Commentary Par XXVIII 91-93

See Longfellow (DDP Longfellow.Par.XXVIII.93) for the reference: 'The inventor of the game of chess brought it to a Persian king, who was so delighted with it, that he offered him in return whatever reward he might ask.  The inventor said he wished only a grain of wheat, doubled as many times as there were squares on the chess-board; that is, one grain for the first square, two for the second, four for the third, and so on to sixty-four.  This the king readily granted; but when the amount was reckoned up, he had not wheat enough in his whole kingdom to pay it.'

One commentator (DDP Oelsner.Par.XXVIII.93) reports that this number is greater than 18,000,000,000,000,000,000.  The reader will want to remember that such an astoundingly high figure is the result of simple doubling; the result of squaring (unless one begins with one [what the king should at least have offered as his counter-proposal]) would be beyond astronomical.

This anecdote, deriving from the East, has several potential European intermediaries, as has been duly noted (e.g., among others, Peire Vidal, as reported by Torraca [DDP Torraca.Par.XXVIII.91-93]; but see Ledda [Ledd.2002.1], p. 297n., for fuller documentation).  The question of Dante's direct knowledge of Arabic material has focused, in the last century, on the Libro della scala, the account of the Prophet's night journey to another world.  Theodore Silverstein (Silv.1952.1) for a while seemed to have silenced those who argued, encouraged by two books by Asín Palacios (Asin.1919.1 and Asin.1927.1), that there was a direct relationship between the Arabic Libro della scala and the Commedia.  His book is still most valuable, although it has often been forgotten in the rekindled debate.  Silverstein examined critically Asín's evidentiary procedures and found them deeply flawed, pointing out that more likely sources are to be found in familiar Jewish and Christian texts.  However, a new stage in the debate was initiated by Cerulli (Ceru.1949.1), who produced a palliative argument in support of a basic relationship between Dante's poem and Arabic sources (see the discussion of his book by Nardi [Nard.1960.4].)  More recently, as respected a critic as Maria Corti (Cort.1995.1) attempted to resuscitate Asín Palacios's thesis; but see Chiamenti (Chia.1999.3) for an effective debunking of her effort.  For more recent support of at least the thrust of Asín Palacios's views, see Schildgen (Schi.2002.1).  And for an enthusiastic return to most of the original positions of Asín, see Carlo Saccone (Sacc.2002.1).