The noble qualities of his horse and its prowess in the chase are described, and the poem ends with a magnificent picture of a thunder-storm among the hills of Najd.

Ṭarafa b. al-‘Abd was a member of the great tribe of Bakr. The particular clan to which he belonged was settled in Baḥrayn on the Persian Gulf. He early developed Ṭarafa. a talent for satire, which he exercised upon friend and foe indifferently; and after he had squandered his patrimony in dissolute pleasures, his family chased him away as though he were 'a mangy camel.' At length a reconciliation was effected. He promised to mend his ways, returned to his people, and took part, it is said, in the War of Basús. In a little while his means were dissipated once more and he was reduced to tend his brother's herds. His Mu‘allaqa composed at this time won for him the favour of a rich kinsman and restored him to temporary independence. On the conclusion of peace between Bakr and Taghlib the youthful poet turned his eyes in the direction of Ḥíra, where ‘Amr b. Hind had lately succeeded to the throne (554 a.d.). He was well received by the king, who attached him, along with his uncle, the poet Mutalammis, to the service of the heir-apparent. But Ṭarafa's bitter tongue was destined to cost him dear. Fatigued and disgusted by the rigid ceremony of the court, he improvised a satire in which he said—

Shortly afterwards he happened to be seated at table opposite the king's sister. Struck with her beauty, he exclaimed—

‘Amr b. Hind was a man of violent and implacable temper. Ṭarafa's satire had already been reported to him, and this new impertinence added fuel to his wrath. Sending for Ṭarafa and Mutalammis, he granted them leave to visit their homes, and gave to each of them a sealed letter addressed to the governor of Baḥrayn. When they had passed outside the city the suspicions of Mutalammis were aroused. As neither he nor his companion could read, he handed his own letter to a boy of Ḥíra214 and learned that it contained orders to bury him alive. Thereupon he flung the treacherous missive into the stream and implored Ṭarafa to do likewise. Ṭarafa refused to break the royal seal. He continued his journey to Baḥrayn, where he was thrown into prison and executed.

Thus perished miserably in the flower of his youth—according to some accounts he was not yet twenty—the passionate and eloquent Ṭarafa. In his Mu‘allaqa he has drawn a spirited portrait of himself. The most striking feature of the poem, apart from a long and, to us who are not Bedouins, painfully tedious description of the camel, is its insistence on sensual enjoyment as the sole business of life:—

Keeping, as far as possible, the chronological order, we have now to mention two Mu‘allaqas which, though not directly related to each other,216 are of the same period—the reign of ‘Amr b. Hind, King of Ḥíra (554-568 a.d.). Moreover, their strong mutual resemblance and their difference from the other Mu‘allaqas, especially from typical qaṣídas like those of ‘Antara and Labíd, is a further reason for linking them together. Their distinguishing mark is the abnormal space devoted to the main subject, which leaves little room for the subsidiary motives.

‘Amr b. Kulthúm belonged to the tribe of Taghlib. His mother was Laylá, a daughter of the famous poet and warrior Muhalhil. That she was a woman of heroic ‘Amr b. Kulthúm. mould appears from the following anecdote, which records a deed of prompt vengeance on the part of ‘Amr that gave rise to the proverb, "Bolder in onset than ‘Amr b. Kulthúm"217:—

‘Amr's Mu‘allaqa is the work of a man who united in himself the ideal qualities of manhood as these were understood by a race which has never failed to value, even too highly, the display of self-reliant action and decisive energy. And if in ‘Amr's poem these virtues are displayed with an exaggerated boastfulness which offends our sense of decency and proper reserve, it would be a grave error to conclude that all this sound and fury signifies nothing. The Bedouin poet deems it his bounden duty to glorify to the utmost himself, his family, and his tribe; the Bedouin warrior is never tired of proclaiming his unshakable valour and recounting his brilliant feats of arms: he hurls menaces and vaunts in the same breath, but it does not follow that he is a Miles Gloriosus. ‘Amr certainly was not: his Mu‘allaqa leaves a vivid impression of conscious and exultant strength. The first eight verses seem to have been added to the poem at a very early date, for out of them arose the legend that ‘Amr drank himself to death with unmixed wine. It is likely that they were included in the original collection of the Mu‘allaqát, and they are worth translating for their own sake:—-

In the next passage he describes his grief at the departure of his beloved, whom he sees in imagination arriving at her journey's end in distant Yamáma:—

Now the poet turns abruptly to his main theme. He addresses the King of Ḥíra, ‘Amr b. Hind, in terms of defiance, and warns the foes of Taghlib that they will meet more than their match:—

The Mu‘allaqa ends with a eulogy, superb in its extravagance, of the poet's tribe:—

