The Aeneid (39 page)

370         But his mother Venus was terrified, and with good reason, by
                the threats of the Laurentines and the savagery of the fighting,
                so she spoke to her husband Vulcan. Coming to him in his
                golden bedroom and breathing divine love into her voice, she
                said: ‘When the citadel of Troy was being ravaged in war by the
                kings of Greece, it was owed to Fate and was doomed to fall in
                the fires lit by its enemies, but I asked for nothing for those who
                suffered. I did not call upon the help of your art to make arms
380         for them. Although I owed much to the sons of Priam and had
                often wept at the sufferings endured by Aeneas, I did not wish,
                
O my dearest husband, that you should exert yourself to no
                purpose. But now, in obedience to the commands of Jupiter,
                Aeneas is standing on Rutulian soil and so now I come to you
                as a suppliant. I approach that godhead which I so revere, and
                as a mother, I ask you to make arms for my son. You yielded to
                Thetis, the daughter of Nereus, you yielded to the wife of
                Tithonus when they came and wept to you. Look at all the
                nations gathering. Look at the walled cities that have closed
                their gates and are sharpening their swords against me to destroy
                those I love.’ She had finished speaking and he was hesitating.
                The goddess took him gently in her white arms and caressed
                him, and caressed him again. Suddenly he caught fire as he
390         always did. The old heat he knew so well pierced to the marrow
                of his bones and coursed through them till they melted, as in a
                thunderstorm when a fiery-flashing rift bursts the clouds and
                runs through them in dazzling brightness. His wife knew and
                was pleased. She was well aware of her beauty and she knew
                how to use it. Father Vulcan, bound to her by eternal love, made
                this reply: ‘You need not delve so deep for arguments. Where is
                that trust, O goddess, which you used to have in me? If your
                care for Aeneas was then as it is now, it would have been right
                for us even then to arm the Trojans. Neither the All-powerful
                Father nor the Fates were forbidding Troy to stand and Priam
400         to go on living for ten more years. And now if you are preparing
                for war and this is what you wish, whatever care I can offer you
                in the exercise of my skill, whatever can be done by melting iron
                or electrum, anything that fire and bellows can achieve, you do
                not have to pray to me. You need not doubt your power.’ At
                these words he gave his wife the embraces so much desired, and
                then, relaxed upon her breast, he sought and found peace and
                repose for all his limbs.

                When the night had passed the middle of its course, when
                Vulcan’s first sleep was over and there was no more rest, just
410         when the ashes are first stirred to rouse the slumbering fire by a
                woman whose task it is to support life by the humble work of
                spinning thread on a distaff; taking time from the night for her
                labours, she sets her slave women going by lamplight upon their
                long day’s work, so that she can keep her husband’s bed chaste
                
and bring her young sons to manhood – with no less zeal than
                such a woman and not a moment later did the God of Fire rise
                from his soft bed and go to work at his forge.

                Between Lipari in the Aeolian Islands and the flank of Sicily,
                an island of smoking rocks rises sheer from the sea. Deep within
                it is a great vault, and in that vault caves have been scooped out
                like those under Etna to serve as forges for the Cyclopes. The
420         noise within them is the noise of thunder. Mighty blows can be
                heard booming on the groaning anvils, the caves are filled with
                the sound of hissing as the Chalybes plunge bars of white-hot
                pig-iron into water and all the time the fires are breathing in the
                furnaces. This is the home of Vulcan, and Vulcania is the name
                of the island. Into these depths the God of Fire descended from
                the heights of heaven.

                The Cyclopes were forging steel, working naked in that vast
                cavern, Brontes, Sterope and Pyracmon. In their hands was a
                thunderbolt which they had roughed out, one of those the Father
                of the Gods and Men hurls down upon the earth in such numbers
                from every part of the sky. Some of it was already burnished,
                some of it unfinished. They had attached three shafts of lashing
430         rain to it, three shafts of heavy rainclouds, three of glowing fire
                and three of the south wind in full flight. They were now adding
                to the work the terrifying lightning and the sound of thunder,
                then Fear and Anger with their pursuing flames. In another
                part of the cave they were working for Mars, busy with the
                wing-wheeled chariot in which he stirs up men and cities to war.
                Others were hard at work polishing the armour worn by Pallas
                Athene when roused, the fearsome aegis and its weaving snakes
                with their reptilian scales of gold, even the Gorgon rolling her
                eyes in the bodiless head on the breast of the goddess. ‘Put all
                this away!’ he cried. ‘Whatever work you have started, you
440         Cyclopes of Etna, lay it aside and give your attention here.
                Armour has to be made for a brave hero. You need strength and
                quick hands now. Now you need all your arts to guide you. Let
                nothing stand in your way.’ He said no more, but instantly they
                all bent to the work, dividing it equally between them. The
                bronze was soon flowing in rivers. The gold ore and iron, the
                dealer of death, were molten in a great furnace. They were
                
shaping one great shield to be a match for all the weapons of
                the Latins, fastening the seven thicknesses of it circle to circle.
450         Bellows were taking in air and breathing it out again. Bronze
                was being plunged into troughs of water and hissing. The cave
                boomed with the anvils standing on its floor while the Cyclopes
                raised their arms with all their strength in time with one another
                and turned the ore in tongs that did not slip.

