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