In Muscovy, where people live in heated rooms and houses all winter and seldom go outdoors, chess is, on the other hand, very necessary; hence, says Herberstein, it is much played there. At Fez in Africa, where heat similarly obliges people to stay indoors, it is highly commendable and, according to Leo Africanus, just as widely played.

It is a suitable pastime for gentlewomen with nothing to do, soldiers in garrison, and courtiers who have nothing but love affairs to occupy them, though not altogether so suitable for students. I may say the same of Cl. Bruxer’s Philosophers’ Game, Dr Fulke’s Metromachia and his Ouronomachia, and the other intricate astrological and geometrical inventions, especially for those with mathematical interests, along with the rest of those elaborate games.

Dancing, singing, masques, mumming, and stage plays, however harshly some stern Catos condemn them, may rightly be approved when enjoyed at a proper time and in moderation. “It is better to dig than to dance,” says Augustine; but what does that matter if people enjoy dancing? “No one dances sober.” But what kind of dance are we talking about?

I know these pastimes have many opponents, with volumes written against them, though everything they say, properly considered, merely misses the point. Others, now old, stubborn, and past such pleasures themselves, find fault with every youthful pastime in other people, like the man in the comedy: they expect them “to be born old men at once,” and so forth.

Some, in their misguided zeal, frequently raise trivial objections and would abolish a thing’s good use because it is sometimes abused—as though they should forbid wine because it makes people drunk. In my judgement, they are too stern. There is a time for everything: “a time to mourn, a time to dance,” Ecclesiastes 3:4; “a time to embrace, a time not to embrace,” verse 5; and “nothing better than that a person should rejoice in their own works,” verse 22.

For my part, I support the king’s declaration, and have always thought that May festivities, parish wakes, Whitsun ales, and the like may rightly be permitted, provided they take place at suitable hours. Let people feast, sing, and dance freely; let them have their puppet plays, hobby-horses, tabors, fiddles, bagpipes, and so forth; let them play ball, barley-break, and whatever sports and recreations they like best.

In Franconia, a province of Germany, says Johannes Boemus, the old people went to the alehouse after evening prayer, and the young went dancing. To speak truly with John of Salisbury, “it would have been better to be idle in this way than to be more shamefully employed”—better this than something worse, which many would undoubtedly otherwise do, such is the corruption of human nature.

For that reason, plays, masques, jesters, gladiators, acrobats, jugglers, and all that crew are admitted and tolerated: “The whole stage of entertainers comes forward; spectacles and countless schools of frivolity are therefore admitted, so that people who usually spend their leisure more harmfully may be occupied by them”—so that those who would otherwise be harmfully idle may busy themselves with such trifles.

Thus we may say of them what Tacitus said of the astrologers in Rome: “They are a class of people who will always be shunned in our state and always retained.” Most are a dissolute company, continually condemned—as some of them thoroughly deserve, for I judge and distinguish between them as between mere fiddlers and musicians—and yet always kept on.

I admit that evil must not be done so that good may come of it. But this is evil only incidentally and in a qualified sense, and may rightly be tolerated to avoid a greater harm.

Sir Thomas More, in his Utopian commonwealth, will have no one idle, but neither will he have anyone labour too hard, worn out like a horse—a misery worse than slavery, the life of most of our hired servants and tradespeople elsewhere, apart from his Utopians. Half the day is allotted to work, and half to innocent recreation or whatever occupation people themselves think suitable.

If their harsh masters allowed our household servants one half-day a week for cheerful gatherings, or some annual feasts like the Roman Saturnalia, I think they would work harder the rest of the time, and both parties would be better pleased. But this is unnecessary, you will say, because some of them do nothing but loiter all week.

What I am aiming at is relief for those who are “broken in spirit,” troubled in mind: to refresh the overworked on the one hand, and to keep the excessively idle occupied on the other. For this purpose, as any labour or occupation will serve one group, any innocent recreation will help the other, provided it is moderate and sparing, like food and drink. The aim is not to spend a whole life gambling, playing, and pursuing amusement, as too many gentlemen do, but to revive our bodies and refresh our souls with innocent pastimes.