this matter; would that I could hide him from death's sight when
his hour is come, so surely as I can find him armour that shall
amaze the eyes of all who behold it."

When he had so said he left her and went to his bellows, turning
them towards the fire and bidding them do their office. Twenty
bellows blew upon the melting-pots, and they blew blasts of every
kind, some fierce to help him when he had need of them, and
others less strong as Vulcan willed it in the course of his work.
He threw tough copper into the fire, and tin, with silver and
gold; he set his great anvil on its block, and with one hand
grasped his mighty hammer while he took the tongs in the other.

First he shaped the shield so great and strong, adorning it all
over and binding it round with a gleaming circuit in three
layers; and the baldric was made of silver. He made the shield in
five thicknesses, and with many a wonder did his cunning hand
enrich it.

He wrought the earth, the heavens, and the sea; the moon also at
her full and the untiring sun, with all the signs that glorify
the face of heaven--the Pleiads, the Hyads, huge Orion, and the
Bear, which men also call the Wain and which turns round ever in
one place, facing. Orion, and alone never dips into the stream of
Oceanus.

He wrought also two cities, fair to see and busy with the hum of
men. In the one were weddings and wedding-feasts, and they were
going about the city with brides whom they were escorting by
torchlight from their chambers. Loud rose the cry of Hymen, and
the youths danced to the music of flute and lyre, while the women
stood each at her house door to see them.

Meanwhile the people were gathered in assembly, for there was a
quarrel, and two men were wrangling about the blood-money for a
man who had been killed, the one saying before the people that he
had paid damages in full, and the other that he had not been
paid. Each was trying to make his own case good, and the people
took sides, each man backing the side that he had taken; but the
heralds kept them back, and the elders sate on their seats of
stone in a solemn circle, holding the staves which the heralds
had put into their hands. Then they rose and each in his turn
gave judgement, and there were two talents laid down, to be given
to him whose judgement should be deemed the fairest.

About the other city there lay encamped two hosts in gleaming
armour, and they were divided whether to sack it, or to spare it
and accept the half of what it contained. But the men of the city
would not yet consent, and armed themselves for a surprise; their
wives and little children kept guard upon the walls, and with
them were the men who were past fighting through age; but the
others sallied forth with Mars and Pallas Minerva at their head--
both of them wrought in gold and clad in golden raiment, great
and fair with their armour as befitting gods, while they that
followed were smaller. When they reached the place where they
would lay their ambush, it was on a riverbed to which live stock
of all kinds would come from far and near to water; here, then,
they lay concealed, clad in full armour. Some way off them there
were two scouts who were on the look-out for the coming of sheep
or cattle, which presently came, followed by two shepherds who
were playing on their pipes, and had not so much as a thought of
danger. When those who were in ambush saw this, they cut off the
flocks and herds and killed the shepherds. Meanwhile the
besiegers, when they heard much noise among the cattle as they
sat in council, sprang to their horses, and made with all speed
towards them; when they reached them they set battle in array by
the banks of the river, and the hosts aimed their bronze-shod
spears at one another. With them were Strife and Riot, and fell
Fate who was dragging three men after her, one with a fresh
wound, and the other unwounded, while the third was dead, and she
was dragging him along by his heel: and her robe was bedrabbled
in men's blood. They went in and out with one another and fought
as though they were living people haling away one another's dead.

He wrought also a fair fallow field, large and thrice ploughed
already. Many men were working at the plough within it, turning
their oxen to and fro, furrow after furrow. Each time that they
turned on reaching the headland a man would come up to them and
give them a cup of wine, and they would go back to their furrows
looking forward to the time when they should again reach the
headland. The part that they had ploughed was dark behind them,
so that the field, though it was of gold, still looked as if it
were being ploughed--very curious to behold.

He wrought also a field of harvest corn, and the reapers were
reaping with sharp sickles in their hands. Swathe after swathe
fell to the ground in a straight line behind them, and the
binders bound them in bands of twisted straw. There were three
binders, and behind them there were boys who gathered the cut
corn in armfuls and kept on bringing them to be bound: among them
all the owner of the land stood by in silence and was glad. The
servants were getting a meal ready under an oak, for they had
sacrificed a great ox, and were busy cutting him up, while the
women were making a porridge of much white barley for the
labourers' dinner.

He wrought also a vineyard, golden and fair to see, and the vines
were loaded with grapes. The bunches overhead were black, but the
vines were trained on poles of silver. He ran a ditch of dark
metal all round it, and fenced it with a fence of tin; there was


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