qualiter Arctos ad patrias avibus medio iam vere revectis Memphis et aprici statio silet annua Nili (iii. 358). The beauty of Medea among her Scythian maidens is likened to that of Proserpine leading her comrades over Hymettus' hill or wandering with Pallas and Diana in the Sicilian mountains-- altior ac nulla comitum certante, prius quam palluit et viso pulsus decor omnis Averno (v. 346). Taller than all her comrades and fairer than them all or ever she turned pale, and at the sight of Hell all beauty was banished from her face. The relief of the Argonauts, when at last they reach haven after their fearful passage of the Symplegades, is like that of Theseus and Hercules, when they have forced a way through the gates of hell to the light of day once more.[511] Most remarkable of all is the strange accumulation of similes that describe the meeting of Jason and Medea. Medea is going through the silent night chanting a song of magic, whereat all nature trembles. At last, when she has come 'to the shadowy place of the triune goddess', Jason shines forth before her in the gloom, 'as when in deepest night panic bursts on herd and herdsman, or shades meet blind and voiceless in the deep of Chaos; even so, in the darkness of the night and of the grove, the two met astonied, like silent pines or motionless cypress, ere yet the whirling breath of the south wind has caught and mingled their boughs'[512]-- obvius ut sera cum se sub nocte magistris inpingit pecorique pavor, qualesve profundum per chaos occurrunt caecae sine vocibus umbrae; haut secus in mediis noctis nemorisque tenebris inciderant ambo attoniti iuxtaque subibant, abietibus tacitis aut immotis cyparissis adsimiles, rapidus nondum quas miscuit Auster (vii. 400). These similes suffer from sheer accumulation.[513] Taken individually they are worthy of many a greater poet.