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