The Game of Chess

leads [to it], and the heart is turned into de-
-spair. And about this Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35 – c. 100 CE), a Roman rhetorician whose works were highly influential in medieval education. says
all vows become sluggish when fortune
stands too flowing original: "flüssert". This suggests that when life is too easy or "overflowing" with success, people become lazy and lose their spiritual or moral resolve., and from this it happens
that idling or [living] now in sins
leaps; and so, against idleness and
sadness, Xerxes In the tradition of the "Book of Chess" (Schachzabelbuch), Xerxes is the name of the philosopher—sometimes called Philometer—who invented the game to reform a tyrannical king. invented the game
to [bring] the people peace and to human
life comfort and will. For the third
reason, the game was invented through a desire for new
things, for all humans desire to he-
-ar and to know new things, as
one reads of Athens that they at all
times sought new things, and from that
the eyes are often led astray so that one new things
might neither conceive nor find. And
therefore Democritus A Greek philosopher (c. 460 – c. 370 BCE). A popular medieval legend claimed he blinded himself to prevent physical sight from distracting his inner thoughts. poked out his eyes
so that he might the better find and
conceive new things. One also reads that
Didymus of the city of Alexandria is blind did not see,
and because of that his intellect was the ligh-
-ter original: "desterlichter". In this context, it means his mind was clearer or more illuminated because he was not distracted by the physical world.. Thus, it was that his students were two
high teachers: Gregory Nazianzus One of the "Cappadocian Fathers" of the early Christian Church (c. 329–390 CE). and
Jerome the Cardinal St. Jerome (c. 342–420 CE), the translator of the Bible into Latin. Though the office of "Cardinal" did not exist in his time, medieval artists and writers traditionally depicted him as one., who also against
other high teachers or teachers of other people [taught...]