The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860

"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."[3 - 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:[4 - Mediaeval name for the Queen, (originally the Counsellor,)—the strength of the board.]
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."

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:

THE PAWNE

"A lowly one I saw,
With aim fist high:
Ne to the righte,
Ne to the lefte
Veering, he marchèd by his Lawe,
The crested Knyghte passed by,
And haughty surplice-vest,
As onward toward his heste
With patient step he prest,
Soothfaste his eye:
Now, lo! the last doore yieldeth,
His hand a sceptre wieldeth,
A crowne his forehead shieldeth!

"So 'mergeth the true-hearted,
With aim fixt high,
From place obscure and lowly:
Veereth he nought;
His work he wroughte.
How many loyall paths be trod,