Wulfstan's "Sermo Lupi" also employs the rhetorical device known as "Ubi sunt" (Latin, "where are... ?"), a common medieval literary refrain used "to designate a mood or theme in literature of lament for the mutability of things." Though the refrain never properly arises in the "Sermo Lupi" (in English nor in Latin), the theme is nevertheless vigorously active as Wulfstan presents the cherished goods and virtues of the past as lost in the present due to the moral decline of Men and the world through time.