In his speeches Valerius is less successful, though rarely positively bad. But with few exceptions they lack force and interest. At times, however, his rhetoric is effective, as in the speech of Mopsus (iii. 377), where he sets forth the punishment of blood-guiltiness, or in the fierce invective in which the Scythian, Gesander, taunts a Greek warrior with the inferiority of the Greek race (vi. 323 sqq.). This latter speech is closely modelled on Vergil (_A._ ix. 595 sqq.), and although it is somewhat out of place in the midst of a battle, is not wholly unworthy of its greater model. But it is to the speeches of Jason and Medea that we naturally turn to form the estimate of the poet's mastery of the language of passion. These speeches serve to show us how far he falls below Vergil (_A._ iv) and Apollonius (bk. iii). They offer a noble field for his powers, and it cannot be said that he rises to the full height of the occasion. On the other hand, he does not actually fail. There is a note of deep and moving appeal in all that Medea says as she gradually yields to the power of her passion, and the thought of her father and her home fades slowly from her mind. quid, precor, in nostras venisti, Thessale, terras? unde mei spes ulla tibi? tantosque petisti cur non ipse tua fretus virtute labores? nempe, ego si patriis timuissem excedere tectis, occideras; nempe hanc animam sors saeva manebat funeris. en ubi Iuno, ubi nunc Tritonia virgo, sola tibi quoniam tantis in casibus adsum externae regina domus? miraris et ipse, credo, nec agnoscunt hae nunc Aeetida silvae. sed fatis sum victa tuis; cape munera supplex nunc mea; teque iterum Pelias si perdere quaeret, inque alios casus alias si mittet ad urbes, heu formae ne crede tuae. '"Why,"' she cries (vii. 438), '"why, I beseech thee, Thessalian, camest thou ever to this land of ours? Whence hadst thou any hope of me? And why didst thou seek these toils with faith in aught save thine own valour? Surely hadst thou perished, had I feared to leave my father's halls--aye, and so surely had I shared thy cruel doom. Where now is thy helper Juno, where now thy Tritonian maid, since I, the queen of an alien house, have come to help thee in thy need? Aye, even thyself thou marvellest, methinks, nor any more does this grove know me for Aeetes' daughter. Nay, 'twas thy cruel fate overcame me; take now, poor suppliant, these my gifts, and, if e'er again Pelias seek to destroy thee and send thee forth to other cities, ah! put not too fond trust in thy beauty!"' Yet again, before she puts the saving charms into his hands, she appeals to him (452):