Vulgate

“ Special mention should be made of Paula and her daughter Eustochium; for it is probable that, had it not been for their influence on Jerome, and their active coöperation in his great life work, we should not have the [Pg 32] Latin version of the Scriptures that is to-day known as the Vulgate. This is evinced from the letters of the saint himself and from what we know of the lives of these two remarkable women, who, as St. ”

“ I suppose the popular boys, in whose hands bequeathed vulgus-books have accumulated, are prepared with three or four vulguses on any subject in heaven or earth, or in "more worlds than one," which an unfortunate master can pitch upon. At any rate, such lucky fellows had generally one for themselves and one for a friend in my time. The only objection to the traditionary method of doing your vulguses was, the risk that the successions might have become confused, and so that you and another follower of traditions should show up the same identical vulgus some fine morning ”

“ Vulcan.
“The Crippled Artist God.”
“He made the gods their golden shoes,
And shod their steeds with brass.” STORY.
THE GOD OF FIRE.
“Those who labor
The sweaty forge, who edge the crooked scythe,
Bend stubborn steel, and harden gleaming armor,
Acknowledge Vulcan’s aid.”
—Prior.
Vulcan, the son of Jupiter, was born lame. He was flung from Olympus by his mother, Juno, who hated him for his deformity, and he fell into the sea, where the mother of Achilles found him. He made for her son a shield, which was a wonderfully clever piece of handiwork. ”

“ Then he sent the blacksmith Vulcan to bind him with iron chains and fetter him to the rocks so that he could not move hand or foot.
Vulcan did not like to do this, for he was a friend of Prometheus, and yet he did not dare to disobey. And so the great friend of men, who had given them fire and lifted them out of their wretchedness and shown them how to live, was chained to the mountain peak; and there he hung, with the storm-winds whistling always around him, and the pitiless hail beating in his face, and fierce eagles shrieking in his ears and tearing his body with their cruel claws. ”

“ Völund resembles Vulcan, also, in that he is a clever smith and makes use of his talents to work out his revenge. Vulcan, lamed by a fall from Olympus, and neglected by Juno, whom he had tried to befriend, sends her a golden throne, which is provided with cunning springs to seize and hold her fast. Völund, hamstrung by the suggestion of Nidud’s queen, secretly murders her sons, and out of their eyes fashions marvelous jewels, which she unsuspectingly wears upon her breast until he reveals their origin. ”

“ On another occasion, this deity had a contest with Vulcan and Minerva, in regard to their skill. The goddess, as a proof of her's, made a horse, Vulcan a man, and Neptune a bull, whence that animal was used in the sacrifices to him, though it is probable that, as the victim was to be black, the design was to point out the raging quality and fury of the sea, over which he presided. ”

“ When the strongest buildings rock
To the awful earthquake’s shock
The trembling millions all confess my might!”
The lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, and over all the storm was heard a voice calling: “Vul-can! Vul-can!” [99]
Vulcan stopped work while his imps crept stealthily toward the door to listen.
“Is Vulcan at his forge?” was shouted in the wind and rain outside, with the accompaniment of a terrific knock on the door.
“Who dares disturb me on my busy night?” cried Vulcan, in a towering passion.
“It is I, Dragonfel, the enchanter,” said the voice placatingly. ”

“ CHAPTER XXI
“Now, look you here, Sir,” the old philosopher began, taking me by a tassel on my satin doublet, and working himself up until his eyes shone with pleasure, as he unfolded his mad visions to me. “Look you here, Sir! this bare and dingy dungeon that you rightly frown at is a cell more pregnant with ingenuity than ever was the forge of the lame smith of Lemnos. Vulcan! Vulcan never had such teeming fancies as I have harbored in my head for twenty years. Vulcan never coaxed into being such a lovely monster as I have hidden yonder. ”

