Allusions to chess are rare in Shakespeare. The term chess itself is used only once, in the stage direction from the final act of The Tempest given above. The plot moves steadily towards this crowning 'vision of the island', when Prospero draws back the curtain of the inner stage to reveal to his former enemy a tableau consisting of their 'lost' children. Why, at such a crucial moment, did Shakespeare choose to have these young lovers discovered absorbed in chess?

Some commentators have attempted to answer this question by relating the episode to contemporary chess history. Philip Brockbank felt it important that the greatest player of the age, Giacchino Greco (il Calabrese), 'was much about that time visiting England from Italy'. However, Greco (1600-34) w a s only eleven when the play was first performed. The upsurge of interest in chess resulting from his celebrated visit (1622-4) could hardly have influenced Shakespeare's conception of The Tempest - though Middleton may well have derived inspiration for his A Game at Chesse (1624) whilst watching the master playing in London. Furness was more accurate in his contention that during Shakespeare's lifetime Naples had become an acclaimed centre of chess activity so that 'there was a special and remarkable appropriateness in representing a Prince of Naples as a Chessplayer'.