In my mind’s eye Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an inchoate hump under the encrustations of live barnacle-commentaries, limpets and trailing weeds.
A. S. Byatt
Really, Alexia, what could
Really, Alexia, what could have possessed you to attach yourself to the side of the ship in such a juvenile fashion? It is positively barnacle-like. Gail Carriger