Around the origin of chess there are many stories, legends and theories, but one in particular has spread quickly around the world like a virus. It’s a very interesting story, full of symbolism and figurative meanings. Just like the game of chess.
The story was as follows :
There was once a rich Indian prince. He was so wealthy to fulfil all his desires and for this reason he never had the chance of experience the yearning of something and used to spent his lonely days in boredom.
One day, tired of his boring life, announced to everyone that he would have given anything to the one able to amuse him with something new.
In a meantime a lot of strange characters of every kind present themselves to the prince court. All sort of People, acrobats, magicians, wandering entertainers, nobles and bumpkins, but no one was able to amuse the bored Prince.
After a while, a merchant, famous for his inventions, came forward and took out a board from his bag. It was a board game set made up of a board of 64 squares, alternately coloured in black and white and 32 wood carving pieces of different shapes.
"I offer you my compliments my lord, as well as this game of my modest invention. I’ve called it the game of chess. "
The Prince looked at him confused and asked for explanations.
In a meanwhile the merchant explained the rules of the chess game and defeated the prince in a game demo.
After the defeat, the prince’s wounded pride asked for a rematch and lost again.
It was in the fourth consecutive defeat that the prince started to realize how fun the chess game was and mindful of his promise, asked to the inventor what kind of reward he wanted:
The merchant asked a grain of wheat for the first square of the chess board, two grains for the second, four grains for the third, and so on doubling up until the last box…
Astonished by such modesty, the prince gave orders to grant immediately his request .
You can imagine how embarrassed the accountants of the reign felt when, after some calculations, realized that the merchant request was impossible to grant:
To cultivate all the wheat asked by the merchant the entire planet surface wasn’t enough!
Not being able to fulfil this request for obvious reasons the prince gave orders to execute immediately the inventor of the game of chess.
The number of the wheat grains asked by the merchant was 264-1 (twenty-six to the sixty-fourth minus one) = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.
That’s a really big number.
This legend was well known during the Middle Ages under the Latin name "Duplicatio scacherii", it was so popular that the poet Dante Alighieri in his masterpiece "Divine Comedy" used these words to give the reader an idea of the number of the angels in the heaven:
Their coruscation all the sparks repeated,
And they so many were, their number makes
More millions than the doubling of the chess.
Paradiso, XXVIII, 91-93
12.9.09
Chess curiosities: the legend of the Indian prince
Around the origin of chess there are many stories, legends and theories, but one in particular has spread quickly around the world like a virus. It’s a very interesting story, full of symbolism and figurative meanings. Just like the game of chess.
The story was as follows :
There was once a rich Indian prince. He was so wealthy to fulfil all his desires and for this reason he never had the chance of experience the yearning of something and used to spent his lonely days in boredom.
One day, tired of his boring life, announced to everyone that he would have given anything to the one able to amuse him with something new.
In a meantime a lot of strange characters of every kind present themselves to the prince court. All sort of People, acrobats, magicians, wandering entertainers, nobles and bumpkins, but no one was able to amuse the bored Prince.
After a while, a merchant, famous for his inventions, came forward and took out a board from his bag. It was a board game set made up of a board of 64 squares, alternately coloured in black and white and 32 wood carving pieces of different shapes.
"I offer you my compliments my lord, as well as this game of my modest invention. I’ve called it the game of chess. "
The Prince looked at him confused and asked for explanations.
In a meanwhile the merchant explained the rules of the chess game and defeated the prince in a game demo.
After the defeat, the prince’s wounded pride asked for a rematch and lost again.
It was in the fourth consecutive defeat that the prince started to realize how fun the chess game was and mindful of his promise, asked to the inventor what kind of reward he wanted:
The merchant asked a grain of wheat for the first square of the chess board, two grains for the second, four grains for the third, and so on doubling up until the last box…
Astonished by such modesty, the prince gave orders to grant immediately his request .
You can imagine how embarrassed the accountants of the reign felt when, after some calculations, realized that the merchant request was impossible to grant:
To cultivate all the wheat asked by the merchant the entire planet surface wasn’t enough!
Not being able to fulfil this request for obvious reasons the prince gave orders to execute immediately the inventor of the game of chess.
The number of the wheat grains asked by the merchant was 264-1 (twenty-six to the sixty-fourth minus one) = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.
That’s a really big number.
This legend was well known during the Middle Ages under the Latin name "Duplicatio scacherii", it was so popular that the poet Dante Alighieri in his masterpiece "Divine Comedy" used these words to give the reader an idea of the number of the angels in the heaven:
Their coruscation all the sparks repeated,
And they so many were, their number makes
More millions than the doubling of the chess.
Paradiso, XXVIII, 91-93
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment