How Vulcan Made The Best Of Things

No one wanted Vulcan at Olympus because he was a cripple. His mother, Juno, was ashamed of him, and his father, the great Jupiter, felt the same way—that it was a disgrace to have a son who was misshapen and must always limp as he made his way among the other straight-limbed gods.

But Vulcan wanted to be of service to his fellows. Once there was a gathering of the gods to discuss important matters of heaven and earth, and Vulcan offered his help as cupbearer. He made a funny figure hobbling from seat to seat with the great golden cup, and some of the gods laughed at him.

At last they threw Vulcan out of the skies, and he fell for an entire day, so far was it from Olympus to the earth. Near sunset he found himself lying on the ground beside a smoking mountain, bruised and more handicapped than ever before. He had fallen to the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea.

It was a bare, ugly place, for the coast was thick with volcanoes that poured out burning metal from time to time. The Sintians, the only inhabitants of Lemnos, had little to live on because the land was barren, and few ships dared anchor at their shores under the rain of fire from the volcano. These people were kind and simple, and they pitied Vulcan. They gathered around him, bound his wounds with healing herbs, shared their scant fruit with him, and hastened to prepare a tent. But when they returned to the foot of Mount Mosychlos where they had left Vulcan, he was gone.

"We dreamed of this visitor from the gods," they decided. "It was only a falling star that we watched, dropped from the sky."

Seasons passed, and at last it was noticed that the fiery Mosychlos was only smoking. It no longer threatened the lives of the inhabitants with its red-hot torrents. The same was true of the other volcanoes; they seemed more like the smoking, sooty chimneys of our factories today than the towers of death they had been before. And above the sound of the surf and the wailing of the wind, there could be heard a new sound: the steady beating of a hammer on metal, as a smith strikes his ringing blows from morning until night.

The bolder of the people went to the foot of the mountain and discovered, to their amazement, that the rock opened like a door. They went inside, following the sound of the hammer. In the depths of the mountain they saw a sight never seen on earth before. There was a dark smithy in the heart of the burning mountain, with a forge fire that burned with the power of the volcano, a great forge upon which Vulcan was shaping metal into things of dazzling beauty. All around the smithy were materials for making more: white steel, glowing copper, shining silver, burnished brass, and gold.

A strange company of apprentices, the Cyclopes, served Vulcan there. They had once been shepherds, but their peaceful occupation had been taken away because they had neglected to pay tribute to Apollo. Each had only one eye, placed in the middle of the forehead, but they used their great strength in the smithy to forge thunderbolts for Jupiter, a trident for Neptune, and a quiver of arrows for Apollo. Beside Vulcan stood two wonderful handmaidens of gold, who, like living creatures, moved about and helped the lame smith as he worked.

Vulcan, the despised of the gods, had chained fire and conquered the metals of the earth so that he could make gifts for the gods and the heroes.

Wonderful objects appeared at the doorway of Vulcan's shop and were carried to Mount Olympus. He shaped golden shoes, wearing which the celestials could walk upon land or sea and travel faster than thought. He made gold chairs and tables that could move without hands in and out of the halls of the gods. The celestial steeds were brought to Vulcan at Lemnos, and he shod them so cleverly with brass that they could whirl the chariots of the gods through the air or on the waters with the speed of the wind. He was even shaping brass columns for the houses of the gods. Vulcan had become the architect, smith, armorer, chariot-builder, and artist of all the work on Mount Olympus.

He was accomplishing more than this. Because he had captured fire and made the metals of the earth serve the ends of peace, the island of Lemnos became a safe, fertile land. Vineyards were planted and yielded rich harvests; flocks fed in green meadows; and Vulcan forged tools for agriculture. Ships from the other islands of Greece sailed to Lemnos, and commerce, the strength of a nation, began.

In those days, a great war was being waged between the Trojans and the Greeks, and many hearts beat with hope at the prowess of a young Greek hero, Achilles. Hector, at the head of the Trojans, had stormed the Greek camp and set fire to many of their ships. A captain of the Greeks begged Achilles to lend him his armor so that he could lead the soldiers against Troy.

"They may think me, in your mail, the brave Achilles," he said, "and pause from fighting, and the warlike sons of Greece, tired as they are, may breathe once more and gain a respite from the conflict."

So Achilles lent this captain, Patroclus, his radiant armor and his chariot, and marshaled his men to follow into the field. At first the assault was successful, but then fortune changed. Patroclus' chariot driver was killed; then he met Hector in single combat, at the same time receiving a spear thrust from behind. So Patroclus fell, mortally wounded, and it was a great sorrow for Greece, for Patroclus had been Achilles' beloved friend, and Hector stole Achilles' armor from his body. News of the defeat went even to Mount Olympus, and Jupiter covered all the heavens with a black cloud.

But Thetis, the mother of Achilles, hurried to Vulcan's smithy and told him that her son was in dire straits, having no suit of armor. She found the lame artisan of the gods at his forge, sweating and toiling, with busy hands working the bellows. But Vulcan laid aside his work at once to forge a splendid suit of armor for Achilles. There was, first of all, a shield decorated with the insignia of war; then a helmet crested with gold, a corselet, and greaves of metal so tempered that no dart could penetrate them. The task was done in a night, and Thetis carried the armor to her son and laid it at his feet at dawn. No man before had ever worn such sumptuous armor.

Arrayed in Vulcan's mail, Achilles went forth to battle, and the bravest of the Trojan warriors fled before him or fell under his spear. Achilles, his armor flashing like lightning, and he himself as terrible as Mars, pursued the entire army as far as the gates of Troy. His triumph would have been complete, but he had an enemy among the gods on Mount Olympus. No arrow shot by the hand of man could have hurt Achilles, but Apollo's shaft wounded him mortally. Apollo and Mars were then, and will be for all time, enemies; light and music and song have no sympathy with war.

Achilles, having been taken from the battlefields of earth by a dart that Apollo directed, was carried to Olympus along a bright pathway through the skies. On his way, he stopped at the palace of the sun. It was built on stately columns that glittered with gold and precious stones. The ceilings were of ivory, polished and carved, and all the doors were of silver. There were pictures on the walls that surpassed in their lines and colors the work of artists on earth. The whole world, the sea, and the skies with their inhabitants were pictured. Nymphs played in the sea, rode on the backs of fishes, or sat on the rocks and dried their long hair. The earth was lovely with its forests, rivers, and valleys. There was a picture of Spring crowned with flowers. Summer wore a garland made of heads of ripe, golden grain. Autumn carried his arms full of grapes, and Winter wore a mantle of bright ice and snow.

Seeing this beauty, the hero forgot his wound.

Achilles had been forced to leave his armor on the earth, an inheritance for other brave heroes who would take his place in the siege of Troy, but Apollo had shown him the greatest work of Vulcan. It was the crippled one of the gods who had built this palace of the sun.