Dice

“ These eyes show it. They see failure, utter, bleak, barren failure. The Great Gambler gives us the dice to throw once, and only once. We lose or we win. I lost.
Ah God, must I once more be wakeful with hot tears? I think of the men and the women I know—of you—of you; how did the dice come up for you? What have the figures read?
As I am gazing thus in the mirror, my eyes wander to the other part of the reflection which shows the darkness of the opposite end of the room, for the lamp is beginning to flicker. ”

“ And yet the spectacle presented to us by nature is the same as though some one were every instant, with an infinite number of dice, to make exactly the throw which he announces in advance. I judge differently, ladies and gentlemen. I say that nature's dice are cogged, and there, above, is the greatest of jugglers making sport of us. ”

“ Be careful and do not attempt to tell your fortune on Mondays or Wednesdays, as they are unlucky days for dice. To throw the same number twice at one trial, shows news from abroad, be the numbers what they may. If the dice roll over the circle, the number thrown goes for nothing, but the occurrence shows sharp words, and if they fall to the floor, it is blows; in throwing out the dice, if one remains on top of the other, it is a present of which I leave the ladies to take care. ”

“ A fool and a philosopher are equal at a game of dice. And these men who threw dice with death were interesting to watch, because, though they gambled for so great a stake, they did so unconcernedly and without flinching, and without apparently appreciating the seriousness of the game. ”

“ So gamesters will quiet their consciences. Vainly does King Philip Augustus command that any person swearing over dice in his royal presence, no matter how high his rank, shall be cast into the river. Dice are everywhere—in the travelers' and pilgrims' wallets and in almost every castle, hut, or town dwelling. Let any three or four men come together for an idle hour and fortunate it is if a set of dice does not appear to while away the time. The thirteenth century is innocent of cards; dice form the substitute. ”

“ Display your treasures on the road?
Would you abet their raid of stealth
By the display of hoarded wealth?
And are you yet with blacklegs fain
With loaded dice to throw a main?
It is not charity—for shame!
The rascals look on you as game. ”

“ The first of these men stands in a constrained attitude awaiting his turn, and is so eager to draw that he apparently does not notice the discomfort; the second is loading the dice-box, and frowns as he looks at the dice, his mouth and eyes open as if from suspicion of fraud, showing clearly to an observant beholder his eagerness to win; the third, who is about to throw the dice, spreads out on the ground with trembling arm the garments, where he shows with a smile that he intends to throw them. ”

“ At first the dice spring merrily out on the board. The gods throw, and he; and they again, and then he, and still with no misgivings; those blacklegs know enough to permit an occasional win. All the same, early or late, comes that period in the game when suspicion grows a sickening certainty. He asked for long odds against him, and he has got them with a vengeance; the odds of the loaded dice. ”

“ Enter Matheo.
How does my sweet Matheo?
Mat. Oh rogue, of what devilish stuff are these dice made of,—the parings of the devil’s corns of his toes, that they run thus damnably?
Bell. I prithee, vex not.
Mat. If any handicraft’s-man was ever suffered to keep shop in hell, it will be a dice-maker; he’s able to undo more souls than the devil; I played with mine own dice, yet lost. Ha’ you any money?
Bell. ’Las, I ha’ none.
Mat. Must have money, must have some, must have a cloak, and rapier, and things. Will you go set your lime-twigs, and get me some birds, some money? ”

“ No case, indeed, can try so severely, or put upon record so conspicuously, this indestructible propensity for seeking light out of darkness—this thirst for looking into the future by the aid of dice, real or figurative, as the fact of men eminent for piety having yielded to the temptation. ”

“ And once, or twice, to throw the dice Is a gentlemanly game, But he does not win who plays with Sin In the secret House of Shame." ”

“ We look around upon the universe, and everywhere observe marks of design, or the adapation of means to ends. The conviction gathers upon us with deepening power, that there must have been a supreme intelligence arranging the forces of nature. If I throw the dice box twenty times, and the same numbers always turn up, I cannot resist the conclusion that the dice must have been loaded. ”

