The primary duty of the early Arab was blood-revenge.  An insult to himself, or an injury to the tribe, must be wiped out with the blood of the offender.  Hence arose the multitude of tribal feuds.  It was Muhammad who first checked the private feud by fixing “the price of blood” to be paid by the aggressor or by his tribe.  In the time of Antar revenge was the foremost duty.  Ideals of excellence change as circumstances alter.  Virtues go out of fashion (like the magnificence of Aristotle), or acquire an entirely new importance (as veracity, since England became a trading nation).  Some day we may possess a natural history of the virtues.

The service of the loved one by the early Arab was a passion completely different from the vain gallantry of the mediaeval knight of Europe.  He sought for the complete possession of his chosen mistress, and was eager to earn it by multitudes of chivalric deeds; but he could not have understood the sentimentalities of the Troubadours.  The systematic fantasies of the “Courts of Love” would have seemed cold follies to Arab chivalry—­as indeed they are, though they have led to something better.  In generosity, in magnanimity, the Arab knight far surpassed his European brother.  Hospitality was a point of honor to both.  As to the noble Arabs of those days, when any one demanded their protection, no one ever inquired what was the matter; for if he asked any questions, it would be said of him that he was afraid.  The poets have thus described them in verse:—­

“They rise when any one calls out to them, and they haste before asking any questions; they aid him against his enemies that seek his life, and they return honored to their families.”

The Arab was the knight of the tent and the desert.  His deeds were immediately known to his fellows; discussed and weighed in every household of his tribe.  The Christian knight of the Middle Ages, living isolated in his stronghold, was less immediately affected by the opinions of his class.  Tribal allegiance was developed in the first case, independence in the second.

Scholars tell us that the romance of ‘Antar’ is priceless for faithful pictures of the times before the advent of Muhammad, which are confirmed by all that remains of the poetry of “the days of ignorance.”  To the general reader its charm lies in its bold and simple stories of adventure; in its childlike enjoyment of the beauty of Nature; in its pictures of the elemental passions of ambition, pride, love, hate, revenge.  Antar was a poet, a lover, a warrior, a born leader.  From a keeper of camels he rose to be the protector of the tribe of Abs and the pattern of chivalry, by virtue of great natural powers and in the face of every obstacle.  He won possession of his Ibla and gave her the dower of a queen, by adventures the like of which were never known before.  There were no Ifrits or Genii to come to his aid, as in the ’Thousand Nights and a Night.’  ‘Antar’ is the epic of success crowning human valor; the tales in the ‘Arabian Nights,’ at their best, are the fond fancies of the fatalist whose best endeavor is at the mercy of every capricious Jinni.