Schatrenschar, the Persian, who could count the stars one by one, who is
known to have been borne, (by the Simorg, the Eternal Fowl,) at midnight,
first to the evening star, and then to the moon, and then set down safely
in his home,--and Al Kahlminar, the Arabian, who was a mystic seer, and had
conversed face to face with the Demons of the Seven Planets, approaching
also, on one occasion, so nigh unto Uriel that his beard was singed by the
sun, wherein that angel resideth,--these, ten million years ago, lived in
their palaces on adjoining estates and lands. But about the boundary-line
atwixt them they could not agree: Schatrenschar maintaining that he had
lived there longest, and had a right to choose where the wall should be
built between himself and a later comer; Al Kahlminar declaring that the
world was not made for Schatrenschar,--furthermore, that the Astronomer had
paid nothing for the land, and had already more than he could attend to,
since his chief devotion was manifestly to the estates he was reputed to
own in Venus and the moon. They came to no decision; and it was beneath the
dignity of these men, who prided themselves on being confidants elect of
invisible and superior worlds, publicly to wrangle about the gross soil of
this. Nevertheless, Schatrenschar, at last, losing patience, cried,--
"Al Kahlminar, 'tis but by the grace of Yezdan, who hath commissioned me to
watch the sacred stars, which reveal not themselves to the violent, that I
am saved this day from flogging thee!"
To this the Seer: "O Schatrenschar, thou must have left in some of thy
other worlds, mayhap in Venus, the limbs which can cope with these."
"Nay," replied the Astronomer, discerning some truth in that remark, "but I
am not alone, Al Kahlminar; I have within my palace two valiant knights,
skilled with the steed and the spear, who are ready to go forth in my stead
at a word."
"And I," answered the Mystic, warming, "have two godly priests, men skilled
by the orthodox beheading of heretics into the aim and valor of Arjoon
himself. Your knights cannot stand before these messengers of Heaven; they
will tremble like aspen-leaves, lest Allah be wroth, if they receive harm."
"If thou shouldst bring forth thy priests, Al Kahlminar, then would I
confront them and thee with the two elephants which my brother sent me
lately from Geestan, on each of which I can place a rook with a slave
cunning with the javelin, before which thy priests will flee; for the
animals see no difference between priests and other mortals;--the elephant
is sagacious, neighbor!"
"And I," said the other, "haye riches, which thou hast not. Whatever thou
hast wherewith to extend thy line into my lot, I can oppose with an equal
force,--nay, with a stronger."
Schatrenschar hereupon paused in deep meditation. Presently a subtile
thought struck him. He took a parchment-leaf and drew thereon a diagram;
and after inscribing several hieroglyphic characters, he cried out,--
"Hearken, Al Kahlminar; hast thou not heard it among the sayings of Sasan,
that the battle is not always to him who hath the superior physical force?
Suppose that in our encounter thy forces stood here, as marked on these
squares: by what stratagem couldst thou reach me, who stand here with even
fewer and weaker men? If thou canst tell as much without my assistance, I
will yield the boundary-line; for it will show thee to have a calculation
equal to my own, as well as riches."
Al Kahlminar pondered long, suffered manifold headaches, closed not an
eyelid for a week, but could not give answer. The Mystic was used to seeing
only those things to see which the eyes must be closed. At length
Schatrenschar opened the problem to him, which so delighted his heart that
he clave unto him, and besought him that their estates should be one, and
that he would use his (Al Kahlminar's) riches as his own. A bower was built
midway between their houses, wherein they sat for hours over other
diagrams, contrived first by the Astronomer afterward by the Mystic: and
out of it arose a curious and knightly play which beareth to this day the
name Schatrenschar.
* * * * *
Perhaps this last line of the old Sanscrit story is the only veracious
thing in it. Perhaps it is all true. Who can answer? Was there ever a
great thing whose origin was not in some doubt? If so with the Iliad, with
Platonic Dialogues, with Shakspearian Plays, how naturally so with Chess!
The historic sinew of the above would seem to be, that Schatrenschar, the
Oriental word for Chess, is the name of a very ancient and learned
astronomer of Persia; how much mythologic fat has enveloped said sinew the
reader must decide. Philological inquisition of the origin of the low Latin
_Scacchi_ (whence the French _Echecs_, Ger. _Schach_, and our _Chess,_) has
led to a variety of conclusions. Leunclavius takes it from _Uscoches_,
famous Turkish banditti. Sirmond finds the word's parent in German
_Schächer_ (robber) and grandparent in _Calculus_! Tolosanus derives
_check-mate_ from Heb. _schach_ (to prevail) and _mat_ (dead). Fabricius
favors the idea we have given above, and says, "A celebrated Persian
astronomer, one Schatrenschar, invented the game of Chess, and gave it his
own name, which it still bears in that country." Nicod derives it from
_Xeque_, a Moorish word for Prince or Lord. Bochart maintains that
_Schach-mat_ is originally Persian, and means "the king is dead." We
incline to accept this last opinion; and believe, that, though the game
must have originated with some person, perhaps Schatrenschar, yet it
reached its present form and perfection only through many touchings and
retouchings of men and generations. Pope's translation of the "Odyssey" has
led many persons to think that chess was known to the ancient Greeks,
because, in describing the sports of Penelope's suitors, the translator
says,--
"With rival art and ardor in their mien,
At Chess they vie to captivate the Queen."
