Aeneid Book 2, lines 286-313

Hector visits Aeneas in a dream

by Virgil

Sinon, a Greek agent who has infiltrated the Trojans, has released the warriors hidden in the wooden horse. The sack of Troy is starting, and what an electrifying piece of writing it will be. But Virgil has a problem to solve. Epic heroes stand and fight: how can Aeneas flee without forfeiting his honour and mystique? Here, the dead Hector, Troy’s supreme fighting hero, begins the groundwork. He comes to Aeneas in a dream and tells him that the city must fall. Aeneas’s duty is not to die vainly, but to take responsibility for Troy’s sacred relics and bring them safely to a new home. Aeneas wakes and finds himself confronted by a terrible reality.

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ille nihil, nec me quaerentem vana moratur,
sed graviter gemitus imo de pectore ducens,
“heu fuge, nate dea, teque his”, ait, “eripe flammis.
hostis habet muros; ruit alto a culmine Troia.
sat patriae Priamoque datum: si Pergama dextra
defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent.
sacra suosque tibi commendat Troia penates:
hos cape fatorum comites, his moenia quaere
magna, pererrato statues quae denique ponto.”
sic ait et manibus vittas Vestamque potentem
aeternumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem.
diverso interea miscentur moenia luctu,
et magis atque magis, quamquam secreta parentis
Anchisae domus arboribusque obtecta recessit,
clarescunt sonitus armorumque ingruit horror.
excutior somno et summi fastigia tecti
ascensu supero atque arrectis auribus asto:
in segetem veluti cum flamma furentibus Austris
incidit, aut rapidus montano flumine torrens
sternit agros, sternit sata laeta boumque labores,
praecipitesque trahit silvas: stupet inscius alto
accipiens sonitum saxi de vertice pastor.
Tum vero manifesta fides, Danaumque patescunt
insidiae. iam Deiphobi dedit ampla ruinam,
Vulcano superante domus; iam proximus ardet
Ucalegon; Sigea igni freta lata relucent:
exoritur clamorque virum clangorque tubarum.

He says nothing and ignores my empty questions,
but drawing deep and heavy groans, says “Ah, flee,
Goddess-born, snatch yourself from these flames.
the enemy has the walls; Troy crashes from its zenith.
Enough has been given for Troy and Priam: if the citadel
were defensible by deeds, mine would have defended it.
Her sacred relics and her Gods, Troy entrusts to you:
take them to share your fate, seek them a stronghold, one
you will found when long journeys on the sea are done.”
Next, in his hands he brings great Vesta, her priests’
bands and the eternal flame from the holy of holies.
Meanwhile, in the city cries of grief and confusion reign,
and more and more, though my Father Anchises’ house
is secluded and screened by trees, the noise grows
louder, and the grim sound of battle intensifies.
Torn from sleep, I climb to the very top of the roof
and stand listening intently: it is as though flame
were tearing into cornfields as south winds rage, swift
torrents from a mountain river laying flat the fields,
the thriving crops and the fruits of the oxen’s labour,
smashing the woodlands down: confused and dumbstruck,
the shepherd faces the din from the top of his rock.
Now the Greeks’ honour is clear, their betrayals laid
bare. Deiphobus’ mansion, Vulcan’s fire towering above,
has fallen in ruin: by it burns the house of Ucalegon;
the broad Sigean strait blazes with reflected light:
up go the shouts of men and the blare of trumpets.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. Charon, the ferryman
  2. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  3. The death of Priam
  4. The Trojan horse opens
  5. Aeneas’s oath
  6. Dido’s story
  7. King Mezentius meets his match
  8. The portals of sleep
  9. Love is the same for all
  10. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  11. Juno is reconciled
  12. Dido’s release
  13. The death of Pallas
  14. Rumour
  15. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  16. In King Latinus’s hall
  17. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  18. The natural history of bees
  19. The boxers
  20. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  21. Aeneas and Dido meet
  22. Vulcan’s forge
  23. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  24. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  25. Jupiter’s prophecy
  26. Aeneas is wounded
  27. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  28. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  29. Sea-nymphs
  30. Turnus is lured away from battle
  31. The Aeneid begins
  32. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  33. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  34. The journey to Hades begins
  35. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  36. Juno’s anger
  37. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  38. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  39. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  40. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  41. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  42. Rites for the allies’ dead
  43. Laocoon and the snakes
  44. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  45. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  46. Helen in the darkness
  47. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  48. Aristaeus’s bees
  49. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  50. Mourning for Pallas
  51. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  52. The death of Priam
  53. The Harpy’s prophecy
  54. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  55. The Syrian hostess
  56. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  57. Storm at sea!
  58. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  59. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  60. The farmer’s starry calendar
  61. The infant Camilla
  62. Catastrophe for Rome?
  63. The farmer’s happy lot
  64. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  65. Venus speaks
  66. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  67. New allies for Aeneas
  68. Into battle
  69. The death of Dido
  70. Aeneas joins the fray
  71. Virgil begins the Georgics
  72. The battle for Priam’s palace
  73. Cassandra is taken
  74. Turnus at bay
  75. Turnus the wolf
  76. The Trojans reach Carthage
  77. Juno throws open the gates of war
  78. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  79. Dido falls in love
  80. Signs of bad weather
  81. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  82. What is this wooden horse?
  83. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  84. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  85. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  86. Virgil’s perils on the sea

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