ollowers. Yet his thoughts are fixed on vengeance: finding at
hand a long heavy club, he struck one of the rascals with it so fiercely
that neither shield nor hauberk was worth a button in preventing him
from failing to the ground. After finishing with him, he pursues the
Count, and raising his club to strike him he deals him such a blow with
his square club that the axe falls from his hands; and he was so stunned
and bewildered that he could not have stood up unless he had leaned
against the wall.

(Vv. 2057-2146.) After this blow the battle ceases. Alexander leaps at
the Count and holds him so that he cannot move. Of the others nothing
need be said, for they were easily mastered when they saw the capture
of their lord. All are made prisoners with the Count and led away in
disgrace, in accordance with their deserts. Of all this the men outside
knew nothing. But when morning came they found their companions shields
lying among the slain when the battle was over. Then the Greeks, misled,
made a great lament for their lord. Recognising his shield, all are in
an agony of grief, swooning at sight of his shield and saying that
now they have lived too long. Cornix and Nerius first swoon, then,
recovering their senses, wish they were dead. So do Torin and Acorionde.
The tears run down in floods from their eyes upon their breasts. Life
and joy seem hateful now. And Parmenides more than the rest tore his
hair in dire distress. No greater grief could be shown than that of
these five for their lord. Yet, their dismay is groundless, for it is
another's body which they bear away when they think to have their lord.
Their distress is further increased by the sight of the other shields,
which cause them to mistake these corpses for their companions. So over
them they lament and swoon. But they are deceived by all these shields,
for of their men only one was killed, whose name was Neriolis. Him,
indeed, they would have borne away had they known the truth. But they
are in as great anxiety for the others as for him; so they bore them
all away. In every case but one they were misled. But like the man who
dreams and takes a fiction for the truth, so the shields cause them to
suppose this illusion to be a reality. It is the shields, then, that
cause this mistake. [222] Carrying the corpses, they move away and come
to their tents, where there was a sorrowing troop. Upon hearing the
lament raised by the Greeks, soon all the others gathered, unt