the
slain, and have come to their tents where there were many folk
lamenting; but one and all of the others joined in the lament the
Greeks were making. There was a great rally to their mourning.
Now Soredamors, who hears the wailing and the lament for her
friend, thinks and believes that she was born in an evil hour.
For anguish and grief she loses memory and colour; and this it is
that grieves and wounds her much, but she dare not openly show
her grief; she has hidden her mourning in her heart. And yet, if
any one had marked it, he would have seen by her countenance and
by her outer semblance, that she suffered great pain and sorrow
of body; but each one had enough to do to utter his own grief and
recked nought of another's. Each was lamenting his own sorrow;
for they find their kinsmen and their friends in evil case; for
the river-bank was covered with them. Each lamented his own loss
which is heavy and bitter. There the son weeps for the father,
and here the father for the son; this man is swooning over his
cousin, and this other, over his nephew; thus in each place they
lament, fathers and brothers and kinsmen. But conspicuous above
all is the lament that the Greeks were making although they
might, with justice, expect great joy; for the greatest mourning
of all the host will soon turn to joy.

The Greeks are raising great lamentation without; and those who
are within are at great pains how to let them hear that whereof
they will have much joy. They disarm and bind their prisoners who
beg and pray them to take now their heads; but the king's men do
not will or deign to do this. Rather, they say that they will
keep them until they deliver them to the king, who then will give
them their due, so that their merits will be requited. When they
had disarmed them all they have made them mount the battlements
in order to show them to their folk below. Much does this
kindness displease them; since they saw their lord taken and
bound they were not a whit glad. Alexander, from the wall above,
swears by God and the saints of the world that never will he let
a single one of them live, but will kill them all; and none shall
stay his hand if they do not all go to yield themselves up to the
king before he can take them. "Go," quoth he, "I bid you to my
lord without fail, and place yourselves at his mercy. None of you
save the count here has deserved death. Never shall ye lose limb
or life if ye place yourselves at his mercy. If