“And hardly shall I carry out my side,”
alluding to the card table, where to carry out a side meant to carry out the game with your partner successfully. So, “to set up a side” was to become partners in the game; “to pull or pluck down a side” was to lose it.[781]
A lurch at cards denoted an easy victory. So, in “Coriolanus” (ii. 2), Cominius says: “he lurch’d all swords of the garland,” meaning, as Malone says, that Coriolanus gained from all other warriors the wreath of victory, with ease, and incontestable superiority.
A pack of cards was formerly termed “a deck of cards,” as in “3 Henry VI.” (v. 1):
“The king was slily finger’d from the deck.”
Again, “to vie” was also a term at cards, and meant particularly to increase the stakes, and generally to challenge any one to a contention, bet, wager, etc. So, Cleopatra (v. 2), says:
“nature wants stuff
To vie strange forms with fancy.”
Cherry-pit. This consisted in throwing cherry stones into a little hole—a game, says Nares, still practised with dumps or money.[782] In “Twelfth Night” (iii. 4), Sir Toby alludes to it: “What, man! ’tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan.” Nash, in his “Pierce Pennilesse,” speaking of the disfigurement of ladies’ faces by painting, says: “You may play at cherry-pit in the dint of their cheeks.”
Chess. As might be expected, several allusions occur in Shakespeare’s plays to this popular game. In “The Tempest” (v. 1), Ferdinand and Miranda are represented playing at it; and in “King John” (ii. 1), Elinor says:
“That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!”