Less interesting is the Mu‘allaqa of Ḥárith b. Ḥilliza of Bakr. Its inclusion among the Mu‘allaqát is probably due, as Nöldeke suggested, to the fact that Ḥammád, Ḥárith b. Ḥilliza. himself a client of Bakr, wished to flatter his patrons by selecting a counterpart to the Mu‘allaqa of ‘Amr b. Kulthúm, which immortalised their great rivals, the Banú Taghlib. Ḥárith's poem, however, has some historical importance, as it throws light on feuds in Northern Arabia connected with the antagonism of the Roman and Persian Empires. Its purpose is to complain of unjust accusations made against the Banú Bakr by a certain group of the Banú Taghlib known as the Aráqim:—

A person whom Ḥárith does not name was 'blackening' the Banú Bakr before the King of Ḥíra. The poet tells him not to imagine that his calumnies will have any lasting effect: often had Bakr been slandered by their foes, but (he finely adds):—

He appeals to the offenders not wantonly to break the peace which ended the War of Basús:—

‘Antara b. Shaddád, whose father belonged to the tribe of ‘Abs, distinguished himself in the War of Dáḥis.233 In modern times it is not as a poet that he is chiefly remembered, but as a hero of romance—the Bedouin ‘Antara. Achilles. Goddess-born, however, he could not be called by any stretch of imagination. His mother was a black slave, and he must often have been taunted with his African blood, which showed itself in a fiery courage that gained the respect of the pure-bred but generally less valorous Arabs. ‘Antara loved his cousin ‘Abla, and following the Arabian custom by which cousins have the first right to a girl's hand, he asked her in marriage. His suit was vain—the son of a slave mother being regarded as a slave unless acknowledged by his father—until on one occasion, while the ‘Absites were hotly engaged with some raiders who had driven off their camels, ‘Antara refused to join in the mêlée, saying, "A slave does not understand how to fight; his work is to milk the camels and bind their udders." "Charge!" cried his father, "thou art free." Though ‘Antara uttered no idle boast when he sang—

his contemptuous references to 'jabbering barbarians,' and to 'slaves with their ears cut off, clad in sheepskins,' are characteristic of the man who had risen to eminence in spite of the stain on his scutcheon. He died at a great age in a foray against the neighbouring tribe of Ṭayyi’. His Mu‘allaqa is famous for its stirring battle-scenes, one of which is translated here:—234

While ‘Antara's poem belongs to the final stages of the War of Dáḥis, the Mu‘allaqa of his contemporary, Zuhayr b. Abí Sulmá, of the tribe of Muzayna, celebrates Zuhayr. an act of private munificence which brought about the conclusion of peace. By the self-sacrificing intervention of two chiefs of Dhubyán, Harim b. Sinán and Ḥárith b. ‘Awf, the whole sum of blood-money to which the ‘Absites were entitled on account of the greater number of those who had fallen on their side, was paid over to them. Such an example of generous and disinterested patriotism—for Harim and Ḥárith had shed no blood themselves—was a fit subject for one of whom it was said that he never praised men but as they deserved:—

At the end of his panegyric the poet, turning to the lately reconciled tribesmen and their confederates, earnestly warns them against nursing thoughts of vengeance:—

After a somewhat obscure passage concerning the lawless deeds of a certain Ḥusayn b. Ḍamḍam, which had well-nigh caused a fresh outbreak of hostilities, Zuhayr proceeds, with a natural and touching allusion to his venerable age, to enforce the lessons of conduct and morality suggested by the situation:—

The ripe sententious wisdom and moral earnestness of Zuhayr's poetry are in keeping with what has been said above concerning his religious ideas and, from another point of view, with the tradition that he used to compose a qaṣída in four months, correct it for four months, submit it to the poets of his acquaintance during a like period, and not make it public until a year had expired.

Of his life there is little to tell. Probably he died before Islam, though it is related that when he was a centenarian he met the Prophet, who cried out on seeing him, "O God, preserve me from his demon!"242 The poetical gifts which he inherited from his uncle Basháma he bequeathed to his son Ka‘b, author of the famous ode, Bánat Su‘ád.

Labíd b. Rabí‘a, of the Banú ‘Ámir b. Ṣa‘ṣa‘a, was born in the latter half of the sixth century, and is said to have died soon after Mu‘áwiya's accession to the Caliphate, which Labíd. took place in a.d. 661. He is thus the youngest of the Seven Poets. On accepting Islam he abjured poetry, saying, "God has given me the Koran in exchange for it." Like Zuhayr, he had, even in his heathen days, a strong vein of religious feeling, as is shown by many passages in his Díwán.

Labíd was a true Bedouin, and his Mu‘allaqa, with its charmingly fresh pictures of desert life and scenery, must be considered one of the finest examples of the Pre-islamic qaṣída that have come down to us. The poet owes something to his predecessors, but the greater part seems to be drawn from his own observation. He begins in the conventional manner by describing the almost unrecognisable vestiges of the camping-ground of the clan to which his mistress belonged:—

After lamenting the departure of his beloved the poet bids himself think no more about her: he will ride swiftly away from the spot. Naturally, he must praise his camel, and he introduces by way of comparison two wonderful pictures of animal life. In the former the onager is described racing at full speed over the backs of the hills when thirst and hunger drive him with his mate far from the barren solitudes into which they usually retire. The second paints a wild-cow, whose young calf has been devoured by wolves, sleeping among the sand-dunes through a night of incessant rain. At daybreak "her feet glide over the firm wet soil." For a whole week she runs to and fro, anxiously seeking her calf, when suddenly she hears the sound of hunters approaching and makes off in alarm. Being unable to get within bowshot, the hunters loose their dogs, but she turns desperately upon them, wounding one with her needle-like horn and killing another.

