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.

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More Poems by Virgil

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