424The Cyclopes were working iron in the vast cave, Brontes and Steropes and Pyragmon, bare of limb. 426In their hands was a thunderbolt, already shaped and in part polished, one of the many which the father hurls down to earth from all the sky; part remained unfinished. 429Three rays of twisted hail, three of watery cloud they had added, three of red fire and of the winged South Wind: now they were mixing into the work terrifying flashes and noise and fear and wrath with pursuing flames. 433Elsewhere they were hurrying on for Mars a chariot and swift wheels, with which he rouses men, with which he rouses cities; 435and they were vying to burnish the terrifying aegis, the armour of angry Pallas, with serpents' scales and gold, and the interlaced snakes, and on the breast of the goddess the Gorgon herself, rolling her eyes in her severed neck.
439'Take everything away,' he says, 'and remove the tasks you have begun, Etnaean Cyclopes, and turn your minds to this: arms must be made for a fierce hero. 441Now there is need of strength, now of quick hands, now of all your masterly skill. 443Cast off delay.' 443He said no more; 443but they all swiftly bent to the work and shared the labour equally by lot. 445Bronze flows in streams, and the metal of gold, and wounding steel melts in the vast furnace. 447They shape a huge shield, one alone against all the weapons of the Latins, and bind circle upon circle sevenfold. 449Some take in and give back the air with windy bellows, others dip the hissing bronze in the trough.
451The cave groans with the anvils set upon it. 452They with great force raise their arms among themselves in rhythm and turn the mass with gripping tongs.