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