Filippo Argenti during the crossing of the Styx

O you who have sound understanding, look at the teaching that is hidden beneath the veil of the strange verses.

Cantos IX to XII: The City of Dis, The poet, who interrupts the scene of the Furies and Medusa to speak to the reader

remain recommended to you my Treasure, in which I still live, and I ask no more. Then he turned back, and seemed like those who run in Verona for the green cloth across the field; and he seemed, among them, the one who wins, not the one who loses.

Cantos XIII to XVII: The Violent, Brunetto Latini, as he takes leave of Dante, among the violent against nature

O Simon Magus, O wretched followers, who adulterate with gold and silver the things of God, which ought to be the brides of goodness, you rapacious ones: now it is fitting that the trumpet sound for you, because you are in the third ditch.

Cantos XVIII to XXII: The First Five Ditches, The poet, who opens canto XIX with an invective against Simon Magus and his followers

as long as I was the form of bones and flesh that my mother gave me, my works were not those of the lion, but of the fox.

Cantos XXVII to XXX: Guido, Mahomet, the Forgers, Guido da Montefeltro, from within the flame, as he says who he was

let your heart not suspect; from now on I absolve you, and you teach me how to bring Penestrino down to the ground. Heaven I can close and open.

Cantos XXVII to XXX: Guido, Mahomet, the Forgers, The pope, cited by Guido da Montefeltro, when asking for counsel on taking Penestrino

I did not weep, so petrified had I become inside: they wept; and my Anselmuccio said: you look so, father! What is wrong with you?

Cantos XXXI to XXXIV: The Ice and Lucifer, Count Ugolino, telling Dante of the first day of hunger in the tower