Read the excerpt from Act II of Hamlet.Guildenstern: Which dreams, indeed, are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.Hamlet: A dream itself is but a shadow.Rosencrantz: Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

Guildenstern says ambition is “the shadow of a dream,” and Hamlet says a dream is “but a shadow.” These are metaphors: they directly describe dreams and ambition as shadows without using “like” or “as.” The lines suggest that both are insubstantial or fleeting.

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