Book 8
swift as the glittering shaft of thunder cleaves
306
the darkened air and on from cloud to cloud
the rift of lightning runs. She, joyful wife;
felt what her beauty and her guile could do;
as, thralled by love unquenchable, her spouse
thus answered fair: “Why wilt thou labor so
with far-fetched pleas? my goddess, hast thou lost
thy faith in me? Had such a prayer been shine,
I could have armed the Teucrians. Neither Jove
nor Destiny had grudged ten added years
of life to Troy and Priam. If to-day
thou hast a war in hand, and if thy heart
determine so, I willingly engage
to lend thee all my cunning; whatsoever
molten alloy or welded iron can,
whate'er my roaring forge and flames achieve,
I offer thee. No more in anxious prayer
distrust thy beauty's power.” So saying, he gave
embrace of mutual desire, and found
deep, peaceful sleep, on her fond heart reclined.
Night's course half run, soon as the first repose
407
had banished sleep,—what time some careful wife
whose distaff and Minerva's humble toil
must earn her bread, rekindling her warm hearth,
adds a night-burden to her laboring day,
and by the torch-light cheers her maidens on
to their long tasks; that so her husband's bed
she may in honor keep, and train to power
her dear men-children—at such prime of morn,
with not less eager mind the Lord of Fire
fled his soft couch and to his forges tried.
An island near Aeolian Lipara
not far from a Sicilian headland lies,
where smoking rocks precipitously tower
above a vast vault, which the Cyclops' skill
outhollowed large as Aetna's thunderous caves.
There ring the smitten anvils, and the roof
re-echoes, roaring loud. Chalybian ores
hiss in the gloom, and from the furnace mouths
puff the hot-panting fires. 'T is Vulcan's seat,