“ Mars made Venus many presents, and defiled King Vulcan's marriage bed, so the sun, who saw what they were about, told Vulcan. Vulcan was very angry when he heard such dreadful news, so he went to his smithy brooding mischief, got his great anvil into its place, and began to forge some chains which none could either unloose or break, so that they might stay there in that place. ”

“ And for five years they wandered through the earth, until they reached the fearful realm where Vulcan forged his weapons in the fire.
The secret of all poisonous herbs they learned, the use of every charm that spoils men’s lives and drives them to despair; they learned to raise a magic stormy sea upon dry land, in which men might be drowned; and out of forest twigs and fluttering leaves they learned to form a host of fighting-men and armed them with the spiked thorn of the thistle leaves or with the blackthorn’s barb. ”

“ Vulcan built the magnificent palaces of the gods on Mount Olympus, Juno’s golden throne, and the chariot of Apollo. The delicate girdle of Venus, the wife of Vulcan, was also made in his workshop. This was a magic girdle; for whoever wore it inspired love in all she met, and sometimes the goddesses would beg Venus to lend it to them.
The armor of Mars, god of war, and the shield of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, were the work of Vulcan. Sometimes he even manufactured armor for mortals, and Homer tells us of the marvelous shield he wrought for Achilles, the bravest of the Greeks. ”

“ Vulcan said. "You go around beating up everyone you can find, simply because you now know you can get away with it. Do you understand me?"
"I guess so."
"A man with a vicious streak in him would be intolerable in this position. Can you see that? Take an example: Ares. Mars is a tough God, hard and at times brutal. But he is not vicious."
Forrester was a little surprised to hear Vulcan say anything nice about Mars. He knew, as everyone did, the long history of ill-will and positive hatred the two had built up between them. It had begun soon after Vulcan's marriage to Aphrodite/Venus. ”

“ Each had but a single eye, placed in the middle of the forehead, but they were using their great strength in the smithy of Vulcan to forge thunderbolts for Jupiter, to make a trident for Neptune and a quiver of arrows for Apollo. Beside Vulcan stood two wonderful hand-maidens 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 that he might make gifts for the gods and for the heroes. ”

“ These learned men do not consider, that though the name, to which they refer, be antient, and oriental, yet the character, and attributes, are comparatively modern, having been introduced from another quarter. Vulcan the blacksmith, who was the master of the Cyclops, and forged iron in Mount Ætna, was a character familiar to the Greeks, and Romans. But this Deity among the Egyptians, and Babylonians, had nothing similar to this description. They esteemed Vulcan as the chief of the Gods the same as the Sun: and his name is a sacred title, compounded of Baal-Cahen, Belus sanctus, vel Princeps ”

“ Forrester had thought of Vulcan.
Mars wasn't a killer, in spite of his bully-boy tactics. He had too good a military mind to discipline a valuable man to death. But he was more than willing to go as near to that point as possible, if he thought it justified. And what he allowed as justification resided in a code all his own.
"Right" was what was good for Mars. "Wrong" was what disturbed him. That was the code, as simple, as black and white, as you could ask for. Vulcan was one of the results.
Vulcan had been Venus' lawful husband, as far as the laws of the Gods went. ”

“ It must have been rather painful being dragged up while the anvil dragged her down; but she found herself on firm sky at last, and sighed with relief when Vulcan, whipping out his knife, cut the cord at her feet, and let the anvil go thundering down upon the earth below.
You can fancy what a clatter it made. People started out of their sleep—not that that mattered. But it did matter that Jupiter started out of his. He sprang from his throne, and saw at once what had happened. The next moment, with a tremendous kick, he sent Vulcan flying after the anvil. ”

“ Each day was spent in the sunshine and flowers, then, when evening came and my fair playmate was gone to bed, I descended into old Faulkener’s crypt, and, adding one more character to the many already played, turned Vulcan. Hard and long we worked. Had you looked upon us, you would have seen, by the sullen furnace glow, two men, bare-armed and leather-aproned, toiling in that black gallery until the sweat ran trickling from them; forging, riveting, and hammering bars of iron, plying the creaking bellows until the white heart of the fire-heap was whiter than a glowworm-lamp ”

