Aeneid VIII.407-519
Vulcan gets to work on that armor. Evander and Aeneas talk business.
When, in vanishing night’s mid-course, first rest
has conquered the need for sleep, when a woman,
who supports life with distaff and the humble work
Minerva imposes, first wakes the ashes and slumbering flames,
adding night hours to her toil, and maintains her servants
at their endless task by lamplight to keep her husband’s bed
pure and raise her young sons: just so the god
with the power of fire rose now from his soft bed,
no idler at that hour, to labour at the forge.
An island, its rocks smoking, rises steeply by
the Sicilian coast, near the flanks of Aeolian Lipare.1
Beneath it a cave, and the galleries of Etna, eaten at
by the Cyclopean furnaces, resound, and the groans from
the anvils are heard echoing the heavy blows,
and masses of Chalybean2 steel hiss in the caverns,
and fire breathes through the furnaces. It is Vulcan’s home
and called Vulcania. Here then the god
with the power of fire descended from the heavens.
In the huge cave the Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes,
and bare-limbed Pyrcamon, were forging iron.
They held a lightning-bolt, shaped with their hands,
like many of those the Father hurls from all over
the sky, part of it polished, part still left to do.
They’d added three shafts of spiralling rain, three of watery
cloud, three of reddening fire, and the winged south wind.
Now they were blending terrifying flashes into the work,
sounds and fears and fury with following flames.
Elsewhere they pressed on with a chariot for Mars, with winged wheels,
with which he rouses men, with which he rouses cities;
and a chilling aegis, the breastplate of Pallas,3
competing to burnish its serpent scales of gold,
its interwoven snakes, and the Gorgon herself
on the goddess’s breast with severed neck and rolling eyes.
“Away with all this,” he4 shouts, “remove the work
you’ve started, Cyclopes of Etna, and turn your minds to this:
you’re to make arms for a brave hero. Now you
need strength, swift hands now, all the art now of a master.
An end to delay.” He said no more, but they all
bent quickly to the toil and shared the labour equally.
Bronze and golden ore flowed in streams,
and steel, that deals wounds, melted in a vast furnace.
They shaped a giant shield, one to stand against all
the weapons of Latium, layering it seven times,
disc on disc. Some sucked in air and blew it out
again with panting bellows, others dipped the hissing bronze
in the lake; the cavern groaned beneath the weight of anvils;
with mighty force they lifted their arms together in rhythm
and turned the mass of metal, gripping it with pincers.
While the lord of Lemnos5 hastened the work on the Aeolian
shore, the kindly light and the dawn song of the birds
beneath the eaves called Evander from his humble house.
The old man rose, clothed his body in a tunic,
and strapped Tyrrhenian sandals to the soles of his feet.
Then he fastened his Tegaean sword over his shoulder
and to his side, flinging back a panther’s hide on the left.
Two guard dogs besides ran ahead from the high
threshold and accompanied their master’s steps.
The hero made his way to his guest Aeneas’s
secluded lodging, thinking of his words
and the help he had promised. Aeneas was no less
early to rise; his son Pallas6 walked with the one,
Achates with the other. They clasped hands as they met,
sat down among the houses, and finally enjoyed
open conversation. The king was the first to begin, so:
“Greatest leader of the Teucrians, for my part while you’re safe
and sound I’ll never accept that the kingdom and power of Troy
have been overthrown, our strength in war is inadequate to such
a name; on this side we are shut in by the Tuscan river, while on that
the Rutulian presses us and thunders in arms round our walls.
But I propose to affiliate mighty peoples to you
and a war-camp rich in kingships, help that chance
unpredictably reveals: you arrive at fate’s command.
Not far from here is the site of Agylla’s city,
built of ancient stone, where the Lydian race,
famous in war, once settled the Etruscan heights.
For many years it flourished, until King Mezentius
ruled it with arrogant power and savage weaponry.
Why recount the tyrant’s wicked murders and vicious acts?
May the gods reserve such for his life and race!
