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