“And what games?” said my lord Gaspar.
Then messer Federico replied, laughing:
“Let us ask advice of Fra Serafino, who invents new ones every day.”
“Jesting apart,” answered my lord Gaspar, “do you think it would be a vice in the Courtier to play at cards and dice?”
“Not I,” said messer Federico, “unless he did so too constantly and neglected more important matters for them, or indeed unless he played for nothing else but to win money, and cheated the company, and showed such grief and vexation at losing as to argue himself a miser.”
“And what,” replied my lord Gaspar, “do you say of the game of chess?”
“It is certainly a pleasant and ingenious amusement,” said messer Federico. “But I think there is one defect in it. And that is, there is too much to know, so that whoever would excel in the game of chess must spend much time on it, methinks, and give it as much study as if he would learn some noble science or do anything else of importance you please; and yet in the end with all his pains he has learned nothing but a game. Therefore I think a very unusual thing is true of it, namely that mediocrity is more praiseworthy than excellence.”
My lord Gaspar replied:
“Many Spaniards excel in this and divers other games, yet without giving them much study or neglecting other things.”
“Believe me,” replied messer Federico, “they do give much study thereto, although covertly. But those other games you speak of, besides chess, are perhaps like many I have seen played (although of little moment), which serve only to make the vulgar marvel; wherefore methinks they deserve no other praise or reward than that which Alexander the Great gave the fellow who at a good distance impaled chick-peas on the point of a needle.[[173]]