He even tied corpses to living bodies as a means
of torture, placing hand on hand and face against face,
so killing by a lingering death in that wretched
embrace, that ooze of disease and decomposition.
But the weary citizens at last armed themselves,
surrounded the atrocious madman in his palace,
mowed down his supporters, and fired the roof.
Amongst the carnage he escaped and fled
to Rutulian soil, protected by Turnus’s allied army.
So all Etruria has risen in rightful anger, demanding
the king for punishment, with the threat of immediate war.
Aeneas, I’ll make you leader of those thousands.
For their ships clamour densely on the shore,
and they order the banners to advance, but an aged
soothsayer holds them back, singing of destiny:
‘O chosen warriors of Maeonia,7 the flower, the honour
of our ancient race, whom just resentment sends against
the enemy, and whom Mezentius fires with rightful anger,
no man of Italy may control such a people as you: choose
foreigners as leaders.’ So the Etruscan ranks camped
on that plain, fearful of this warning from the gods.
Tarchon himself has sent ambassadors to me with the royal
sceptre and crown, entrusting me with the insignia:
I to come to the camp, and take the Tuscan throne.
But the slow frost of old age wearied by the years, and strength
now beyond acts of valour, begrudge me the command.
I would urge my son to it, except that of mixed blood
with a Sabine mother, he takes part of his nationality from her.
You, O bravest leader of Trojans and Italians, to whose race
and years destiny is favourable, whom the divine will calls,
accept. Moreover I’ll add Pallas here, our hope and comfort;
let him become accustomed under your guidance
to endure military service and the grave work of war,
witness your actions, and admire you from his early years.
I’ll grant him two hundred Arcadian horsemen, the choice flower
of our manhood, and Pallas will grant the same to you himself.”
Inde ubi prima quies medio iam noctis abactae
curriculo expulerat somnum, cum femina primum,
cui tolerare colo vitam tenuique Minerva
impositum, cinerem et sopitos suscitat ignis 410
noctem addens operi, famulasque ad lumina longo
exercet penso, castum ut servare cubile
coniugis et possit parvos educere natos:
haud secus ignipotens nec tempore segnior illo
mollibus e stratis opera ad fabrilia surgit. 415
insula Sicanium iuxta latus Aeoliamque
erigitur Liparen fumantibus ardua saxis,
quam subter specus et Cyclopum exesa caminis
antra Aetnaea tonant, validique incudibus ictus
auditi referunt gemitus, striduntque cavernis 420
stricturae Chalybum et fornacibus ignis anhelat,
Volcani domus et Volcania nomine tellus.
hoc tunc ignipotens caelo descendit ab alto.
ferrum exercebant vasto Cyclopes in antro,
Brontesque Steropesque et nudus membra Pyragmon. 425
his informatum manibus iam parte polita
fulmen erat, toto genitor quae plurima caelo
deicit in terras, pars imperfecta manebat.
tris imbris torti radios, tris nubis aquosae
addiderant, rutuli tris ignis et alitis Austri. 430
fulgores nunc terrificos sonitumque metumque
miscebant operi flammisque sequacibus iras.
parte alia Marti currumque rotasque volucris
instabant, quibus ille viros, quibus excitat urbes;
aegidaque horriferam, turbatae Palladis arma, 435
certatim squamis serpentum auroque polibant
conexosque anguis ipsamque in pectore divae
Gorgona desecto vertentem lumina collo.
'tollite cuncta' inquit 'coeptosque auferte labores,
Aetnaei Cyclopes, et huc advertite mentem: 440
arma acri facienda viro. nunc viribus usus,
nunc manibus rapidis, omni nunc arte magistra.
praecipitate moras.' nec plura effatus, at illi
ocius incubuere omnes pariterque laborem
sortiti. fluit aes rivis aurique metallum 445
vulnificusque chalybs vasta fornace liquescit.
ingentem clipeum informant, unum omnia contra
tela Latinorum, septenosque orbibus orbis
impediunt. alii ventosis follibus auras
accipiunt redduntque, alii stridentia tingunt 450
aera lacu; gemit impositis incudibus antrum;
illi inter sese multa vi bracchia tollunt
in numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam.
