Their fears incline this way and that: whom would they have the conqueror in the strife, whom the vanquished? All unconfessed the exile has their prayers. or than the line describing the parting of the Lemnian women from the Argonauts, their second husbands (v. 478): heu iterum gemitus, iterumque novissima nox est. Alas! once more the hour of lamentation is near, once more is come the last night of wedded sleep. But this neatness often degenerates into preciosity, _bellator campus_ means a field suitable for battle (viii. 377). Nisus, the king of Megara, with the talismanic purple lock, becomes a _senex purpureus_ (i. 334); an embrace is described by the words _alterna pectora mutant_ (v. 722); a woman nearing her time is one _iustos cuius pulsantia menses vota tument_ (v. 115). We have already noted a similar tendency in Valerius Flaccus; such phrase-making is not a badge of any one poet, it is a sign of the times. In the case of Statius there is perhaps less obscurity and less positive extravagance than in any of his contemporaries, but whether as regards description or phrase-making, there is always a suspicion of his work being pitched--if the phrase is permissible--a tone too high. This is, perhaps, particularly noticeable in his similes. They are very numerous, and he has obviously expended great trouble over them. But, with very few exceptions, they are failures. The cause lies mainly in their lack of variety. There are, for instance, no less than sixteen similes drawn from bulls, twelve from lions, six from tigers.[568] None of these similes show any close observance of nature, and in any case the poetic interest of bulls, lions, and tigers is far from inexhaustible. It is less reprehensible that twenty similes should be drawn from storms, which have a more cogent interest and greater picturesque value. But even here Statius has overshot the mark. This lack of variety testifies to a real dearth of poetic imagination, and this failing is noticeable also in the execution. There is rarely a simile containing anything that awakens either imagination, emotion, or thought. Still, to give Statius his due, there _are_ exceptions, such as the simile comparing Parthenopaeus, seen in all his beauty among his comrades, to the reflections of the evening star outshining the reflections of the lesser stars in the waveless sea (vi. 578): sic ubi tranquillo perlucent sidera ponto vibraturque fretis caeli stellantis imago, omnia clara nitent, sed clarior omnia supra Hesperus exsertat radios, quantusque per altum aethera, caeruleis tantus monstratur in undis. So when the stars are glassed in the tranquil deep and the reflection of the starry sky quivers in the waves, all the stars shine clear, but clearer than all doth Hesperus send forth his rays; and as he gleams in the high heavens, even so bright do the blue waters show him forth.