Caïssa (
a:isa is a
fictional
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, ...
(
anachronistic
An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...
)
Thracian
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied t ...
dryad
A dryad (; el, Δρυάδες, ''sing''.: ) is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. ''Drys'' (δρῦς) signifies "oak" in Greek, and dryads were originally considered the nymphs of oak trees specifically, but the term has evolved to ...
portrayed as the goddess of
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
. She was first mentioned during the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
by Italian poet
Hieronymus Vida.
Vida's poem
Caïssa originated in a 658-line poem called ''Scacchia Ludus'' published in 1527 by
Hieronymus Vida (Marco Girolamo Vida), which describes in Latin Virgilian
hexameter
Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...
s a chess game between
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
and
Mercury
Mercury commonly refers to:
* Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun
* Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg
* Mercury (mythology), a Roman god
Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to:
Companies
* Merc ...
in the presence of the other gods. In it, to avoid unclassical words such as ''rochus'' (chess rook) or ''alfinus'' (chess bishop), the
rooks
Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to:
Games
*Rook (chess), a piece in chess
*Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game
Military
*Sukhoi Su-25 or Rook, a close air support aircraft
* USS ...
are described as towers (armored
howdah
A howdah, or houdah (Hindi: हौदा ''haudā''), derived from the Arabic (hawdaj), which means "bed carried by a camel", also known as ''hathi howdah'' (''hāthī haudā'', हाथी हौदा), is a carriage which is positioned o ...
s) on
elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
s' backs, and the
bishops
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
as
archer
Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In mo ...
s:
A leaked unauthorized 742-line draft version was published in 1525. Its text is very different, and in it Caïssa is called Scacchia, the chess rook is a
cyclops
In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; el, Κύκλωπες, ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguish ...
, and the chess bishop is a
centaur
A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse.
Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being ...
archer.
The description of towers led to the modern name "castle" for the chess rook, and thus the term "castling", and the modern shape of the European rook chesspiece. Also for a time, some chess players in Europe called the rook "elephant" and the bishop "archer". In German, ''Schütze'' ("archer") became a general word for a chess bishop until displaced by ''Läufer'' ("runner") in the 18th century.
William Jones's poem
The young English orientalist
William Jones re-used the idea of a chess poem in 1763, in his own poem ''Caïssa or The Game at Chess'' written in English
heroic couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the ''Legend of ...
s. In his poem, Caïssa initially repels the advances of the god of war,
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
. Spurned, Mars seeks the aid of Euphron, God of Sport (Jones's invention), brother of
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
, who creates the game of chess as a gift for Mars to win Caïssa's favor.
It is an unproven assumption that Jones's name "Caïssa" (ka-is-sa) is an equivalent to Vida's name "Scacchia" (ska-ki-a).
The English version of Philidor's 1777 ''Systematic introduction to the game and the analysis of chess'' contained Jones's poem. In 1851 the poem was translated into French by Camille Théodore Frédéric Alliey.
Victoria Winifred's novel
Children's author Victoria Winifred picked up on the story begun in William Jones's poem in her 2022 mythological fantasy, "The Princess, the Knight, and the Lost God: A Chess Story". In this continuation, Mars and Caïssa were wed after the events told in Jones's rendition. Caïssa then received her immortality and goddesship from Mars, and they reigned together over the kingdom of Chess Mountain. Later, their 12-year-old daughter, Princess Kassie, goes on to establish her own goddess title in the chess realm through a series of adventures and a mission completed on Earth.
Modern use
Caïssa is referred to in chess commentary.
*
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
uses this reference now and again, especially in his five-volume work ''
My Great Predecessors
''My Great Predecessors'' is a series of chess books written by former World Chess Champion, World Champion Garry Kasparov et al. The five volumes in the ''My Great Predecessors'' series are about the players who preceded Kasparov in being offici ...
''. He cites her as a metaphor for good luck – "Caïssa was with me" – especially in unclear situations, for example in
sacrifices
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exis ...
.
* The 1994 book ''The March of Chess Ideas'' by
Anthony Saidy
Anthony Saidy (born May 16, 1937) is an International Master of chess, a retired physician and author. He competed eight times in the U.S. Chess Championship, with his highest placement being 4th. He won the 1960 Canadian Open Chess Championshi ...
extensively uses Caïssa as well.
*
T. R. Dawson extensively used Caïssa, both as a character to provide literary narrative to accompany his problem collections, and merely as a convenient
personification
Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their b ...
of chess.
* The
chess variant
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from, or inspired by chess. Such variants can differ from chess in many different ways.
"International" or "Western" chess itself is one of a family of games which have related origins and could be co ...
Caïssa Britannia, created by
Fergus Duniho
Fergus may refer to:
Given name or surname
*Fergus (name), including lists of people and fictional and mythological characters
Places
*Fergus, Ontario, Canada
* River Fergus, County Clare, Ireland
*Lake Fergus, South Island, New Zealand
*Loc ...
, was named after Caïssa.
* When writing about chess,
Heinrich Fraenkel used the pseudonym "Assiac", which is "Caïssa" spelled backwards.
*
Antonio Radić
Antonio Radić (born 16 June 1987), better known as agadmator, is a Croatian YouTuber and chess player. He has one of the most popular chess channels on YouTube, and he previously had the most subscribers of any YouTube chess channel from 2018 u ...
, a Croatian YouTuber who runs the channel 'agadmator's Chess Channel', has created a chess-based
manga
Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
named "Age of Caissa", depicting a post-apocalyptic world ruled by
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
.
Caïssa as a concept has also been explored by some who seek the evidence of the
sacred feminine
A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of s ...
in chess.
The computer program that won the first
World Computer Chess Championship
World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) is an event held periodically since 1974 where computer chess engines compete against each other. The event is organized by the International Computer Games Association. It is often held in conjunction with ...
(in 1974) was named
Kaissa
Kaissa (russian: Каисса) was a chess program developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It was named so after Caissa, the goddess of chess. Kaissa became the first world computer chess champion in 1974 in Stockholm.
History
By 1967, a ...
.
The card game ''
Android: Netrunner'' features a program type named Caïssa, which are modeled after chess pieces.
References
Bibliography
*
External links
Text of Scacchia, Ludus, by Hieronymus Vidaof
Cremona
Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' ( Po Valley). It is the capital of th ...
(1559)
''Caïssa'' by William Jones 1763edochess.ca/batgirl/
Caissa's Weba selection of chess poems at members.caissa.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caissa
History of chess
Chess in the United Kingdom
Dryads
Nymphs
Poems about chess