Beatrice's figures of speech from nature:

"Lo so che sono un po' orsa." = "I know I'm a bit of a bear,"

orsa: an unsociable woman. (orso: an unsociable man.)

"Cosa farei, lì come un carciofo?" = "What would I do there, like an artichoke?"

carciofo: a silly, useless, incompetent person.

These are dictionary definitions. The bear idiom makes sense, but how did artichoke get to mean "silly, useless, incompetent"?! I always thought of it as a mysterious, elegant vegetable. But then I thought of the way an artichoke stands on its stalk — once in my life I saw a thicket of artichokes — like a stumpy, fat, too-earthly flower, and the way it seems (naturally) so unconscious of its ridiculousness. It began to make sense.