Haec pater Aeoliis properat dum Lemnius oris,
Evandrum ex humili tecto lux suscitat alma 455
et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus.
consurgit senior tunicaque inducitur artus
et Tyrrhena pedum circumdat vincula plantis.
tum lateri atque umeris Tegeaeum subligat ensem
demissa ab laeva pantherae terga retorquens. 460
nec non et gemini custodes limine ab alto
praecedunt gressumque canes comitantur erilem.
hospitis Aeneae sedem et secreta petebat
sermonum memor et promissi muneris heros.
nec minus Aeneas se matutinus agebat; 465
filius huic Pallas, illi comes ibat Achates.
congressi iungunt dextras mediisque residunt
aedibus et licito tandem sermone fruuntur.
rex prior haec:
'maxime Teucrorum ductor, quo sospite numquam 470
res equidem Troiae victas aut regna fatebor,
nobis ad belli auxilium pro nomine tanto
exiguae vires; hinc Tusco claudimur amni,
hinc Rutulus premit et murum circumsonat armis.
sed tibi ego ingentis populos opulentaque regnis 475
iungere castra paro, quam fors inopina salutem
ostentat: fatis huc te poscentibus adfers.
haud procul hinc saxo incolitur fundata vetusto
urbis Agyllinae sedes, ubi Lydia quondam
gens, bello praeclara, iugis insedit Etruscis. 480
hanc multos florentem annos rex deinde superbo
imperio et saevis tenuit Mezentius armis.
quid memorem infandas caedes, quid facta tyranni
effera? di capiti ipsius generique reservent!
mortua quin etiam iungebat corpora vivis 485
componens manibusque manus atque oribus ora,
tormenti genus, et sanie taboque fluentis
complexu in misero longa sic morte necabat.
at fessi tandem cives infanda furentem
armati circumsistunt ipsumque domumque, 490
obtruncant socios, ignem ad fastigia iactant.
ille inter caedem Rutulorum elapsus in agros
confugere et Turni defendier hospitis armis.
ergo omnis furiis surrexit Etruria iustis,
regem ad supplicium praesenti Marte reposcunt. 495
his ego te, Aenea, ductorem milibus addam.
toto namque fremunt condensae litore puppes
signaque ferre iubent, retinet longaevus haruspex
fata canens: "o Maeoniae delecta iuventus,
flos veterum virtusque virum, quos iustus in hostem 500
fert dolor et merita accendit Mezentius ira,
nulli fas Italo tantam subiungere gentem:
externos optate duces." tum Etrusca resedit
hoc acies campo monitis exterrita divum.
ipse oratores ad me regnique coronam 505
cum sceptro misit mandatque insignia Tarchon,
succedam castris Tyrrhenaque regna capessam.
sed mihi tarda gelu saeclisque effeta senectus
invidet imperium seraeque ad fortia vires.
natum exhortarer, ni mixtus matre Sabella 510
hinc partem patriae traheret. tu, cuius et annis
et generi fatum indulget, quem numina poscunt,
ingredere, o Teucrum atque Italum fortissime ductor.
hunc tibi praeterea, spes et solacia nostri,
Pallanta adiungam; sub te tolerare magistro 515
militiam et grave Martis opus, tua cernere facta
adsuescat, primis et te miretur ab annis.
Arcadas huic equites bis centum, robora pubis
lecta dabo, totidemque suo tibi nomine Pallas.'
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
Lipare was an island north of Sicily (where Mount Etna stood, inside which was Vulcan’s forge); Vergil seems to imply Aeolus, the wind guy, lives there.
The Chalybeans were a people from Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) famous for their skill in crafting iron.
Athena, not Evander’s son
Vulcan
In one version of his myth, Lemnos is the island where Vulcan landed when flung from the heavens as a baby by his mother, Juno; he learned craftsmanship there.
Now it’s Evander’s son.