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