Ludus Chartarum

"Ludus Chartarum" (The Game of Cards) - Ludovico Vives 1545
( Excerpt translated from Latin)

Five young gentlemen whiling away a winter afternoon in the city of Bruges decide to play a game of cards. They are :
Castellus
Manricus
Lupianus
Tamayus
Valdaura

M - I will take no part in this affair, but will be an onlooker.
T - Why so?
M - Because I am most unlucky. I always leave a game stripped and beaten.
T- Do you know what dicers say as their motto ? "Look for your cloak where you lost it !"
M - Indeed, but the danger is that while I seek the cloak I lost, I may lose my shirt and vest as well.
T - It often happens, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
M - That is the counsel of a speculator.
T - Aye , and of the money-changers of Antwerp too.
V - You are right. But only four people can play, and there are five of us. Shall we draw lots to see who sits out to watch the others ?
M - I will do so without a draw.
V - By no means, let us not be unfair to anyone. It shall not be determined by anyone's humour, but by chance. The first person to be dealt a King shall sit out to overlook the game at leisure, and be the judge of any quarrel that may arise.
L- Here before you are two decks of cards, one Spanish, one French.
V - The Spanish deck appears to be incomplete.
L- How so ?
V - The tens are missing.
L - They don't usually include them, unlike the French. Whether cards be French or Spanish they are divided into four types or suits. The Spaniards have gold coins, cups, staves, and swords: The French have hearts, diamonds, trefoils, and plough-shares. In each suit there is a King, Queen, a knight, ace, two, three, four, five , six , seven, eight, nine. The French have the tens as well. In the Spanish deck the higher points of coins and cups are weaker, and the opposite in swords and staves. For the French the higher points are always better.
C- Which game shall we play ?
V - Spanish Triumph, and the dealer shall keep the turn-up card for himself if it be an ace or a coat.
M - Let us see who will sit out from the game.
T - Well said. I will deal the cards so ..yours....yours.. yours... Lupianus you shall be our umpire.
V - I prefer to have you as a spectator rather than as an opponent.
L- A compliment ? Why do you wish it so ?
V - Because you are crafty and untrustworthy at the card table. They say you know the art of stacking the deck to aid your play.
L - My play has no deceit about it. This sounds to me a like a huff to hide your own lack of skill that borders on complete ignorance. Beside, who wants Castellus ? He will desert his fellow gamesters the moment he wins the smallest sum of money.
T - Sooner Gone than Game !
V - It is a trifling flaw, for if he starts losing, he will be more firmly fixed to the game than a nail in a beam.
T - If we are to play in pairs, two against two, how shall we be matched ?
V - As I know little about this game, I shall cleave to you Castellus. I hear you are the sharpest at it .
T- The greatest sharper you mean !
C - It is not a matter of personal choice. All must be settled by chance. Those who are dealt the highest cards shall play against those who draw the lowest.
V - So be it. Deal out single cards.
M - Just as I hoped. Castellus and I are partners. Valdaura and Tamayus defend the opposing positions.
V - Let us seat ourselves as we should be, cross-wise: give me that reclining chair so that I may loose in greater comfort.
T - Have the foot-stool too. Let us now lift to see which side is eldest hand.
V - We are. Deal the cards Castellus.
C- In what manner ? From left to right in the Belgian fashion, or the opposite Spanish way from right to left ?
V - The latter since we play at a Spanish game. Did you lay out the tens ?
C - Yes. How many cards do I give to each player ?
V - Nine. But what shall our wager be ?
M - Three dollars on each hand with doubling of the stakes.
C - My dear Manricus I feel that you are over rash. It is not a game, but a madness when so much money is at stake. How can you enjoy yourself in such a frenzy? Lest too much money be lost, a single dollar will suffice, and any raise of the wager shall be half that, five shillings.
V - Good advice. Thus we neither play for nothing, which is folly, nor for that which is injurious and painful.
C - Has everyone got nine cards? Then hearts is trumps and this queen is mine.
V - I wonder how happy an omen this might be. It is most apt that the hearts of women should hold dominion over all of us.
C - Give over thy conceits and reply to this. I raise the stake.
V - I have a weak and unharmonius hand . I yield it to you.
T - Me too . Deal the cards Manricus.
V- What are you doing ? Why don't you turn over the trump card ?
M -I wish to count my cards first in case I have received too many or too few.
V- You have one card too many.
M - I will discard it.
V- That is not the law of the game. You loose your turn at dealing which passes to the next player. Hand over the cards.
M - I refuse to do so as I haven't yet turned over the trump.
V - By God you shall !
C - Go to ! What are you thinking of my dear Valdaura? You mingle such oaths with the lightest of matters as could scarcely be applied to the gravest.
