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

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