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[NABOKOV-L] More elephants in chess
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Didier Machu (off-list to JM) I had second thoughts about the Elephant.
Scholars more versed in chess and its history than I am would tell you that
in Chinese xiangqi (still practiced and from which modern chess derives*),
the Elephant is a leaper that moves a distance of two diagonally (i.e. in
four possible directions), cannot jump over another piece and is restricted
to one half of the board. In (Persian and Arabic) shatranj, the elephant is
Fil or Alfil** (known as Tamerlane Elephant in Tamerlane chess, a Persian
game derived from shatranj).
I hope this is all correct. Somehow I seem to have succeeded in making
things a little bit more obscure?
* India: chaturanga ('four forces') -> China and Persia: shatranj -> Arabian
world: ash-shatranj -> Spain: acedrex -> axedreç -> ajedrez [and xadrez in
Portuguese?]
** alfil (Spanish) = bishop (English) = fou (French) = bispo (I think, in
Portuguese): al fil (Arabic) = el elefante. Somehow delfim (in Portuguese)
seems to have a hand in the matter too but I'm not quite clear about this.
JM: In RLSK a link to chess is made through the name of a city where Knight
lies dying [in Brazil the checkered board, and a specific game, is named
Damas (damas,ie: ladies, queens?)].
IN PF there is a poem on The Nature of Electricity, quoted by Kinbote to
follow the story of Hazels will-of the-wisp and other obscure matters,
which mentions Tamerlane (until now Id only associated this name to the
historical figure, Timur, or to Poes Tamerlane). Its lines (p.193): The
torments of a Tamerlane/ The roars of tyrants torn in hell.
For me, thats the end of the lane, unless fate intervenes again.
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