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