“When Ace beareth up Six”: Ever Is Six the Best Chance of the Dice and the Composition and Collecting of Middle English Dice Poems

Abstract

ABSTRACT Ever Is Six the Best Chance of the Dice is a Middle English political prophecy found in many manuscripts from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Unlike most prophecy, it uses dice diagrams or special dicing terms as a code for the individuals or groups who are its subject. Most previous discussion focuses on decoding the dice references. The present article instead investigates the affordances of the language of dice for the poet, and for scribes and readers. Ever Is Six, it argues, creates a new cryptic language by aligning prophecy with the traditions of prognostication by dice found in the Middle English poems Thou that has cast three sixes here and the Chaucerian Chaunse of the Dyse. But whereas these poems offer a key for the interpretation of dice throws, Ever Is Six invites its readers to identify with elite interpretative communities who can crack the code. Its highly variant texts include several impossible throws, increasing the challenge for readers. The numerous copies of the poem testify to its success in attracting interpretative communities to copy, collect, and respond to it. The essay identifies two previously unlisted texts of the poem and offers a new edition.