In Book V the description of a painting in a studio depicting the rape of Philomela had “a hidden significance.”[214] The whole story was represented: “the rape of Philomela, the violence employed by Tereus, and the cutting out of her tongue ... the tapestry, Tereus himself, and the fatal table.” Ugly realism, terror, insane laughter characterize the treatment. The hidden meaning is that the sudden sight of the picture is a bad omen threatening disaster which makes Clitophon postpone his journey to Pharos. The delay gives him a chance to tell the whole story of Philomela to Leucippe, for all women love myths. Small works of art also are described lovingly and minutely: a rock-crystal goblet carved in a grape-vine,[215] a jewelled necklace.[216] These enrich the setting as scattered flowers enrich the backgrounds of Renaissance tapestries. It is as though Achilles Tatius like Corinthian potters or Renaissance artists had such an _horror vacui_ that empty spaces in design were intolerable and interstices had to be crowded with beautiful small objects. This is due in part to an observant eye that saw and recorded detail. The specific and the graphic are his tools for clarity. The story of the attempted amour of Clitophon and Leucippe is vivified by a plan of the house as clear as the drawn plans in many modern detective stories.[217] The garden in which Clitophon’s love-making is once set is described elaborately with its porticoes, trees, vines, flowers, spring and birds.[218] The storm at sea in its violence and coloring is as lurid as a Turner, and its effects on the shipwrecked passengers are described with a true psychology of terror and panic.[219]