When he had said this he left her and went to his bellows, turning them toward the fire and bidding them work. Twenty bellows blew on the crucibles. He cast tough bronze and tin and precious gold and silver into the fire, set the great anvil on its block, and took a massive hammer in one hand and tongs in the other.
First he shaped the shield so great and strong, adorning it all over and binding it round with a gleaming circuit in three layers; and the baldric was of silver. On it he worked the earth, the heavens, and the sea; the moon at her full and the tireless sun, with the Pleiades, the Hyades, great Orion, and the Bear that watches Orion and alone has no part in the baths of Ocean.
He made two cities of speaking people: one bright with weddings, music, and a lawsuit judged by elders with two talents of gold in the midst; the other ringed by armies in siege, with ambush, cattle-raid, and bitter fighting. He made plowland, a king's harvest, a heavy vineyard, herds attacked by lions, a sheepfold in a mountain dell, and a dancing floor like the one Daidalos once made in Knossos for Ariadne. Around the outermost rim he set the mighty stream of Ocean.
When he had fashioned the shield, he made a corselet that shone brighter than fire, a heavy helmet fitted to Achilles' temples with a gold crest, and greaves of pliant tin. He laid all the armor before the mother of Achilles.
She received the gleaming gifts of Hephaestus. Then like a falcon she darted down from snowy Olympus, carrying the shining armor from the god. Before Dawn with her rosy fingers showed again, she came to the ships and set the work beside her son.