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THE GAME OF CHESS |
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I |
| In their grave corner, the players |
| Deploy the slow pieces. And the chessboard |
| Detains them until dawn in its severe |
| Compass in which two colors hate each other. |
| Within it the shapes give off a magic |
| Strength: Homeric tower, and nimble |
| Horse, a fighting queen, a backward king, |
| A bishop on the bias, and aggressive pawns. |
| When the players have departed, and |
| When time has consumed them utterly, |
| The ritual will not have ended. |
| That war first flamed out in the east |
| Whose amphitheatre is now the world. |
| And like the other, this game is infinite. |
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II |
| Slight king, oblique bishop, and a queen |
| Blood-lusting; upright tower, crafty pawn-- |
| Over the black and the white of their path |
| They foray and deliver armed battle. |
| They do not know it is the artful hand |
| Of the player that rules their fate |
| They do not know that an adamant rigor |
| Subdues their free will and their span. |
| But the player likewise is a prisoner |
| (The maxim is Omar's) on another board (1) |
| Of dead-black nights and of white days |
| God moves the player and he, the piece. |
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What god behind God originates the scheme |
| Of dust and time and dream and agony? |
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Jorge Luis Borges |
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Translation from Dreamtigers, published by |
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University of Texas Press |
| (1)
"Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where
Destiny with Men for Pieces plays Hither and thither moves and mates and
slays And one by in the one Closet lays". Omar Khayyam |