“ Vulcan (Hephæstus) , son of Jupiter and Juno, was the god of fire, especially of terrestrial fire,—volcanic eruption, incendiary flame, the glow of the forge or the hearth. But as the fires of earth are derived from that of heaven, perhaps the name Hephæstus (burning, shining, flaming) referred originally to the marvelous brilliance of the lightning. Vulcan was the blacksmith of the gods, the finest artificer in metal among them. ”

“ The anvil, hammer, and tongs, and Vulcan's cap wreathed with laurel, is not unfrequently met with on classical monuments, as the annexed illustration from Montfauçon will show (fig. 138) .
But the northern nations always associated something mysterious with the functions and character of their Vulcan, whether in the fabrication of arms or in shoeing their horses: reminding one of the secret arts of the Druids and their weird-like haunts. ”

“ Vulcan,34 god of fire and the forge, was not often seen in the halls of Olympus, for he knew that the gods despised him for his ungainly appearance, and he preferred to stay in his own sooty workshop. He had also no desire for the society of his divine parents, since his mother had never shown anything but indifference toward him, and his father had been the cause of his deformity. Jupiter was once so angry with Juno for interfering in his love affairs that he fastened her to the end of a strong chain, and hung her out of heaven. ”

“ I had not lain long in that position, with the heavy weight of the beast upon me, when a monstrous vulture came out of the sky, and, seizing upon the carcase with a loud scream, gripped it in its powerful talons and rose up and away with it and me. And it rose higher and higher, with a mighty flapping of its wings, until at last it alighted on a broad ledge near the summit of the mountain—a place which, judging by the bleached bones lying on every hand, was the favourite feeding-place of these birds. ”

“ Since Henrietta's oration, I am more than ever afraid of a Vulcan. It is very plain that our most fashionably cut suits and most delicately perfumed billets are not all powerful,—that the dear creatures are either waking or we have been asleep. ”

“ Dr. Balgos spread his hands expressively. "In mythology, Vulcan was the blacksmith, the god of fire and volcanoes. We have grown too wise to believe in myths, but we do believe in the scientific method. I come to you, as some of its most famous practitioners. If anything can be done—and I do not know if it can—then you are the scientific team that can do it. If you can do nothing, then San Luz will die, violently, under Vulcan's hammer!"
CHAPTER II San Luz
Rick Brant awoke slowly. ”

“ He afterwards became the husband of Venus.
He was reckoned among the gods presiding over marriage, from the torches lighted by him to grace that solemnity. It was the custom in several nations, after gaining a victory, to pile the arms of the enemy in a heap on the field of battle, and make a sacrifice of them to Vulcan. As to his worship, Vulcan had an altar in common with Prometheus, who first invented fire, as did Vulcan the use of it, in making arms and utensils. His principal temple was in a consecrated grove at the foot of mount Ætna, in which was a fire continually burning. ”

“ He made gold chairs and tables which 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 were [Pg 44] able to whirl the chariots of the gods through the air or on the waters with all 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 the artist of all the work in Mount Olympus. ”

“ So Vulcan and the rest lost their terrors; they even fell into oblivion like the beast-gods before, save as the chaff of concepts caught in the meshes of scripture. Most of the mythic monsters are gone utterly; yet Vulcan dies hard—and now and then the nature power for which he stands rises above all human might, and tempts men to return to that early stage of thought marked by the personification of powers. ”

“ Vulcan fell and fell, spinning through space, till he lost his senses, and then—
The anvil had fallen upon the island of Lemnos, and the islanders, rushing out of their houses to see what the crash and clatter could be about, were amazed to see what looked like a confused bundle of legs and arms tumbling and whirling through the air. As it came nearer, it seemed to be a human figure. So the people made a sort of network of their arms, to catch it and prevent its being dashed to pieces. ”