The Erotics of Backgammon in Provençal and Irish Poetry

In medieval Provençal, and later English and Irish, literature we find references to tables , a game played on a table consisting of two boards usually hinged together, with men whose moves are determined by the throw of dice, and akin to modern backgammon. These often contain sexual innuendos or double entendres, dating as early as a twelfth-century poem by Guillem IX, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Poitou, "first" troubadour and Eleanor's grandfather, who includes in the final three strophes of his Provençal canso , "Benvuelh que sapchon li pluzor" ("I would well like it that many knew this"), an erotic wordplay on tables: ¹ ...