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