No More Learning

But Venus, stirred in spirit by no vain mother's alarms, and moved by
the threats and stern uprisal of the Laurentines, addresses herself to
Vulcan, and in her golden bridal chamber begins thus, breathing divine
passion in her speech:

'While Argolic kings wasted in war the doomed towers of Troy, the
fortress fated to fall in hostile fires, no succour did I require for
her wretched people, no weapons of thine art and aid: nor would I task,
dear my lord, thee or thy toils for naught, though I owed many and many
a debt to the children of Priam, and had often wept the sore labour of
Aeneas. Now by Jove's commands he hath set foot in the Rutulian borders;
I now therefore come with entreaty, and ask armour of the god I worship.
For the son she bore, the tears of Nereus' daughter, of Tithonus'
consort, could melt thine heart. Look what nations are gathering, what
cities bar their gates and sharpen the sword against me for the
desolation of my children. '

The goddess ended, and, as he hesitates, clasps him round in the soft
embrace of her snowy arms. He suddenly caught the wonted flame, and the
heat known of old pierced him to the heart and overran his melting
frame: even as when, bursting from the thunder peal, a sparkling cleft
of fire shoots through the storm-clouds with dazzling light. His consort
knew, rejoiced in her wiles, and felt her beauty. Then her lord speaks,
enchained by Love the immortal:

'Why these far-fetched pleas? Whither, O goddess, is thy trust in me
gone? Had like distress been thine, [397-431]even then we might
unblamed have armed thy Trojans, nor did doom nor the Lord omnipotent
forbid Troy to stand, and Priam to survive yet ten other years. And now,
if thou purposest war, and this is thy counsel, whatever charge I can
undertake in my craft, in aught that may be made of iron or molten
electrum, whatever fire and air can do, cease thou to entreat as
doubtful of thy strength. ' These words spoken, he clasped his wife in
the desired embrace, and, sinking in her lap, wooed quiet slumber to
overspread his limbs.

Thereon, so soon as sleep, now in mid-career of waning night, had given
rest and gone; soon as a woman, whose task is to sustain life with her
distaff and the slender labours of the loom, kindles the ashes of her
slumbering fire, her toil encroaching on the night, and sets a long task
of fire-lit spinning to her maidens, that so she may keep her husband's
bed unsullied and nourish her little children,--even so the Lord of
Fire, nor slacker in his hours than she, rises from his soft couch to
the work of his smithy. An island rises by the side of Sicily and
Aeolian Lipare, steep with smoking cliffs, whereunder the vaulted and
thunderous Aetnean caverns are hollowed out for Cyclopean forges, the
strong strokes on the anvils echo in groans, ore of steel hisses in the
vaults, and the fire pants in the furnaces: the house of Vulcan, and
Vulcania the land's name. Hither now the Lord of Fire descends from
heaven's height.
In the vast cavern the Cyclopes were forging iron,
Brontes and Steropes and Pyracmon with bared limbs. Shaped in their
hands was a thunderbolt, in part already polished, such as the Father of
Heaven hurls down on earth in multitudes, part yet unfinished. Three
coils of frozen rain, three of watery mist they had enwrought in it,
three of ruddy fire and winged south wind; now they were mingling in
their work the awful splendours, the sound and terror, and the
[432-469]angry pursuing flames. Elsewhere they hurried on a chariot for
Mars with flying wheels, wherewith he stirs up men and cities; and
burnished the golden serpent-scales of the awful aegis, the armour of
wrathful Pallas, and the entwined snakes on the breast of the goddess,
the Gorgon head with severed neck and rolling eyes. 'Away with all! ' he
cries: 'stop your tasks unfinished, Cyclopes of Aetna, and attend to
this; a warrior's armour must be made. Now must strength, now quickness
of hand be tried, now all our art lend her guidance. Fling off delay. '
He spoke no more; but they all bent rapidly to the work, allotting their
labours equally. Brass and ore of gold flow in streams, and wounding
steel is molten in the vast furnace. They shape a mighty shield, to
receive singly all the weapons of the Latins, and weld it sevenfold,
circle on circle. Some fill and empty the windy bellows of their blast,
some dip the hissing brass in the trough. They raise their arms mightily
in responsive time, and turn the mass of metal about in the grasp of
their tongs.

While the lord of Lemnos is busied thus in the borders of Aeolia,
Evander is roused from his low dwelling by the gracious daylight and the
matin songs of birds from the eaves. The old man arises, and draws on
his body raiment, and ties the Tyrrhene shoe latchets about his feet;
then buckles to his side and shoulder his Tegeaean sword, and swathes
himself in a panther skin that droops upon his left. Therewithal two
watch-dogs go before him from the high threshold, and accompany their
master's steps.