Hephaestus

and there being no arms, but Hector having them—for here one true thing said escaped him—he says Thetis brought from heaven the arms made by Hephaestus;

For not even Hephaestus himself, it is likely, would find fault with this work, judging it by the pleasure and delight of human sight.

For not even Hephaestus has Homer represented elsewhere displaying his skill;

" Hephaestus, whom Zeus hurled from Olympus "from the divine threshold," fell in Lemnos and worked as a smith, lamed in both feet, "and his slender legs moved nimbly beneath him.

"Demeter endured it, and the famed Lame-god endured it, and Poseidon endured it, and Apollo of the silver bow endured to serve a mortal man for a year;

"Then the harper struck up to sing a fair song" — sing to us, Homer, the fair strain — "of the love of Ares and fair-crowned Aphrodite, how first they lay together secretly in the house of Hephaestus;

But Hera’s fetterings by her son and the hurling out of heaven of Hephaestus by his father when he was trying to save his mother from a beating, and the battles of the gods in Homer’s verse are things that we must not admit into our city either wrought in allegory or without allegory.

Quenchless then was the laughter that rose from the blessed immortals When they beheld Hephaestus officiously puffing and panting.

Nor will it profit them to hear of Hephaestus’s fettering Ares and Aphrodite for a like motive.

so seeing Euphemus, the brother of Callias, son of Telocles, sitting in his smithy, he took him to the temple of Hephaestus.

" And before him Homer too, fashioning the world after Moses upon the shield wrought by Hephaestus, says:

" And Hesiod says concerning Pandora:

O Hephaestus, lord of Aetna, rid thyself for once and all of a troublesome neighbour by burning his bright eye out.

The Nereids, leaving Euboea’s headlands, brought from Hephaestus’ anvil his shield-work of golden armor, up to Pelion and the glens at the foot of holy Ossa, the Nymphs’ watch-tower.

for he shall come with an army of Myrmidon spearmen to the famous land of Priam, to set it in a blaze, his body cased in a suit of golden mail forged by Hephaestus, a gift from his goddess-mother, from Thetis who bore him.

till she set the house ablaze with fires never kindled by Hephaestus.

They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor.

This interpretation would be less plausible than it is, were it not that, by a surprising coincidence, the ceremony described by Gaius as the imperative course of proceeding in a Legis Actio is substantially the same with one of the two subjects which the God Hephæstus is described by Homer as moulding into the First Compartment of the Shield of Achilles.

’ ‘This interpretation,’ I then added, ‘would be less plausible than it is, were it not that, by a surprising coincidence, the ceremony described by Gaius as the imperative course of proceeding in a Legis Actio is substantially the same with one of the two subjects which the God Hephæstus is described by Homer as moulding into the First Compartment of the Shield of Achilles.

These also are like the images of Hephaestus, and are said to be his sons.

Thus too he entered the temple of Hephaestus and jeered at the image there.

The women on well-built towers of bronze were crying shrilly and tearing their cheeks like living beings—the work of famous Hephaestus.

Beside them was a row of vines in gold, the splendid work of cunning Hephaestus:

A wonderful thing the great strong shield was to see—even for Zeus the loud-thunderer, by whose will Hephaestus made it and fitted it with his hands.

But Hera without union with Zeus—for she was very angry and quarrelled with her mate—bare famous Hephaestus, who is skilled in crafts more than all the sons of Heaven.

And because of this strife she bore without union with Zeus who holds the aegis a glorious son, Hephaestus, who excelled all the sons of Heaven in crafts.

And Hephaestus, the famous Lame One, made Aglaea, youngest of the Graces, his buxom wife.

And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face;

Forthwith the famous Lame God moulded clay in the likeness of a modest maid, as the son of Cronos purposed.

But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaestus the famed worker, easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round.

Sing, clear-voiced Muse, of Hephaestus famed for inventions.

But my son Hephaestus whom I bare was weakly among all the blessed gods and shrivelled of foot, a shame and a disgrace to me in heaven, whom I myself took in my hands and cast out so that he fell in the great sea.

And while the strength of glorious Hephaestus was beginning to kindle the fire, he dragged out two lowing, horned cows close to the fire;

For Erichthonius, the son of Hephaestus and Earth, took over from Cecrops, who was without male descent, his house and kingdom;

Together with this they also introduce a certain Hephaestus as a god, and him lame, holding a hammer and tongs, and working as a smith for the sake of food.

but afterward, while committing adultery with Aphrodite, he was bound by the infant Eros and by Hephaestus.

so that he too may be deemed a disciple of Love as likewise may the Muses in music, Hephaestus in metal-work, Athene in weaving and Zeus in pilotage of gods and men.

Suppose that, as they lay together, Hephaestus should come and stand over them, and showing his implements should ask:

Quickly, in fear, I tried burnt-sacrifice on a duly-kindled altar, but from my offerings Hephaestus did not blaze.

O Lemnos, and you all-conquering flame kindled by Hephaestus, will you indeed endure it that this man should take me from your domain by force?