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