Encouraged by the cordial tone of the good-natured god, Thetis poured out afresh all the tale of her woes, beginning from the time when, sorely against her will, she became the bride of Peleus. He was now an old man, broken and infirm, and she a goddess, radiant in her immortal bloom, was still chained to the human wreck, and Achilles, her son, still in the prime of his splendid manhood, was a perpetual source of trouble and grief. "Few indeed," she went on, "and evil, are the days of his life. First foully insulted by his sovereign, and now broken-hearted at the loss of his dearest friend! Help me to do what I can to comfort him in this bitter hour; lend me thy skill, and make him a suit of armour such as never mortal man hath worn before." "If that be all," answered Hephæstus cheerfully, "thy prayer is granted as soon as uttered. Arms he shall have, which shall make him the wonder of the world when he goes forth to battle." Then leaving Thetis in charge of his wife he went back to his forge, and having stripped to the waist addressed himself to his work. Round the furnace in the centre of the stithy were twenty pairs of bellows, each serving a separate smelting oven. These he now turned to the fire, and commanded them to blow, for they were endowed with a consciousness of their own, and obeyed the master's will, now sending forth a tremendous blast, which made the fire roar with fury, and the flames leap upward to the roof, now breathing low, like some huge monster in his softer mood. Into the smelting ovens he cast bronze and tin, silver and gold; and when his metal was ready he placed a ponderous anvil on the anvil block, and took in one hand a mighty hammer, while in the other he grasped the tongs. And first a shield he fashioned, vast and strong,[1] with threefold rim, and baldric of silver. The shield was of five folds; and on it he wrought many a pictured scene with wondrous skill. [1] This line is from Cowper's version. There were imaged earth and sea, the unwearied sun, and the moon in her waxing and her waning, and the heavens with all their starry crown--Pleiades, and Hyades, and Orion's might, and the Bear, whom men likewise call the Wain, who turns on the same spot, and watches Orion, and alone has no share in the baths of Ocean.