.
ELEVENTH CAR, OF VULCAN.
Vulcan, the God of fire, old, ugly, and lame, with a cap of
turquoise-blue upon the head, had the eleventh car, drawn by two great
dogs; and in it was figured the Isle of Lemnos, where it is said that
Vulcan, thrown down from Heaven, was nursed by Thetis, and began to
fashion there the first thunderbolts for Jove. Before it were seen
walking, as his ministers and servants, three Cyclopes, Brontes,
Steropes, and Pyracmon, of whose aid he is said to have been wont to
avail himself in making those thunderbolts. After them was seen coming
Polyphemus, the lover of the beautiful Galatea and the first of all the
Cyclopes, in the garb of a shepherd, with a great pipe hanging from his
neck and a staff in the hand; and with him, crowned with seven stars,
the deformed but ingenious Ericthonius, born with serpent's feet from
Vulcan's attempt to violate Minerva, to conceal the ugliness of which it
is believed that he invented the use of chariots, on which account he
walked with one of these in the hand. He was seen followed by the savage
Cacus, also the son of Vulcan, spouting a stream of sparks from the
mouth and nose; and by Caeculus, likewise the son of Vulcan, and likewise
in pastoral garb, but adorned with the royal diadem, and in one of his
hands, in memory of the building of Praeneste, was seen a city placed
upon a hill, and in the other a ruddy and burning flame. After these was
seen coming Servius Tullius, King of Rome, who is also believed to have
been born of Vulcan, and upon his head, even as in the hand of Caeculus,
in token of his happy augury, a similar flame was seen to form in
marvellous fashion a splendid and propitious garland. Then was seen the
jealous Procris, daughter of the above-named Ericthonius, and wife of
Cephalus, who, in memory of the ancient fable, seemed to have the breast
transfixed by a javelin; and with her was seen Oreithyia, her sister, in
a virginal and lovely habit, and in the centre between them was Pandion,
King of Athens, born with them of the same father, adorned with the
vestments of a Grecian King. After him came Procne and Philomela, his
daughters, one dressed in the skin of a deer, with a spear in the hand
and upon the head a little chattering swallow, and the other carrying
in the same place a nightingale, and likewise having in the hand a
woman's embroidered mantle, in allusion to her miserable fate; and she
appeared to be following her beloved father a
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