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