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