When the metal cooled, he did something violent. He took his mallet and broke the mold .
And yet—she was indestructible .
So, he took up his axe and mallet and went to work. woodman casting athena
He began with the rough. He didn’t have a kiln or a crucible. He had firewood, a clay pit behind his hut, and the shattered bronze of old plowshares. He built a mold in the shape of his longing—clumsy, thick-fingered, full of air bubbles and thumbprints. It looked nothing like a goddess. It looked like a child’s mud pie. When the metal cooled, he did something violent