ʿAntara , probably meaning "valiant," was the name of several pre-Islamic poets, the only important one of whom was ʿAntara b. Shaddād, a sixth-century figure and author of one of the poems of the Muʿallaqāt . It is even more difficult than usual to elicit any facts about him, as by quite early in the Islamic period he had become a hero of legend and was to become the protagonist of the Sīrat ʿAntar , the great Arabic epic romance of chivalry. By the time of the composition of the Aghānī (