t company: for some had sunken cheeks, and their faces
bathed in tears, looking at each other; others were groaning very
dolorously, looking at the heights of the heavens, fixing their eyes
upon them, crying out loudly, as if they were asking succor from the
Father of nature; others struck their faces with their hands, throwing
themselves on the earth; others made their lamentations in songs,
according to the customs of their country, which, although we could not
understand their language, we saw corresponded well to the height of
their sorrow. But now, for the increase of their grief, came those who
had the charge of the distribution, and they began to put them apart one
from the other, in order to equalize the portions, wherefore it was
necessary to part children and parents, husbands and wives, and
brethren from each other. Neither in the partition of friends and
relations was any law kept, only each fell where the lot took him. O
powerful Fortune! who goest hither and thither with thy wheels,
compassing the things of the world as it pleaseth thee, if thou canst,
place before the eyes of this miserable nation some knowledge of the
things that are to come after them, that they may receive some
consolation in the midst of their great sadness! and you others who have
the business of this partition, look with pity on such great misery, and
consider how can those be parted whom you cannot disunite! Who will be
able to make this partition without great difficulty? for while they
were placing in one part the children that saw their parents in another,
the children sprang up perseveringly and fled to them; the mothers
enclosed their children in their arms and threw themselves with them on
the ground, receiving wounds with little pity for their own flesh, so
that their offspring might not be torn from them!

"And so, with labor and difficulty, they concluded the partition, for,
besides the trouble they had with the captives, the plain was full of
people, as well of the place as of the villages and neighborhood around,
who in that day gave rest to their hands, the mainstay of their
livelihood, only to see this novelty. And as they looked upon these
things, some deploring, some reasoning upon them, they made such a
riotous noise as greatly to disturb those who had the management of this
distribution. The Infante was there upon a powerful horse, accompanied
by his people, looking out his share, but as a man who for his part did