THE PLAY WITHIN THE PLAY


Woman:     Cat.
Number 6: Dog.
Woman:     Rain.
Number 6: Shine.
Woman:     Desk.
Number 6: Work.
Woman:     Hope.
Number 6: Anchor.
Woman:     Anchor?
Number 6: Hope and Anchor: pub I used to drink at.
Woman:     Tree.
Number 6: Leaf.
Woman:     Home.
Number 6: Away.
Woman:     Return.
Number 6: Game.
Woman:     Love.
Number 6: Game.
Woman:     Game?
Number 6: Tennis.
Woman:     Table.
Number 6: Chair.
Woman:     Ship.
Number 6: Shape.
Woman:     Red.
Number 6: Sails.
Woman:     Free.
Number 6: For all.
-PATRICK MCGOOHAN
& GERALD KELSEY
The Prisoner: Chapter 11 (1968)


We let the Mystery uplift us,
The magical Iconography, under whose Spell
That Boundless Storm of Existence
Into glass-clear Imagery jells.
-HERMANN HESSE
The Glass Bead Game (1943)


'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays;
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

-OMAR KHAYYAM

trans. EDWARD FITZGERALD
Rubaiyat(~1100)

PAUL MORPHY
PLAYING WHITE
MATES IN FOUR
I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father.
-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet (1600)

Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games." I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on... And this is just how one might explain to someone what a game is. One gives examples and intends them to be taken in a particular way... The point is that this is how we play the game. (I mean the language-game with the word "game.")
-LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Investigations (1945)

There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.
-JAMES P. CARSE
Finite and Infinite Games (1986)

BUTLER: Did you notice...did you notice that there is a model within that room in the castle? A model of the model?
JULIAN: I ... I did. But ... I didn't register it, it seemed so... continual.
BUTLER: (A shy smile): You don't suppose that within that tiny model in the model there, there is ... another room like this, with yet a tinier model within it, and within...
JULIAN: (Laughs): ... and within and within and ... ? No, I ... rather doubt it. It's remarkable craftsmanship, though. Remarkable.
BUTLER: Hell to clean.
-EDWARD ALBEE
Tiny Alice (1964)


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