Tables
We are just ordinary people, despite our greatest endeavor,
memories of us do not last for a significant time;
as for the great who do nothing, it’s they who just need to be breathing,
and, as the Libyan says, last long in adamant stone.
So, it was one day that Zeno, the guardian king of our city
playing a curious game, staged with capricious dice
found himself fully surprised, when a complex position was showing
as for the pieces of white, they were returning back home,
first, there were seven white pieces that occupied field number six and
then there was one on the ninth, followed by two on the tenth;
nineteen and twenty had two stones and then there was one final counter,
on a position alone, taking the second from last.
Black had its pieces as follows: a double on place number eight and
leaving another two stones on the eleventh domain;
finding a similar number at rest on the following twelfth spot,
only a single black piece, took the thirteenth as its place;
right on the number fourteen there were two who had just settled in there,
analogue pieces were found sitting on number fifteen;
in an identical fashion, the eighteenth had two pieces staying,
counting the fourth from the last, this had the final black two.
Now it was time for the king’s move, because he was playing the white side
he did not notice the trap showing itself on the board,
after the casting of dice from a wooden receptacle downwards
tumbling down ladders inside, leading the dice to a rest,
three of their numbers appeared and they turned up a two, six and fiver,
eight of his fields were now split, leaving just singles in place.
All of you, flee from this game board, as even a sovereign ruler
could not evade his bad luck, playing this treacherous game.
