sweeping moves, but the humble pawn cannot.
This is because the pawn represents the ordinary infantryman. Lacking a horse or any other source of power, he can only move a single square at a time (except for his opening move) and then only forward or diagonally. Even the emasculated king can move backwards.
Pawns are weak. They are small. They are often exchanged for little or no tactical gain.
But we love them. We love their nerveless obstinacy in the face of attack, their modest aspirations in life and their unswerving loyalty to their king.
Is it not passing strange how often, in the latter stages of a game, the king finds himself abandoned by his queen, his religious advisors, his castles and his mounted lords, yet defended by a few loyal pawns?
Forgotten, mistreated and regularly sacrificed in pursuit of strategies of which they may not have even been aware, pawns somehow always manage to be there at the end.
From: Chess in the Middle Ages ,
Tel Jackson (W.M. Lawry & Co., London, 1992)
I was one day present when she [Elizabeth] replied at the same time to three ambassadors, the Imperial, French, and Swedish, in three languages: Italian to one, French to the other, Latin to the third; easily, without hesitation, clearly, and without being confused.
– ROGER ASCHAM
INTO BYZANTIUM
WE WERE CONVEYED THROUGH Constantinople in glorious gold-rimmed carriages reserved for visiting players and their companions.
While travelling across the Continent, I must confess to the sins of vanity and pride: despite my teacher’s comment about the natural prejudices of all people, I felt I could honestly say that England surpassed the other lands of Europe in both complexity and cultural sophistication. But as we passed through the Golden Gate and rolled out onto the streets of Constantinople in our splendid carriages, I could not in good conscience come to the same conclusion about my homeland when compared to the Ottoman capital.
Put simply, Byzantium made England’s greatest city, my beloved London, look like a Wallachian hamlet.
Grand boulevards swept past bustling bazaars and sleek marble buildings. Many-arched aqueducts shot across valleys, bringing water to the million-strong population, while bath-houses still bearing Roman paint opened onto fountain-filled plazas. We passed some commercial docks on the southern side of the peninsula; they were packed with ships, loading and unloading cargo.
People went about their business on cobblestone streets, trading, shouting, conversing, smoking. Children played in alleys; men walked about in loose-fitting robes, obviously unarmed. Many women, however, wore cloaks that covered every inch of their bodies including their faces. They looked out at the world through gauze meshes and walked with their heads bowed subserviently a few paces behind their husbands.
Upon entering the city, Mr Ascham had suggested that Elsie and I don similar attire, scarves that covered our heads and cloaks that extended all the way to our wrists and ankles. I obeyed, but not before asking why this was necessary.
‘Some Moslem holy men believe that an unveiled woman will stir a man’s loins and provoke him to unseemly acts,’ he said. ‘So they demand women cover themselves in public.’
‘But that’s absurd! Why should the woman change her dress when it is the man’s urges that are at issue? Why not call upon the men of Islam to control themselves?’
Mr Ascham shrugged sadly. ‘I have found that it is rarely useful to question people on the practices of their faiths. What people do in the name of religion is not necessarily religious. It often has baser reasons behind it.’
At this point we rounded a bend and emerged on a wide square, and there before us sat the immense domed building I had glimpsed earlier through the haze.
It lorded over all before it like a king on his throne: the great cathedral to holy wisdom. Known to the Turks as the Ayasofya, in Latin as the Sancta Sophia,
This is because the pawn represents the ordinary infantryman. Lacking a horse or any other source of power, he can only move a single square at a time (except for his opening move) and then only forward or diagonally. Even the emasculated king can move backwards.
Pawns are weak. They are small. They are often exchanged for little or no tactical gain.
But we love them. We love their nerveless obstinacy in the face of attack, their modest aspirations in life and their unswerving loyalty to their king.
Is it not passing strange how often, in the latter stages of a game, the king finds himself abandoned by his queen, his religious advisors, his castles and his mounted lords, yet defended by a few loyal pawns?
Forgotten, mistreated and regularly sacrificed in pursuit of strategies of which they may not have even been aware, pawns somehow always manage to be there at the end.
From: Chess in the Middle Ages ,
Tel Jackson (W.M. Lawry & Co., London, 1992)
I was one day present when she [Elizabeth] replied at the same time to three ambassadors, the Imperial, French, and Swedish, in three languages: Italian to one, French to the other, Latin to the third; easily, without hesitation, clearly, and without being confused.
– ROGER ASCHAM
INTO BYZANTIUM
WE WERE CONVEYED THROUGH Constantinople in glorious gold-rimmed carriages reserved for visiting players and their companions.
While travelling across the Continent, I must confess to the sins of vanity and pride: despite my teacher’s comment about the natural prejudices of all people, I felt I could honestly say that England surpassed the other lands of Europe in both complexity and cultural sophistication. But as we passed through the Golden Gate and rolled out onto the streets of Constantinople in our splendid carriages, I could not in good conscience come to the same conclusion about my homeland when compared to the Ottoman capital.
Put simply, Byzantium made England’s greatest city, my beloved London, look like a Wallachian hamlet.
Grand boulevards swept past bustling bazaars and sleek marble buildings. Many-arched aqueducts shot across valleys, bringing water to the million-strong population, while bath-houses still bearing Roman paint opened onto fountain-filled plazas. We passed some commercial docks on the southern side of the peninsula; they were packed with ships, loading and unloading cargo.
People went about their business on cobblestone streets, trading, shouting, conversing, smoking. Children played in alleys; men walked about in loose-fitting robes, obviously unarmed. Many women, however, wore cloaks that covered every inch of their bodies including their faces. They looked out at the world through gauze meshes and walked with their heads bowed subserviently a few paces behind their husbands.
Upon entering the city, Mr Ascham had suggested that Elsie and I don similar attire, scarves that covered our heads and cloaks that extended all the way to our wrists and ankles. I obeyed, but not before asking why this was necessary.
‘Some Moslem holy men believe that an unveiled woman will stir a man’s loins and provoke him to unseemly acts,’ he said. ‘So they demand women cover themselves in public.’
‘But that’s absurd! Why should the woman change her dress when it is the man’s urges that are at issue? Why not call upon the men of Islam to control themselves?’
Mr Ascham shrugged sadly. ‘I have found that it is rarely useful to question people on the practices of their faiths. What people do in the name of religion is not necessarily religious. It often has baser reasons behind it.’
At this point we rounded a bend and emerged on a wide square, and there before us sat the immense domed building I had glimpsed earlier through the haze.
It lorded over all before it like a king on his throne: the great cathedral to holy wisdom. Known to the Turks as the Ayasofya, in Latin as the Sancta Sophia,
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