歌曲名 The Story of Chess

歌手名 Chess In Concert

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 their offspring fighting to 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 chequered 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

The game was further changed

Right across the board

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 obligating pleasure

Yet defies what just the kind of mind who would appreciate

This well researched and fascinating yarn