Antar (poet)

Antar ( Antara Ibn Cheddad el' Absi ,) was an pre-Islamic Arab poet of the 6th century, wire of Chabbad, lord of the tribe of the Beni 'ABS. He would have lived from 525 to 615 after J-C.

Biography

Antar was born from an Abyssinian maidservant , which been worth a contempt to him from which it could escape only when his/her father asked him to take part in a counter-attack on tribes which had attacked Beni 'ABS. It showed much bravery and generosity, which allowed him, amongst other things, to be able to allure Abla, his/her cousin, whose heart had been refused to him a long time because of its origins.

Most of its Mu' allaqât described its behavior with the combat; Antar was to take part in many battles, in particular with those of the Guerre of Dahis and El Ghabra, born from a litigation between two tribes. Antar perishes in 615, assassinated.

It remains us of his work of short lyric stanzas, joined together in the Divan of Antar , and he is the author recognized of one of the seven Moallakât , these poems anteislamic, which is composed of 75 worms of the Kâmil meter.

This character, notable by his chivalrous spirit and his bravery, finds himself in a novel of Chevalerie of Xe century, the Novel of Antar , and in the symphony No 2 of Rimski-Korsakov.

the Novel of Antar

Its adventures made the subject of the Roman of Antar , chivalrous epopee written in very pure Arabic, and who enjoyed in Orient, and particularly in Syria, of a fame equal to that of the Thousand and One Nights . It constitutes an invaluable monument over ante-Islamic times.

Its author would be, according to the historian Ibn-abi-Oçaibyya, the Aboul-Moyyed-Mohammed-Ibn-el-Modjeli doctor, who lived at the 12th century. But it semberait that the current text is only the recension and the transcription of many oral traditions.

Extracts

Here some descriptions drawn from the translation of Pierre Larcher (v. 53-58):

Such, armoured of a coat, whose my saber has Lacerated the meshs guardians, distinguished man,

Nimble hands with the play of the fate, when comes the winter, Ladykiller of signs of wine merchant, scandalous,

When he saw me, I went down to his meeting; He discovered his teeth: it was not to smile.

I bored it of my lance then embanked Of an Indian saber, made pure steel, slicing quickly.

My meeting with him: all the day. One had said That its head and its fingers were dyed with the pastel.

Hero whose clothes would go to a large tree, Fitted sandals of a skin, without twin! …

Sources and references

Mu' allaqât, the Seven pre-Islamic poems , prefaced by André Miquel, translated and with accompanying notes by Pierre Larcher, Éditions the unmemorable ones/Fata Morgana (2000).

See too

Arab Poetry

Random links: