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