The Story Of Chess (Live)

Each game of chess
Means there's one less
Variation left to be played
Each day got through
Means one or two
Less mistakes remain to be made.

Not much is known
Of early days of chess
Beyond a fairly vague report.

That fifteen hundred years ago
Two princes fought
Tough brothers for a Hindu throne.

The mother cried
For no one really likes
Their offspring fighting to the death
She begged to stop the slaughter with her every breath.

But sure enough
One brother died.

Sad beyond belief
She told her winning son.

"You have caused such grief
I can't forgive
This evil thing you've done."

He tried to explain
How things had really been.

But he tried in vain
No words of his
Could mollify the queen.

And so he asked
The wisest men he knew
The way to lessen her distress.

They told him he'd be
Pretty certain to impress
By using model soldiers
On a checkered board
To show it was his brother's fault.

They thus invented chess.

Chess displayed no inertia
Soon spread to Persia
Then west.

Next the Arabs refined it
Thus redesigned, it progressed.

Still further yet
And when Constantinople
Fell in 1453
One would have noticed
Every other refugee
Included in his bags a set.

Once in the hands
And in the minds
Of leading figures
Of the Renaissance.

The spirit and the speed
Of chess made swift advance
Through all of Europe's vital lands.

Where we must record
Each game of chess
The game was further changed
Means there's one less
Right across the board
Variation left to be played
The western touch
Upon the pieces ranged.

King, and queen, and rook
And bishop, knight, and pawn
All took on the look
We know today
The modern game was born.

And in the end
We see a game
That started by mistake in Hindustan
And boosted in the main
By what is now Iran
Become the simplest and most complicated
Pleasure yet devised
For just the kind of mind
Who would appreciate this well
Researched, and fascinating
Yarn.