statement above also uses polysyndeton, which is when a series of conjunctions are repeated. Normally, a person would say "ports, piers, and roads," but Salanio adds an extra "and," bringing emphasis to each of his three terms and adding a sense of rhythm.

Salerio then uses an image-rich metaphor, comparing time to the sands in an hourglass, as well as adding alliterative and consonant s sounds, when he says he would

see the sandy hour-glass run. (emphasis added)

When Salerio speaks of "two-headed Janus," he is using an allusion. He makes another time-based reference, as Janus, for whom the month of January is named, looks both forward and backward.

Bassanio uses a simile when he compares Portia's hair to a golden fleece. This is also a double-entendre, in that Portia's gold refers to both the color of her hair and her wealth, both of which Bassanio desires. It is also an allusion to Jason and the argonauts: obtaining the fleece means that Jason can claim his rightful place of authority, just as marrying Portia will give Bassanio status and authority.

Figures of speech are tools that authors use to help readers, or in this case, audience members, identify with real world situations, objects, or senses in order to relate to the what the characters are experiencing. In the first act and scene of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, there are many metaphors, idioms, similes and allusions to find. A few of the many figures of speech that can be found in the first act are shown below.  

In the opening scene of the play, Antonio tells his friends that he is sad, but he can't figure out the reason why. Salerio provides his friend with a metaphor to show how his sadness forces him to suffer: "Your mind is tossing on the ocean" (I.i.8). Salerio then extends this metaphor for his friend, but also to let the audience know that Antonio has a lot riding on the ocean by way of merchant ships, literally. Since all of Antonio's money is invested on his ships currently at sea, he is probably more anxious about their success than he is sad. 

Next, Solanio agrees with Salerio by saying that if he had so much invested on ships at sea, he would also be worried. To illustrate to Antonio what anxiety feels like to him, Solanio uses an idiom:

"I should be still
Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads, 
And every object that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures out of doubt
Would make me sad" (I.i.17-22).

Salerio then uses a comparison between his breath cooling his soup and the winds at sea that might threaten his ships, if he had any:

"My wind cooling my broth
Would blow me to an ague when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea" (I.i.22-24).

When Antonio tells his friends he isn't worried about his merchandise at sea, and that he really doesn't know why he is sad, Solanio says he just isn't happy. Then he uses a simile and an allusion to show that Antonio simply isn't laughing, which can make one sad:

"Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper
And other such vinegar aspect
That they'll not show their teeth in a way of smile
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable" (I.i.52-56).

Solanio explains that some people "laugh like parrots," while others may refuse to smile even if someone great like Nestor tells them a joke is funny. With this simile and allusion to Nestor (a great Greek hero from The Iliad) Solanio means to say that happiness can be a personality trait. Someone simply is or isn't happy sometimes and it is unexplainable. 

In this scene, we learn that Antonio is in love with the beautiful Portia, but in order to win her love, he thinks he needs to become wealtheir so that he can compete with her other suitors. He is already in debt. He is with his friend Salarino and they are talking about his business endeavors when they run into Antonio's relative, Bassanio, who tells Antonio he cannot give him another loan. The mood set in this scene is one of desperation.

I'll get you started on some of the language that Shakespeare uses in the scene, and you can take it from there.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn; 

Here, the emotion of "sadness" is given life (personified). Where does the sadness come from? How was it "born" is making it seem as if it is human.

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies, with portly sail,—

There is a metaphor in these lines. The picture is of confusion, but the mind is compared to a ship tossing on the ocean.

Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,(15)
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;

In the above lines, Salario tells Antonio that if he were involved in merchant ships, it would make him sad. Notice the imagery - he says that he would be so worried that it would cause him to "pluck grass to know where sits the wind" - this means that he would be checking to see how the wind is blowing the grass and in what direction, to check on how his ships would be doing at sea. It's a cool image, don't you think?

Try to go through the scene yourself to find other figurative language. Look for the words "like" and "as" to pick out similes. These are easier, so I left them for you!

You can read the enhanced text of the play here on enotes. See the link below. 

Act 1, scene 2, of The Merchant of Venice contains many different figures of speech that display Portia’s wit as well as her disdain for her suitors. Examples of various figures of speech include the following.

Simile

Portia does not want to marry, even if it is her late father’s wish. If it weren’t for her father’s will, she believes, “If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana.”

Sibylla is a prophetess famous for her extreme old age; Apollo granted her as many years of life as there are grains in a handful of sand. Diana is the Roman goddess of virtue and chastity.

Metaphor

Portia describes the Neapolitan prince through an extended metaphor:

Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith.

Portia compares him to a colt, a young, uncastrated male horse; he talks only about his horse and wears accessories like a horse (“he can shoe himself”), and Portia jokes that perhaps his mother had an affair with a blacksmith to result in his character.

In another metaphor, Portia compares a wild hare to youthful irrationality that jumps over and escapes the net (“meshes”) of reason:

such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple.

Finally, Portia declares to Nerissa, “I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge.” Any suitor she has met up to this point is as dull and lifeless as a sponge.