“ Insomuch on a time, I heard a distemperate dicer solemnly sweare that he faithfully beleeved, that dice were first made of the bones of a witch, and cards of her skin, in which there hath ever sithence remained an inchantment yt whosoever once taketh delight in either, he shall never have power utterly to leave them, for quoth he, I a hundred times vowed to leave both, yet have not the grace to forsake either. ”

“ It matters little what the method or nature of the symbols chosen is—dice or dominoes, cards or tea-leaves. What matters is that the person shaking the dice, shuffling the dominoes, cutting the cards or turning the tea-cup, is by these very acts transferring from his mind where they lie hidden even from himself the shadows of coming events which by his own actions in the past he has already predetermined shall occur in the future. ”

“ Oh, the rattle of dice is a charming thing,
⁠When you haven't a copper left;
It works like a drum on the heart of a king,
⁠Of all his realm bereft. ⁠5
For gamblers leap down a mountain steep—
⁠I know I shall not play. ”

“ Cards and dice are pests, the offspring of idleness, and the parents of vice and crime. They are the concomitants of semi-barbarism, and their gradual disappearance is one of the indices of advancing civilization and 292mental improvement. ”

“ How to make five or six dice of the ordinary bignesse of dice, such as you may game withall, and such as would be taken by their lookes to bee ordinary dice, and yet all of them to weigh not above one grain. ”

“ Instead of the book and card plan, four dice may be used in the same manner. The points indicating the even or uneven numbers of dots in the symbol.
Do not ask a question more than once in any one day. Always begin the search by reciting the formula:
“Oraculum, Oraculum, Tell true fortune, or be dumb.” ”

“ They beheld two men before them, one of middle age and the other very young, sitting perfectly still, and in the queerest manner imaginable staring at each other across the table. Between the two was a pile of money, and near at hand an empty absinthe bottle, a water pitcher, two glasses, and a dice-box. The dice lay before the elder man as though he had just thrown them. ”

“ I dare not as I could, show the lewd juggling that cheats practice, lest it minister some offence to the well-disposed, to the simple, hurt and losses, and to the wicked, occasion of evil-doing: but I could wish all gamesters to beware, not only of cards, but also of what dice they play withal; but especially with whom, and where they exercise gaming, and to let dice pass as a thing whereby a man must be inevitably cozened. ”

“ Seat yourselves at the table, ten on each side, the dice-box between you. You shall not be disappointed, but shall play out the game of life and death. Each dices with his opposite. He who throws the highest number escapes. ”

“ Abbé, say, do you want to be looked on as an adventurer?”
“It is remarkable,” said my good tutor, “that you blame at cards or dice a practice so much commended in the art of war, politics and trade; in each of these people glorify themselves by correcting the injuries of fortune. It is not that I do not pique myself on honesty when playing at cards. Thank God, I always play straight, and you must have been dreaming, sir, when you fancied I had marked points I did not make. ”

“ Examine the dice, gents; examine the box. If any gent had any doubts at all about the dice being straight, all he had to do was to examine them. There they lay, gents, honestly and openly on the table before the one-eyed man, his bony hand hovering over them caressingly.
Gents examined them freely. Nearly every player who put money down–secure in that egotistical valuation of one’s own shrewdness which is the sure-thing-man’s 51 bank and goldmine and mint–rolled the dice, weighed them, eyed them sharply. Then they bet against the one-eyed man–and lost. ”

“ Or if that sinful one beholdeth us emerge, after the expiry of the pledged period of non-discovery, he will again invite thee, O great king, to dice, and the play will once more begin. Summoned once more, thou wilt again efface thyself at dice. Thou art not skilled at dice, and when summoned at play, thou wilt be deprived of thy senses. Therefore, O mighty monarch thou wilt have to lead a life in the woods again. ”

“ The games which I do so 'wonder and admire' to see aunts playing are the meaningless games with counters and dice: ill-balanced dice and roughly turned counters and boards that look like folding chequer-boards till you open them, and then you find all the ugliest colours divided into squares and circles or slabs, with snakes or motors or some other unpleasing devices on them. ”

