Some Spanish poetry and chess

Jorge Luis Borges

Hello Everyone,

Looking for some guitar music, poetry and chess? Such fine things to have in your life. So, we just decided to share this video that has everything - The poem 'Ajedrez' by Jorge Luis Borges, a nice montage of chess photos and guitar music.

Below the video we have the poem in its original Spanish and its English translation.

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo better known as Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine writer, essayist, and poet born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school and travelled to Spain.

His work was translated and published widely in the United States and in Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1986. His work embraces the "chaos that rules the world and the character of unreality in all literature."

Enjoy the music and the poem.

Chess

by

Jorge Luis Borges

In their solemn corner, the players move

The slow pieces. The board detains them

Until the dawn in its severe world

In which two colors hate each other.

Within the forms irradiates magic

Strictness: Homeric rook, swift

Knight, armed queen, crucial king,

Oblique bishop and aggressive pawns.

Once the players have finally left,

Once time has devoured them,

Surely the ritual will not have ended.

In the orient like this very war flared up

Whose amphitheater today is the earth entire.

Like the other, the game is infinite.

II

Weakling king, slanting bishop, relentless

Queen, direct rook and cunning pawn

Seek and wage their armed battle

Across the black and white of the field.

They know not that the player’s selected

Hand governs their destiny,

They know not that a rigor adamantine

Subjects their will and rules their day.

The player also is a prisoner

(The saying is Omar’s) of another board

Of black nights and of white days.

God moves the player, and he, the piece.

Which god behind God begets the plot

Of dust and time and dream and agonies?

And, the poem in original Spanish:

Ajedrez

En su grave rincón, los jugadores

Rigen las lentas piezas. El tablero

Los demora hasta el alba en su severo

Ámbito en que se odian dos colores.

Adentro irradian mágicos rigores

Las formas: torre homérica, ligero

Caballo, armada reina, rey postrero,

Oblicuo alfil y peones agresores.

Cuando los jugadores se hayan ido,

Cuando el tiempo los haya consumido,

Ciertamente no habrá cesado el rito.

En el Oriente se encendió esta guerra

Cuyo anfiteatro es hoy toda la tierra.

Como el otro, este juego es infinito.

II

Tenue rey, sesgo alfil, encarnizada

Reina, torre directa y peón ladino

Sobre lo negro y blanco del camino

Buscan y libran su batalla armada.

No saben que la mano señalada

Del jugador gobierna su destino,

No saben que un rigor adamantino

Sujeta su albedrío y su jornada.

También el jugador es prisionero

(La sentencia es de Omar) de otro tablero

De negras noches y de blancos días.

Dios mueve al jugador, y este, la pieza.

Qué dios detrás de Dios la trama empieza

De polvo y tiempo y sueño y agonías?

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com