’Twas thou, bold Hector! whose resistless hand First seized a ship on that contested strand; The same which dead Protesilaüs bore,[242] The first that touch’d the unhappy Trojan shore: For this in arms the warring nations stood, And bathed their generous breasts with mutual blood. No room to poise the lance or bend the bow; But hand to hand, and man to man, they grow: Wounded, they wound; and seek each other’s hearts With falchions, axes, swords, and shorten’d darts. The falchions ring, shields rattle, axes sound, Swords flash in air, or glitter on the ground; With streaming blood the slippery shores are dyed, And slaughter’d heroes swell the dreadful tide.