From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Persian poet/astronmer 12c. A.D., translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 19th c Englishman:
"Tis all a Chequerboard 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."