It's your move, cheat all you want

"Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play."

                                                                      The Tempest      (V, i)

Having completely befuddled his shipwrecked adversaries with his magic, Prospero discovers his newly love-struck daughter Miranda playing chess with Ferdinand, the son of Alonso, the king of Naples. She's been playfully teasing Ferdinand, claiming his moves are illegal, but by her loving good graces acceptable.

A joyful reunion between father and son is at hand: Alonso had feared his son drowned in the storm that had engulfed their ship. Shakespeare is said to have possibly conceived The Tempest after having read contemporary accounts of the wreck of an English ship by storm in the Bermudas. The vessel, named the Sea Venture, was on its way to Virginia in 1609 when it ran into the kind of dicey weather that the Bermuda Triangle has since become famous for.

Pictured above, in the Great Parlor of Agecroft Hall, is a gaming board that dates to 1558; the chess pieces on the board are of a much later date. The chessboard can be opened up to reveal a backgammon board, another game popular in Shakespeare's day. Immediately behind the chessboard is an English oak chair that was made a bit more than a decade after the playwright's death in 1616. The room itself is aptly named: meant as a place in which family members might converse and entertain guests or each other, the word "parlor" comes from the French verb "parler," to speak.

In Shakespeare's time, it was not uncommon to see small rugs from Turkey or the eastern regions of the Mediterranean, often called "Turkye work," covering tables; the rugs were often regarded as too precious to walk on. As for the table-top game of chess itself, historians have traced its antecedents back through the mists of time to both Persia and Northern India.

If the young couple in The Tempest tired of chess or backgammon, there were card games to be played. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have favored the card game "Primero," which in time evolved into what we know as poker. Shakespeare uses an expression from Primero, "set up his rest," in Romeo & Juliet to describe someone staking everything on a certain outcome. The playwright found that even games played as idle pastimes could be mined for metaphor.