At the score of non-dealer three, dealer four, the dealer should refuse on moderate cards, as the player proposing at this score must have a very bad hand.
At four a forward game should not be played in trumps, as there is no advantage in winning the vole.
Laws of Écarté.—The following laws are abridged from the revised code adopted by the Turf Club:—A cut must consist of at least two cards. Card exposed in cutting, fresh cut. Order of distribution of cards, whether by three and two, or vice versa, once selected, dealer must not change it during game. Player announcing king when he has not got it, and playing a card without declaring error, adversary may correct score and have hand played over again. If offender wins point or vole that hand, he scores one less than he wins. Proposal, acceptance, or refusal made cannot be retracted. Cards discarded must not be looked at. Cards exposed in giving cards to non-dealer, he has option of taking them or of having next cards; dealer exposing his own cards, no penalty. Dealer turning up top card after giving cards, cannot refuse second discard. Dealer accepting when too few cards in stock to supply both, non-dealer may take cards, and dealer must play his hand. Card led in turn cannot be taken up again. Card played to a lead can only be taken up prior to another lead, to save revoke or to correct error of not winning trick. Card led out of turn may be taken up prior to its being played to. Player naming one suit and leading another, adversary has option of requiring suit named to be led. If offender has none, no penalty. Player abandoning hand, adversary is deemed to win remaining tricks, and scores accordingly. If a player revokes or does not win trick when he can do so, the adversary may correct score and have hand replayed.
See Académie des jeux (various editions after the first quarter of the 19th century); Hoyle’s Games (various editions about the same dates); Ch. Van-Tenac et Louis Delanoue, Traité du jeu de l’écarté (Paris, 1845; translated in Bohn’s Handbook of Games, London, 1850); “Cavendish,” The Laws of Écarté, adopted by the Turf Club, with a Treatise on the Game (London, 1878); Pocket Guide to Écarté (“Cavendish,” 1897); Foster’s Encyclopaedia of Indoor Games (1903).
ECBATANA (Agbatana in Aeschylus, Haňgmatāna in Old Persian, written Agamtanu by Nabonidos, and Agamatanu at Behistun, mod. Hamadān), the capital of Astyages (Istuvegu), which was taken by Cyrus in the sixth year of Nabonidos (549 B.C.). The Greeks supposed it to be the capital of Media, confusing the Manda, of whom Astyages was king, with the Madā or Medes of Media Atropatene, and ascribed its foundation to Deioces (the Daiukku of the cuneiform inscriptions), who is said to have surrounded his palace in it with seven concentric walls of different colours. Under the Persian kings, Ecbatana, situated at the foot of Mount Elvend, became a summer residence; and was afterwards the capital of the Parthian kings. Sir H. Rawlinson attempted to prove that there was a second and older Ecbatana in Media Atropatene, on the site of the modern Takht-i-Suleiman, midway between Hamadan and Tabriz (J.R.G.S. x. 1841), but the cuneiform texts imply that there was only one city of the name, and Takht-i-Suleiman is the Gazaca of classical geography. The Ecbatana at which Cambyses is said by Herodotus (iii. 64) to have died is probably a blunder for Hamath.
See Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Persia (Eng. trans., 1892); M. Dieulafoy, L’Art antique de la Perse, pt. i. (1884); J. de Morgan, Mission scientifique en Perse, ii. (1894). See [Hamadan] and [Persia]: Ancient History, § v. 2.
(A. H. S.)
ECCARD, JOHANN (1553-1611), German composer of church music, was born at Mühlhausen on the Unstrut, Prussia, in 1553. At the age of eighteen he went to Munich, where he became the pupil of Orlando Lasso. In his company Eccard is said to have visited Paris, but in 1574 we find him again at Mühlhausen, where he resided for four years, and edited, together with Johann von Burgk, his first master, a collection of sacred songs, called Crepundia sacra Helmboldi (1577). Soon afterwards he obtained an appointment as musician in the house of Jacob Fugger, the Augsburg banker. In 1583 he became assistant conductor, and in 1599 conductor, at Königsberg, to Georg Friedrich, margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, the administrator of Prussia. In 1608 he was called by the elector Joachim Friedrich to Berlin as chief conductor, but this post he held only for three years, owing to his premature death at Königsberg in 1611. Eccard’s works consist exclusively of vocal compositions, such as songs, sacred cantatas and chorales for four or five, and sometimes for seven, eight, or even nine voices. Their polyphonic structure is a marvel of art, and still excites the admiration of musicians. At the same time his works are instinct with a spirit of true religious feeling. His setting of the beautiful words “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott” is still regarded by the Germans as their representative national hymn. Eccard and his school are inseparably connected with the history of the Reformation.