Read the given lines and correctly identify the figure of speech used…

The correct answer is Option (2) → Hyperbole and Allusion

Hyperbole and allusion:

• The lines are spoken by Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act 2, Scene 2), just after he has murdered King Duncan.
• Deciding clue: "The multitudinious seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red" (an impossible claim, so hyperbole) and "Neptune" (a figure from Roman myth, so allusion).
• Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration for effect, not meant to be taken literally. Macbeth says that the whole ocean cannot wash the blood from his hand; instead, his bloody hand would turn the countless seas incarnadine (blood-red), "making the green one red". The exaggeration shows the enormity of his guilt.
  Example: I have told you a thousand times to switch off the fan.
• Allusion is a brief reference to a well-known person, place, story or myth, which the reader is expected to recognise. Neptune is the Roman god of the sea; "great Neptune's ocean" calls up all the oceans of the world.
  Example: He is a real Hercules when it comes to lifting heavy loads.

Why the Other Options are Incorrect?

Option 1: Metaphor and Oxymoron — Incorrect.

• A metaphor says that one thing is another, without "like" or "as"; the lines exaggerate, they do not identify one thing with another.
  Example: Time is a thief.
• An oxymoron joins two words of opposite meaning; no such pair appears in the lines.
  Example: There was a deafening silence in the hall.

Option 3: Personification and Antithesis — Incorrect.

• Personification gives human qualities to something that is not human; the ocean and the hand are not given human qualities.
  Example: The wind whispered through the trees.
• Antithesis places opposite ideas side by side in a balanced form; the colour change "green ... red" is part of the exaggeration, not a balanced contrast of ideas.
  Example: To err is human, to forgive divine.

Option 4: Irony and Metonymy — Incorrect.

• Irony is a contrast between what is said or expected and what is meant or happens; Macbeth means what he says.
  Example: The fire station burnt down.
• Metonymy uses the name of a closely linked thing for the thing itself; the lines use no such substitute name.
  Example: The crown announced new taxes.