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XXI.
From azure Heav'n alights destroying Mart,[1]
Who Wars and Blood his savage pleasure made,
T'equip the Mice, and calls the needful Art
Of Vulcan,[2] Lemnian Limper, to his aid:
205 Blacksmith divine! vast strokes on Anvils beat,
His Task incessant huge Pyracmon plies,
Whole Lemnos glows, till now the Work compleat,
Thick Groves of polish'd Needles bright arise:
Needles, that warlike Lances represent,
210 Needles, the brazen Gift of Mars armipotent.
From azure Heav'n alights destroying Mart,[1]
Who Wars and Blood his savage pleasure made,
T'equip the Mice, and calls the needful Art
Of Vulcan,[2] Lemnian Limper, to his aid:
205 Blacksmith divine! vast strokes on Anvils beat,
His Task incessant huge Pyracmon plies,
Whole Lemnos glows, till now the Work compleat,
Thick Groves of polish'd Needles bright arise:
Needles, that warlike Lances represent,
210 Needles, the brazen Gift of Mars armipotent.
- ↑ v. 201. Mart.] By an Archaisimus for Mars, see Spencer. He was the God of War, by whom Areithous had his Armour given him; allegorically he signifies Brutal Force.
- ↑ v. 204. Vulcan.] The God of Fire, who made the Armour of Glaucus, Achilles, &c. It is the Happiness of a Poet to raise the obscurest Circumstances into the strongest Point of Light. Eustathius. Mars must be own'd as proper a Person to desire this Favour of Vulcan, in behalf of those who had never offended him, as Venus was in Virgil to desire it for her illegitimate Son. A Woman in these Days would not be very likely to prevail with her Spouse, by putting him in Mind that she had made him a Cuckold.
XXII.
