The term tamthīl is also used for compound metaphor because the resemblance often lies in a pattern comprising multiple components rather than in a single property.
Yet the word does not always signal precisely the same rhetorical construction. It can denote a representative simile, where two scenes are compared overtly, or representative metaphor, where the wording of one scene stands in for a different one.
Determine the construction from its actual use: is the second scene named in an open comparison, or have the words of the first scene been borrowed to depict the second?