A similar device is at work in his list of afflictions in the first passage given above ("here & hunger, bryne & blodgyte ... stalu & cwalu, stric & steorfa, orfcwealm & uncoþu, hol & hete..."). The "Sermo Lupi" is considered to excel particularly in the use of repetition as a rhetorical device . Other devices which have been noticed in Wulfstan's works are "dubitatio" and "verborum exornatio". His works are almost completely without metaphor and simile, and Wulfstan as a rule shies away from narrative and descriptions of the particular. The "Sermo Lupi" is one of his only works where description (i.e. of the moral decline of the nation) plays a significant role.