Caïssa is a mythical Thracian

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

 dryad

Dryad

Dryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology. In Greek drys signifies 'oak,' from an Indo-European root *derew- 'tree' or 'wood'. Thus Dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general...

 portrayed as the goddess of chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

, as invented during the Renaissance by Italian poet Hieronymus Vida

Marco Girolamo Vida

Marco Girolamo Vida or Marcus Hieronymus Vida was an Italian humanist, bishop and poet. Born at Cremona, Vida joined the court of Pope Leo X and was given a prior at Frascati. He became bishop of Alba in 1532....

.

Vida's poem

Caïssa originated in a 658-line poem called "Scacchia, Ludus" published in 1527 by Hieronymus Vida

Marco Girolamo Vida

Marco Girolamo Vida or Marcus Hieronymus Vida was an Italian humanist, bishop and poet. Born at Cremona, Vida joined the court of Pope Leo X and was given a prior at Frascati. He became bishop of Alba in 1532....

 (Marco Girolamo Vida), which describes in Latin Virgilian hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

s a chess game between Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 and Mercury in the presence of the other gods. In it, to avoid unclassical references, the rooks are described as towers (armored howdah

Howdah

A howdah, or houdah, also known as hathi howdah, is a carriage which is positioned on the back of an elephant, or occasionally some other animal, used most often in the past to carry wealthy people or for use in hunting or warfare...

s) on elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

s' backs, and the bishops as archer

Archery

Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...

s:

Tum geminae velut extremis in cornibus arces

hinc atque hinc altis stant propugnacula muris,

quae dorso immanes gestant in bella Elephanti.

"Then twin, as if at the ends, citadels in the corners,

here and there stand ramparts with high walls,

which, immense, are carried into war on [its] back by an elephant."

(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

Cyclops

A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...

, and the chess bishop is a centaur

Centaur

In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...

 archer

Archery

Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...

.)

This 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 pioneering English orientalist Sir William Jones re-used Vida's character Caïssa in 1763 in his own poem Caïssa written in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

s. Jones also published an English language version of the poem.

In the poem, Caïssa initially repels the advances of the god of war, Mars

Mars (mythology)

Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...

. Spurned, Mars seeks the aid of the god of sport Euphron, brother of Venus

Venus (mythology)

Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...

, who creates the game of chess as a gift for Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

 to win Caissa's favor.

Modern use

Caïssa is referred to in chess commentary. Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....

 uses this reference now and again, especially in his epic five-volume work My Great Predecessors

My Great Predecessors

My Great Predecessors is a series of chess books written by World Champion Garry Kasparov. The five volumes in the My Great Predecessors series are about the players who preceded Kasparov in being official World Champions. The series of books continued with the Modern Chess volumes that covers...

. It is used as a substitute for being fortunate – "Caïssa was with me" – especially in unclear situations, for example in sacrifice

Sacrifice (chess)

In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece in the hopes of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value....

s. Caïssa as a concept has also been explored by some who seek the evidence of the sacred feminine in chess .

The first (Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n) computer program that won the World Computer Chess Championship

World Computer Chess Championship

World Computer Chess Championship is an annual event where computer chess engines compete against each other. The event is organized by the International Computer Games Association...

 (in 1974) was also named Kaissa

Kaissa

Kaissa was a chess program developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It was named so after the chess goddess Caissa. Kaissa became the first world computer chess champion in 1974 in Stockholm.- History :...

.

External links

• Text of Scacchia, Ludus, by Hieronymus Vida of Cremona
  Cremona
  Cremona 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 . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
  
  (1559)
• Caïssa by William Jones 1763 sbchess.sinfree.net
• Caissa's Web a selection of chess poems at members.caissa.com