What chiefly motivates likening burning coals to a musk sea with golden waves?

Purposes of Simile: Possibility, Condition, Degree, Beautification, Disfigurement and Reversal

• Disfigurement because darkness always implies ugliness
• Unusual imaginative configuration
• Degree because the primary aim is to measure colour intensity
• Reversal because the coals are the assumed superior model for musk