Then, once more addressing his beloved, the poet speaks complacently of his share in the feasting and revelling, on which a noble Arab plumes himself hardly less than on his bravery:—

Continuing, he boasts of dangerous service as a spy in the enemy's country, when he watched all day on the top of a steep crag; of his fearless demeanour and dignified assertion of his rights in an assembly at Ḥíra, to which he came as a delegate, and of his liberality to the poor. The closing verses are devoted, in accordance with custom, to matters of immediate interest and to a panegyric on the virtues of the poet's kin.

Besides the authors of the Mu‘allaqát three poets may be mentioned, of whom the two first-named are universally acknowledged to rank with the greatest that Arabia has produced—Nábigha, A‘shá, and ‘Alqama.

Nábigha245—his proper name is Ziyád b. Mu‘áwiya, of the tribe Dhubyán—lived at the courts of Ghassán and Ḥíra Nábigha of Dhubyán. during the latter half of the century before Islam. His chief patron was King Nu‘mán b. Mundhir Abú Qábús of Ḥíra. For many years he basked in the sunshine of royal favour, enjoying every privilege that Nu‘mán bestowed on his most intimate friends. The occasion of their falling out is differently related. According to one story, the poet described the charms of Queen Mutajarrida, which Nu‘mán had asked him to celebrate, with such charm and liveliness as to excite her husband's suspicion; but it is said—and Nábigha's own words make it probable—that his enemies denounced him as the author of a scurrilous satire against Nu‘mán which had been forged by themselves. At any rate he had no choice but to quit Ḥíra with all speed, and ere long we find him in Ghassán, welcomed and honoured, as the panegyrist of King ‘Amr b. Ḥárith and the noble house of Jafna. But his heart was in Ḥíra still. Deeply wounded by the calumnies of which he was the victim, he never ceased to affirm his innocence and to lament the misery of exile. The following poem, which he addressed to Nu‘mán, is at once a justification and an appeal for mercy246:—

It is pleasant to record that Nábigha was finally reconciled to the prince whom he loved, and that Ḥíra again became his home. The date of his death is unknown, but it certainly took place before Islam was promulgated. Had the opportunity been granted to him he might have died a Moslem: he calls himself 'a religious man' (dhú ummatⁱⁿ),248 and although the tradition that he was actually a Christian lacks authority, his long residence in Syria and ‘Iráq must have made him acquainted with the externals of Christianity and with some, at least, of its leading ideas.

The grave and earnest tone characteristic of Nábigha's poetry seldom prevails in that of his younger contemporary, Maymún A‘shá. b. Qays, who is generally known by his surname, al-A‘shá—that is, 'the man of weak sight.' A professional troubadour, he roamed from one end of Arabia to the other, harp in hand, singing the praises of those who rewarded him; and such was his fame as a satirist that few ventured to withhold the bounty which he asked. By common consent he stands in the very first rank of Arabian poets. Abu ’l-Faraj, the author of the Kitábu ’l-Aghání, declares him to be superior to all the rest, adding, however, "this opinion is not held unanimously as regards A‘shá or any other." His wandering life brought him into contact with every kind of culture then existing in Arabia. Although he was not an avowed Christian, his poetry shows to what an extent he was influenced by the Bishops of Najrán, with whom he was intimately connected, and by the Christian merchants of Ḥíra who sold him their wine. He did not rise above the pagan level of morality.

A‘shá excels in the description of wine and wine-parties. One who visited Manfúḥa in Yamáma, where the poet was buried, relates that revellers used to meet at his grave and pour out beside it the last drops that remained in their cups. As an example of his style in this genre I translate a few lines from the most celebrated of his poems, which is included by some critics among the Mu‘allaqát:—

Very little is known of the life of ‘Alqama b. ‘Abada, who was surnamed al-Faḥl (the Stallion). His most famous poem ‘Alqama. is that which he addressed to the Ghassánid Ḥárith al-A‘raj after the Battle of Ḥalíma, imploring him to set free some prisoners of Tamím—the poet's tribe—among whom was his own brother or nephew, Shás. The following lines have almost become proverbial:—

In view of these slighting verses it is proper to observe that the poetry of Arabian women of the Pre-islamic period is distinctly Elegiac poetry. masculine in character. Their songs are seldom of Love, but often of Death. Elegy (rithá or marthiya) was regarded as their special province. The oldest form of elegy appears in the verses chanted on the death of Ta’abbaṭa Sharr^an by his sister:—