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