Each game

of chess

means there's

one less

vari-

ation left to be played



Each day

got through

means one

or two

less mi-

stakes 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 faught

Tough brothers for a Hindi 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 checkuered board

to show it was his brother's fault

- He thus invented chess



Chess

displayed no inertia

soon spread to Persia

then west



Next

the Arabs refined it

thus redesigned - it

progressed



Still further west

And when Constantinople fell in fourteen fiftythree

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 complicated

pleasure yet divised for just the kind of mind

who would appriciate this well-researched and fascinating

yarn