(CHESS)

THE FIRST EDITION OF TWO HEBREW WORKS ON THE GAME OF CHESS. The allegorical poem attributed to Abraham ibn Ezra and the annonymous prose work entitled Ma’adanei Melech (“The Kings Delight”) are two of the earliest works of Hebrew chess literature. Although the metrical and verbal skill of the poem suggest that ibn Ezra was the author, the difficulty in ascribing it to him, is the reference to the double-pawn move. With another Hebrew work on chess, a rhymed prose “Elegant Address,” by Bonsenior ibn Yechia, which first appeared as an addenda to the Mantua 1557 edition of Berachiah Ha’Nakdan’s Mishlei Shu’alim. For a detailed examination of ibn Ezra’s poem, ibn Yechia’s “Elegant Address” and the anonymous prose work Ma’adanei Melech, see V. Keats, Chess Among the Jews (London, 1995, unpublished)