What are three metaphors in Act 2, Scene 2?

Act 2, Scene 2 is the longest scene in the play. It is
basically broken down into four
parts:

• Polonius's conversation with the king and
  queen.


• Hamlet's first feigning madness in conversation
  with Polonius.


• Hamlet reuniting with school friends
  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.


• Hamlet meeting with the
  players.

Each of these sections contain many
metaphors. Three of the best come from Hamlet himself, when he is pretending to be
mad:

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HAMLET: I am but mad
north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a
handsaw. (ln.
264-265)

Hamlet here is
saying that his knowledge (or madness) is based on the wind. Essentially he's saying,
"I am only mad sometimes. When the wind is from the South, I know what is
what."

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HAMLET: That great
baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts. (ln.
266)

Here Hamlet calls
Polonius a baby ("swaddling-clouts" is a word for "diapers"). He fully intends to be
insulting, but the metaphor is that in calling Polonius a "baby," Hamlet is directly
referring to the older man's lack of intelligence, experience, and possibly
courage.

A final metaphor can be found a few lines up when
Hamlet asks his friends about the troop of actors who are coming to the
palace:

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HAMLET: How comes
it? Do they grow rusty? (ln.
252)

Such a metaphor is
actually pretty common even today, speaking of someone or something getting "rusty" to
mean old and not as sharp as it once was. These types of metaphors are in fact so common
and acceptable, we often overlook them as figures of speech.