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