Single Comment

''Stopgap laptop'' and ''mainframe lamebrain'' are A Player's way of dealing with the computer problem in lines 26 and 28 by yelling. Hard scientists -- as opposed to sociological computer scientists -- are aware of W.B. Yeats' ''Dialogue of Self and Soul,'' the co-theme here. After Plato and Yeats, this CMIV like most of them is a dialogue. Caissa appears first as goddess of Chess at Vida's ''Scacchia Ludus'' in 1527. William Jones uses Caissa again in 1763 at ''Caissa.'' Vida's having Mercury and Apollo play Chess corresponds to our Bishop as Mercury and Falcon as Sol in other later CMs. Further annotating, do not take the Greek Chorus' ''chiseled dreams'' literally. Most simply it is synecdoche. Picture the Chorus describing merry-go-round of wooden horses and other pieces, and ''the folded arms of chess propriety'' as folks watching outside circumspectly children riding. What else? 'Moiety' is a rare word mostly good for i.q. tests meaning half. Computer's 'Ghost' refers to the book 'The Ghost in the Machine' and Ryle's description you can review. Reaching the same Player's lines again, Luddites would be as anti-technological today as they were against automatic looms. Deliberately mixing images nautical and i.t., the Player concludes: ''Stow away all alike/ Hardware, ports, chips, drivel, drives, even keys/ Betide the faceless software seven seas.'' Finally, Caissa herself in control addresses ''tourists,'' which Kasparov had concurrently scoffed at chess fans during some Las Vegas tournament old-style 6-piece chess the same year 2001.