Synecdoche

Nerissa advises Portia, “superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.” White hairs represent an elderly person; Nerissa tells Portia that excess ages a person quickly, while sufficiency and moderation lead to a longer life.

Chiasmus

This figure of speech contains two parts. Words, grammatical constructions, or ideas of the first part are repeated in reverse order in the second part. This balanced construction illustrates a clever opposition of closely related ideas. Portia demonstrates her wit and intelligence with a statement like the following:

I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.

She later describes Falconbridge, the young baron of England with a short chiasmus: “he understands not me, nor I him.”

Finally, she characterizes the Duke of Saxony's nephew this way:

when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast ...

Personification

Portia describes the frustrating fluctuations of youthful emotions:

The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree ...

While the brain is personified as a lawmaker, one’s temper is personified as a law-breaker who “leaps” over an order or decree.

Pun

Portia uses two meanings of the word will (a person’s desire versus a legal document declaring a deceased person’s wishes) when she says, “so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.”

Hyperbole

When rejecting the Neapolitan prince and the County Palatine, Portia exaggerates (or maybe illustrates accurately) her desire not to wed them with a hyperbolic statement:

I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these.

In other words, she would rather be married to a corpse than to either of them.

Another hyperbole is Portia’s characterization of Monsieur Le Bon’s multiple personalities:

if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands.

Alliteration

Portia emphasizes how awful the Duke of Saxony’s nephew is by describing him as behaving

Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk.

The repetition of v sounds creates a rough and unpleasant effect.

Anaphora

Nerissa uses this figure of speech (where words are repeated at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences) to stress to Portia actions she should take with regard to the Duke of Saxony's nephew:

If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him.

The Merchant of Venice revolves around the polarity between the avarice for gold and the Christian qualities of mercy and compassion that lie beneath the flesh. Of course, Shakespeare's manipulation of language is extraordinary, providing humor and shock, both.

In what is considered the most complicated scene in the development of Act I, Scene 3 introduces the focal point of the play: the proposal that Antonio borrow three thousand ducats from the usurer Shylock, a Venetian Jew who charges interest and is loathed by the Christians for his unethical conduct. But, Shylock is a comic villain as he rails against Antonio, using a simile: "How like a fawning publican he looks!" (l.36), and a metaphor "I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him" (l.42) in which "feed fat" is an unstated comparison of fueling/increasing his hatred for Antonio. He then draws a comparison between his ways of making money and Jacob's method of obtaining sheep from another man, one that Antonio ridicules.  Antonio advises Bassanio to be wary of Shylock's specious argument as he metaphorically compares Shylock to the devil and then employs a simile using "like":

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart;
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! (1.3.97-101)

Of course, Shylock's monolgue in retaliation for the insults of Antionio contains figurative language. You call me,—misbeliever, cut-throat dog, [metaphor](l.110) ....

You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur [simile] (ll.116-117)

Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,
With 'bated breath, and whispering humbleness,[metaphors for being humble] (ll.122-124)

In Act IV, Scene 1, after a humorous scene, the climax of the play comes.  In this scene are what are considered Shylock's two greatest achievements. Both directed at Venice--the "gaping pig" rhapsody and the oration on Venetian slavery.  In lines 51-53, Shylock uses personification, 

...for affection,
Master of passion, sways it to the mood
Of what it likes, or loathes.

Then, in his speech on slavery, Shylock uses similes:

You have among you many a purchas'd slave,
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts, (ll.91-93)

let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
Be season'd with such viands? (ll.94-96)

Antonio, too, uses figurative language as his expresses his plight with a metaphor:

I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me: (ll.116-118)

Despite the vituperations and conflicts between Shylock and Antonio, there is a certain ambivalence where there really are no victories. 

Engraved on all three of the caskets are the riddles or conundrums Portia's suitors have to solve in order to win her hand in marriage. Because they are riddles, their language is figurative, not literal: the suitors have to figure out the underlying meaning of the words.

When the Prince of Morocco asks to see again "this saying graved in gold" (meaning the engraving on the gold chest, which reads "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire"), Shakespeare uses both imagery and alliteration. We can visualize the saying engraved in gold on the casket, which is imagery. The repetition of the "g" at the beginning of "graved" and "gold" is alliterative, as is the repetition of the same "g" sound when the prince reads the words "all that glitters is not gold."

The prince uses hyperbole, or exaggeration, when he declares that all the world desires Portia and when he refers to her as a "saint." This shows that he is not the right match for her, as he idealizes her and puts her on a pedestal.

This scene is relatively short, featuring only Portia, the Prince of Morocco, and their trains, with the majority of the dialogue afforded to the Prince. However, there is significant use of figurative language, revolving around the literal symbols of the caskets the Prince must choose between for Portia's love. The caskets themselves are engraved with statements which personify them, such as "Who chooseth me."

"A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross," the Prince says; he is not speaking of a literally golden mind but of one figuratively pure enough to be above "dross." Later, he says, "never so rich a gem was set in worse than gold," referring to Portia as a gem too beautiful to have been set in silver or lead.

Portia, however, questions the Prince's judgment: "All that glitters is not gold." She is saying both that beautiful things are not always pure, as gold is, and that pure things do not always appear as gold.