The Words of Daqiqi

When the Turks saw that Karjasp had fallen, and swords came flashing hot from every side, all their proud commanders dismounted and came before the warrior Esfandiar. They threw down their bows of Chach and stripped off their battle garments. Weeping, they said: if the king will spare the lives of these servants, we will submit and plead, and worship at all your sacred fires. When Esfandiar heard them, he granted safety to their lives and bodies. The renowned, nobly born warrior called out to that vast army: You famous men of Iran, turn back now from this army of the Chinese. Now that this enemy force is broken, hold your hands from this terror and slaughter. They are wretched and helpless; grant these dogs their lives. Stop taking captives now; bind no one, spill no blood. Do not charge, do not trample these dead; move about and count these wounded. For the sake of Zarir, do not seize them; do not linger long on your warhorses. When the army heard his voice, they left the wounded as he wished. They came down to their own camp and beat the drums of victory. All night they did not sleep for joy, for they had won a triumph worthy of Rostam. When that dark night broke and the blood soaked into the plain and desert, the famous king came with the army's chiefs to look upon that battlefield. He wandered among the dead; whoever he saw, he wept and passed on. He saw his brother slain in misery, cast down and dishonored on the field of combat. When he saw him so wretched and dead, he tore all his royal robes. He climbed down from his fine dappled horse and clawed at his own beard with both hands. He said: O king of the champions of Balkh, you have made our whole life bitter. Alas, O rider, O king, O sovereign, O brave warrior, O chosen witness. O my pillar, O shield of the land, O lamp of the world, O crown of the army. He came down and lifted him from the dust, and with his own hand wiped his face clean. He laid him in a golden coffin; you would say Zarir was never born of any family. The princes and his own young men were laid before him in their coffins. He ordered the dead to be counted, and the wounded to be carried away. He went all around that battlefield, over hill and desert, plain and road. Thirty thousand of the Iranians had been killed, and among them seven hundred proud and famous men. One thousand and forty of the notables were wounded, having escaped from beneath the elephants' feet. Of the others a hundred thousand were slain, and one thousand one hundred and sixty three of their famous men. Three thousand two hundred were wounded; stay here in this place as long as you can.