“ The dice of late are growen as melancholy as a dog, high men and low men both prosper alike.
1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives, i., 3. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds, And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Pise, false dice, high men or low men. ”

“ I ask you again, do they never give their victims a fair chance? Is there never a single plaything of theirs which, fighting bravely and in good faith, is permitted to win? Are the dice always cogged? ”

“ How then shall a man preserve firmness and tranquillity, and at the same time be careful and neither rash nor negligent? If he imitates those who play at dice. The counters are indifferent; the dice are indifferent. How do I know what the cast will be? But to use carefully and dexterously the cast of the dice, this is my business. Thus then in life also the chief business is this: distinguish and separate things, and say: Externals are not in my power: will is in my power. Where shall I seek the good and the bad? Within, in the things which are my own. ”

“ When Greek writers mention dice-playing, they no doubt often mean some game of this class, for at mere hazard the Persian queen-mother could not have played her game carefully, as Plutarch says she did, nor would there have been any sense in his remark that in life, as in dicing, one must not only get good throws, but know how to use them. ”

“ The favorite method of cheating at this game is by the substitution of unfair dice. For this purpose, loaded dice are sometimes used, and sometimes dice specially prepared, on the faces of one of which, are painted two aces, two twos and two sixes, while the other dice is inscribedinscribed with two threes, two fours and two fives. If the reader will take pains to figure out the combination of numbers which may be made with two dice so prepared, he will see that it is an utter impossibility for the thrower to make either, two, three or twelve, the numbers which will be a loss to him. ”

“ What is marvellous, playing at dice is one of their most serious employments; and even sober, they are gamesters: nay, so desperately do they venture upon the chance of winning or losing, that when their whole substance is played away, they stake their liberty and their persons upon one and the last throw. ”

“ In the first place we shall suppose that the dice are of the ordinary kind, namely, having six faces marked with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; and we shall analyze some of the first cases of the problem, that we may proceed regularly to those that are more intricate.
I. It is proposed to throw a determinate point, 6 for instance with one die.
Here it is evident, that as the die has six faces, one of which is only marked six, and as any one of them may as readily come up as another, there are five chances against the person who wishes to throw a six at one throw, and only one in his favour. ”

“ In our cut No. 151, taken from the illumination in a copy of Jean de Vignay’s 217 translation of Jacobus de Cessolis (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.) , the dice-player appears to hold but two dice in his hand; but this is to be laid solely to the charge of the draughtsman’s want of skill, as the text tells us distinctly that he has three. We learn also from the text, that in the jug he holds in his right hand he carries his money, a late example of the use of earthen vessels for this purpose. ”

“ Dice seem always to have been employed, as is the case to-day, for gambling purposes, and they are also used in such games as backgammon. There are many methods of playing, from one to five dice being used, although two or three are the ordinary numbers employed in Great Britain and America. The dice are thrown upon a table or other smooth surface either from the hand or from a receptacle called a dice-box, the latter method having been in common use in Greece, Rome and the Orient in ancient times. ”

“ Whether dice-players may be so favourably dealt with as to be admitted among the rest is scarce yet resolved upon: but sure it is hugely vain and ridiculous, when we see some persons so devoutly addicted to this diversion, that at the first rattle of the box their heart shakes within them, and keeps consort with the motion of the dice: they are egg'd on so long with the hopes of always winning, till at last, in a literal sense, they have thrown away their whole estate, and made shipwreck of all they have, scarce escaping to shore with their own clothes to their backs ”

“ Other forms exist in Norwegian and Icelandic, and in a Swedish broadsheet of the later eighteenth century. There is also a Slav version.
XXIII
THE GAME OF DICE
1
“Harken here, thou good young swain,
And play at dice with me!”
“Oh, ne’er have I the ruddy gold
To wager here with thee.”
—Because they played, and threw the dice of gold.
2
“Oh, wager now thy goodly hat,
Altho’ it be of grey,
And I will wager my snood of pearl,
Shalt take it, an thou may!” [140]
3
When first the dice of gold
Upon the board did run,
The youth he lost his wager,
And glad the maiden won. ”