Know are companions three at last: an intrepid soul, A glittering trenchant blade, a tough bow of ample size, Loud-twanging, the sides thereof smooth-polished, a handsome bow Hung down from the shoulder-belt by thongs in a comely wise, That groans, when the arrow slips away, like a woman crushed By losses, bereaved of all her children, who wails and cries." On quitting his tribe, who cast him out when they were threatened on all sides by enemies seeking vengeance for the blood that he had spilt, Shanfará said:-- "Bury me not! Me you are forbidden to bury, But thou, O hyena, soon wilt feast and make merry, When foes bear away mine head, wherein is the best of me, And leave on the battle-field for thee all the rest of me. Here nevermore I hope to live glad--a stranger Accurst, whose wild deeds have brought his people in danger."[157] [Sidenote: Ta’abbaṭa Sharran.] Thábit b. Jábir b. Sufyán of Fahm is said to have got his nickname, Ta’abbaṭa Sharran, because one day his mother, who had seen him go forth from his tent with a sword under his arm, on being asked, "Where is Thábit?" replied, "I know not: he put a mischief under his arm-pit (_ta’abbaṭa sharran_) and departed." According to another version of the story, the 'mischief' was a Ghoul whom he vanquished and slew and carried home in this manner. The following lines, which he addressed to his cousin, Shams b. Málik, may be applied with equal justice to the poet himself:-- "Little he complains of labour that befalls him; much he wills; Diverse ways attempting, mightily his purpose he fulfils. Through one desert in the sun's heat, through another in starlight, Lonely as the wild ass, rides he bare-backed Danger noon and night. He the foremost wind outpaceth, while in broken gusts it blows, Speeding onward, never slackening, never staying for repose. Prompt to dash upon the foeman, every minute watching well-- Are his eyes in slumber lightly sealed, his heart stands sentinel. When the first advancing troopers rise to sight, he sets his hand From the scabbard forth to draw his sharp-edged, finely-mettled brand. When he shakes it in the breast-bone of a champion of the foe, How the grinning Fates in open glee their flashing side-teeth show! Solitude his chosen comrade, on he fares while overhead By the Mother of the mazy constellations he is led."[158] [Sidenote: The old Arabian points of honour.] These verses admirably describe the rudimentary Arabian virtues of courage, hardness, and strength. We must now take a wider survey of the moral ideas on which pagan society was built, and of which Pre-islamic poetry is at once the promulgation and the record. There was no written code, no legal or religious sanction--nothing, in effect, save the binding force of traditional sentiment and opinion, _i.e._, Honour. What, then, are the salient points of honour in which Virtue (_Muruwwa_), as it was understood by the heathen Arabs, consists?