M - What does our umpire say ?
L - Truly I do not know what the rule is in this situation.
M - What a referee we have appointed over us, one without an opinion. Talk about the blind leading the blind !
V - What do we do now ?
M - What indeed? Unless we send for Lutetia. She can quote chapter and verse on the laws of the game for us.
C - Shuffle them all together and deal again.
T - Oh what a hand I must now throw away . I won't see another one like it today !
C - Shuffle those cards thoroughly and deal them singly with greater care.
V - Once again I will raise the stake.
T - Did I not prophesy that I would not hold another hand like it today ! I am the unluckiest player ever! I don't know why I even bother to look at this hand .
C - Truly this is not playing, but distressing yourself. How can it be a refreshment or a diversion of one's spirits to become so heated ? A game should be a game , not a source of wrath.
M - Hold up a while and do not throw aside your cards, it is Spades.
V - Answer me, do you wish to hold it ?
M - I hold and raise again.
V- Do you hope to put me to flight with your fierce words ? I will not yield.
M- Say but once and promptly, will you let it go ?
V - Yes and most freely. My intelligence prompts me to compete for an even greater prize with a hand like this one, but this will suffice amongst friends.
T - Do you not count me amongst the living ? There has been no mention of me so far.
C - And what have you to say for yourself scarecrow ?
T- Indeed I will raise the stake for my side.
M - Castellus what say you ?
C - Now you ask me ! After your exertions have created an immense pool. I dare not hold this raise on my hand.
V- Give a definite answer
C - I have not the means to answer other than very ambiguously, doubtfully hesitantly, timidly and diffidently . Is that clearly enough expressed ?
M - God Almighty what superfluity ! The recent hail did not fall so thick. Let us take a risk, just this once I beseech you.
C - When we put it to the test please do not expect any great help from me.
M - You will render such assistance as you are capable of.
C- You have no need to remind me so .
M - We are surely beaten.
T - We win four dollars. Shuffle and deal.
V - I raise five shillings.
C - I don't know whether to yield , I will surely loose.
T - Raise another five
C - What say you to this challenge ?
M - What can i say ? I flee !
C - You lost the last deal. Allow me to lose this one in my own way. I know that I am weaker, but I must stay in as long as i have strength left.
V - What are you saying ? Do you decline ?
C - No, I accept.
T - O Valduara do you not know this Castellus ? He has a better hand than you, and it is his custom to trap an unwary challenger with his net in this way. Have a care and do not proceed rashly for you are ensnared.
V - God's faith ! How could you have known that my last remaining card was of that suit ?
C - I knew all the cards.
V - That is not beyond belief.
C - I knew each from its face.
V - And from its back as well perhaps ?
C - You are too suspicious.
V - You make me so, by your good leave.
T - Let us discover whether any of these cards be pricked on their reverse sides with marks whereby they could be recognised ?
V - I pray you shall we make an end of playing. This game vexes me, to have lost so unluckily.
C - Whenever you wish, but perhaps the fault lies not with the game but in your own artlessness. You do not know how to play skillfully and adapt yourself to victory, but throw down your cards without a plan as chance takes you, thinking it to be of no consequence which you play first or last, or which shall be thrown on what occasion.
T -There is a surfeit of everything, even pleasure. I am fatigued of sitting, let us rise.
L - Take up your lute and give us a song.
T - About what ?
L - Something about the game ?
T -The song of Virgil ?
L - The same, or if you prefer, how about the one our friend Vives was singing the other day as he strolled along the city walls of Bruges ?
V - And honking like a goose !
(translation by E.M.M)

Footnote:
Ludovico Vives (1492 -1540) was a renowned Spanish humanist scholar from Valencia who was invited to the English court by Henry VIII in 1522. Six years later Vives was imprisoned and expelled from England for speaking out against the annullment of the King's marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Vives spent the rest of his life in Bruges. The 'Ludus Chartarum' is one of a series of witty Latin dialogues on everyday topics which Vives apparently wrote as compositional examples for his students.

The original Latin text can be found online at http://www.grexlat.com/biblio/vives/21_Ludus.html

The game described here as "Spanish Triumph" was the predecessor of Ombre which was orginally a four-handed game. It mutated into a three-handed variant known as "Renegado Ombre" (Rengado means "Traitor") which was reimported into England after the Restoration in 1660 and became highly fashionable . By this time "Renegado Ombre" had acquired the peculiar trump structure of Matadors described by Alexander Pope in "The Rape of the Lock" (1714) which did not exist in the earliest forms of the game.