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