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

Though brothers, for a Hindu throne

Their mother cried

For no one really likes fheir offspring fighting fo the death

She begged them 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 right (Means there's one less)

Across the board the western touch (Variation)

Upon the pieces ranged (To be played)

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