                While Father Vulcan, the god of Lemnos, was pressing on
                with this work in the Aeolian Islands, Evander was roused from
                sleep in his humble hut by the life-sustaining light of day and
                the dawn chorus of the birds under his eaves. The old man rose,
                put on his tunic and bound Etruscan sandals on the soles of his
                feet. He then girt on a Tegean sword with its baldric over the
460         shoulder and threw on a panther skin to hang down on his left
                side. Nor did the sentinels from his high threshold fail to precede
                him – his two dogs went with their master – as the hero walked
                to the separate quarters of his guest Aeneas, remembering their
                talk and remembering the help he had promised to give. Aeneas
                was up and about just as early, walking with Achates. Evander
                had his son Pallas with him. They met, clasped right hands, and
                sitting there in the middle of Evander’s house, they were at last
                able to discuss affairs of state.

470         The king spoke first: ‘Great leader of the Trojans, while you
                are alive I shall never accept that Troy and its kingdom are
                defeated. Beside your mighty name, the power we have to help
                you in this war is as nothing. On one side we are hemmed in by
                the Tuscan river, on the other the Rutulians press us hard and
                we can hear the clang of their weapons round our walls. But I
                have a plan to join vast peoples and the armies of wealthy
                kingdoms to your cause. A chance that no man could have
                foreseen is showing us the path to safety. Fate was calling you
                when you came to this place.

                ‘Not far from here is the site of Agylla, founded long ago on
480         its ancient rock by the warlike Lydians who once settled there
                on the ridges of the Etruscan mountains. After this city had
                flourished for many years, Mezentius eventually took it under
                his despotic rule as king and held it by the ruthless use of armed
                force. I shall not speak of the foul murders and other barbaric
                
crimes committed by this tyrant. May the gods heap equal
                suffering upon his own head and the heads of his descendants!
                He even devised a form of torture whereby living men were
                roped to dead bodies, tying them hand to hand and face
                to face to die a lingering death oozing with putrefying flesh in this
                cruel embrace. But at last his subjects reached the end of their
                endurance and took up arms against him. Roaring and raging
490         he was besieged in his palace, his men were butchered and fire
                was thrown on his roof. In all this bloodshed he himself escaped
                and took refuge in the land of the Rutulians under the protection
                of the armies of his guest-friend, Turnus. At this the whole of
                Etruria rose in righteous fury and has now come in arms to
                demand that Mezentius be given up for punishment. They have
                thousands of troops and I shall put you at their head. Their
                ships are massed all along the shore, clamouring for the signal
                for battle, but they are held in check by this warning from an
                aged prophet: “O you chosen warriors from Lydian Maeonia,
500         flower of the chivalry of an ancient race, it is a just grievance
                that drives you to war, and Mezentius deserves the anger that
                blazes against him, but it is not the will of heaven that such a
                race as the Etruscans should ever obey an Italian. You must
                choose your leaders from across the seas.”

                ‘At this the Etruscan army has settled down again on the
                 plain, held back by fear of these divine warnings. Tarchon
                himself has sent envoys to me with crown and sceptre, and
                offers me the royal insignia of Etruria if I agree to come to their
                camp and take over the kingdom. But my powers have passed
                with the passing of the generations. Age has taken the speed
                from my feet and the warmth from my blood. I am too old for
510         command and no longer have the strength for battle. I would
                be urging my son to go, but he is of mixed stock through his
                Sabine mother and is therefore part Italian. It is you who are
                favoured of the Fates for your years and your descent. You are
                the man the gods are asking for. Go then, O bravest leader of
                all the men of Troy and Italy, and I shall send with you this my
                son Pallas, our hope and our comfort. Let him be hardened to
                the rigours of war under your leadership. Let him daily see your
                conduct and admire you from his earliest years. Two hundred
                
horsemen I shall give him, the flower of our fighting men, and
                Pallas will give you two hundred more in his own name.’

520         He had scarcely finished speaking, and Aeneas, son of
                Anchises, and his faithful Achates were still looking sadly down
                at the ground, and long would they have pondered in the anguish
                of their hearts, had Venus not given a sign from the clear sky.
                There came from the heavens a sudden flash of lightning and a
                rumble of thunder and the whole sky seemed to be crashing
                down upon them with the blast of an Etruscan trumpet shrilling
                across the heavens. They looked up and again and again great
                peals broke over their heads and in bright sky in a break between
                the clouds they saw armour glowing red and heard it thunder
530         as it clashed. The others were all astonished but the hero of
                Troy understood the sound and knew this was the fulfilment of
                the promise of his divine mother. At last he spoke: ‘There is no
                need, my friend, no need to ask what these portents mean. This
                is heaven asking for me. The goddess who is my mother told me
                she would send this sign if war were threatening, and bring
                armour made by Vulcan down through the air to help me. Alas!
                What slaughter waits upon the unhappy Laurentines! What a
                punishment Turnus will endure at my hands! How many shields
                and helmets and bodies of brave men will Father Thybris roll
540         down beneath his waves. Now let the Laurentines ask for war!
                Now let them break their treaties!’