withdrew, and went where lay The bellows, turned them toward the fire, and bade The work begin. From twenty bellows came Their breath into the furnaces—a blast Varied in strength as need might be; for now They blew with violence for a hasty task, And then with gentler breath, as Vulcan pleased And as the work required. Upon the fire He laid impenetrable brass, and tin, And precious gold and silver; on its block Placed the huge anvil, took the ponderous sledge, And held the pincers in the other hand.
And first he forged the huge and massive shield, Divinely wrought in every part—its edge Clasped with a triple border, white and bright. A silver belt hung from it, and its folds Were five; a crowd of figures on its disk Were fashioned by the artist’s passing skill, For here he placed the earth and heaven, and here The great deep and the never-resting sun And the full moon, and here he set the stars That shine in the round heaven—the Pleiades, The Hyades, Orion in his strength, and the Bear near him, called by some the Wain, That, wheeling, keeps Orion still in sight, Yet bathes not in the waters of the sea.