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