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