But there can be little doubt that this is an anachronism.
In short, we may safely conclude that the game is of purely Oriental
origin. The Hindoos claim to have originated it,--or rather, say that Siva,
the Third Person of their Trinity, (Siva, the Destroyer,--alas! of time?)
gave it to them; Professor Forbes has shown that it has been known among
them five thousand years; but words tell no myths, and the Bengalee name
for Chess, _Shathorunch_, casts its ballot for Persia and
Shatrenschar;--though India may almost claim it, on account of the greater
perfection to which it has brought the game, and the lead it has always
taken in chess-culture. India rejoices in a flourishing chess-school. The
Indian Problem is known as the perfection of Enigmatic Chess. And if Paul
Morphy had gone to Calcutta, instead of London and Paris, he would have
found there one Mohesh Ghutuck, who, without discovering that he was a
P. and move behind his best play, and without becoming too sick to proceed
with the match, would have given him a much finer game than any antagonist
he has yet encountered. This Mohesh, who was presented by his admiring king
with a richly-carved chess-king of solid gold nine inches high, not only
plays a fabulous number of games at once whilst he lies on the ground with
closed eyes, but games that none of the many fine native and English
players of India can engage in but with dismay. Fine, indeed, it would have
been, if the world could have seen in the youths of Calcutta and New
Orleans the extreme West matched with the extreme East!
There is no call for any one to vindicate this game. Chess is a great,
worldwide fact. Wherever a highway is found, there, we may be sure, a
reason existed for a highway. And when we find that the explorer on his
northward voyage, pausing a day in Iceland, may pass his time in keen
encounters with the natives,--that the trader in Kamtschatka and China,
unable to speak a word with the people surrounding him, yet holds a long
evening's converse over the board which is polyglot,--that the missionary
returns from his pulpit, and the Hindoo from his widow-burning, to engage
in a controversy without the _theologicum odium_ attached,--the game
becomes authentic from its universality. It is akin to music, to love, to
joy, in that it sets aside alike social caste and sectarian differences:
kings and peasants, warriors and priests, lords and ladies, mingle over the
board as they are represented upon it. "The earliest chess-men on the banks
of the Sacred River were worshippers of Buddha; a player whose name and
fame have grown into an Arabic proverb was a Moslem; a Hebrew Rabbi of
renown, in and out of the Synagogues, wrote one of the finest chess poems
extant; a Catholic priest of Spain has bestowed his name upon two openings;
one of the foremost problem--composers of the age is a Protestant clergyman
of England; and the Greek Church numbers several cultivators of chess
unrivaled in our day." It has received eulogies from Burton,--from
Castiglione,--from Chatham, who, in reply to a compliment on a grand stroke
of invention and successful oratory, said, "My success arose only from
having been checkmated by discovery, the day before, at chess,"--from
Comenius, the grammarian,--from Condé, Cowley, Denham, Justus van Effen,
Sir Thomas Elyot, Guillim, Helvetia, Huarte, Sir William Jones, Leibnitz,
Lydgate, Olaus Magnus, Pasquier, Sir Walter Raleigh, Rousseau, Voltaire,
Samuel Warren, Warton, Franklin, Buckle, and many others of ability in
every department of letters, philosophy, and art. We know of but one man of
genius or learning--who has repudiated it,--Montaigne. "Or if he
[Alexander] played at chess," says Montaigne, "what string of his soul was
not touched by this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it because it
is not play enough,--that it is too grave and serious a diversion; and I am
ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon that as would serve to
much better uses." Looked at simply as a diversion, chess might naturally
impress a man of intellectual earnestness thus. It is not a diversion; a
recreation it may be called, but only as any variation from "the shop" is
recreative. But chess has, by the experiences of many, sufficiently proved
itself to have serious uses to men of thought, and in the way of an
intellectual gymnasium. It is to the limbs and sinews of the
mind--prudence, foresight, memory, combination, analysis--just what a
gymnasium is to the body. In it every muscle, every joint of the
understanding is put under drill; and we know, that, where the mind does
not have exercise for its body, but relics simply on idle cessation for its
reinforcement, it will get too much lymph. Work is worship; but work
without rest is idolatry. And rest is not, as some seem to think, a swoon,
a slumber; it is an active receptivity, a masterly inactivity, which alone
can deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite game
secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it
finds many other incidental uses starting up about it,--such as made
Archbishop Magnus, the learned historian of Sweden, say, "Anger, love,
peevishness, covetousness, dulness, idleness, and many other passions and
motions of the minds of men may be discovered by it."--But we promised not
to vindicate chess, and shall leave this portion of our topic with the fine
verse of the Oriental bard, Ibn ul Mûtazz:--
"O thou whose cynic sneers express
The censure of our favorite chess,
Know that its skill is Science' self,
Its play distraction from distress.
It soothes the anxious lover's care;
It weans the drunkard from excess;
It counsels warriors in their art,
When dangers threat and perils press;
And yields us, when we need them most,
Companions in our loneliness." [1]
[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: