[Footnote 1: Translated in that excellent periodical, which no lover of chess should be without, The Chess Monthly, edited by Fiske and Morphy, New York. (Vol. i. p. 92.)]
Now that the Persian poet has touched his lyre in our pages, we will not at once pass to any cold geographical or analytical realm of our subject, but pause awhile to cull some flowers of song which have sprung up on good English soil, which the feet of Caïssa have ever loved to press. No other games, and few other subjects, have gathered about them so rich a literature, or been intertwined with so much philological and historical lore. Not the least of this is to be found in the English classics, from which we propose to make one or two selections. We begin where English poetry begins, with Dan Chaucer; and from many beautiful conceits turning upon chess, we select one which must receive universal admiration. It is from the "Booke of the Duchesse."
"My boldnesse is turned to shame,
For false Fortune hath played a game
At the Chesse with me.
"At the Chesse with me she gan to play,
With her false draughts full divers
Sho stale on me, and toke my fers:[1]
And when I sawe my fers away,
Alas! I couth no longer play.
"Therewith Fortune said,' Checke here,
And mate in the mid point of the checkere
With a paune errant.' Alas!
Full craftier to play she was
Than Athalus, that made the game
First of the Chesse, so was his name."
[Footnote 1: Mediaeval name for the Queen, (originally the Counsellor,)—the strength of the board.]
In the early part of the seventeenth century, Thomas Middleton wrote a comedy styled "A Game at Chess," which was acted at the Globe (Shakspeare's) nine times successively. It seems to have been a severe tirade on the religious aspects of the times. The stage directions are significant: for example:—Act I., Scene 1. Enter severally, in order of the game, the White and Black houses. Act II., Scene 1. Enter severally White Queen's Pawnes and Black Queen's Pawnes. The Prologue is as follows:—
"What of the game called Chesse-play can be made
To make a stage-play shall this day be played.
First you shall see the men in order set,
States, and their Pawnes, when both the sides are met;
The houses well distinguished: in the game
Some men entrapt, and taken to their shame,
Bewarded by their play: and in the close
You shall see checque-mate given to Virtue's foes.
But the fair'st jewel that our hopes can decke
Is so to play our game t'avoid your checke."
The play excited indignation in the partisans of the Romish Church, and was not only suppressed by James I., but at the demand of the Queen its author was imprisoned, and was relieved only by a witty verse sent to the King.
The last which we have room to quote is anonymous, and of date near
1632. It may have been written by the celebrated divine, Thomas Jackson, of
Corpus-Christi College, whose discourse comparing the visible world to a
"Devil's Chess-board" evidently suggested the familiar etching in which
Satan contends with a youth for his soul. The lines are entitled: