Arbiter:   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      Ensemble:   Not much is known   Of early days of chess beyond a fairly vague report      Male Solo:   That fifteen hundred years ago two princes fought   Though brothers, for a Hindu throne      Female Solo:   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      Female Ensemble:   Sad beyond belief   She told her winning son      Female Solo:   You have caused such grief   I can't forgive this evil thing you've done      Male Ensemble:   He tried to explain    How things had really been      Male Solo:   But he tried in vain    No words of his could mollify the queen      Female Solo:   And so he asked the wisest men he knew   The way to lessen her distress      Arbiter:   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      All:   They thus invented chess      Male ensemble:   Chess displayed no inertia   Soon spread to Persia, then west      Female ensemble:   Next the Arabs refined it,   Thus redesigned, it progressed      Male Solo:   Still further yet   And when Constantinople fell in 1453   One would have noticed every other refugee   Included in his bags a set      Female Solo:   Once in the hands    And in the minds of leading figures of the Renaissance      Male Solo:   The spirit and the speed of chess made swift advance   Through all of Europe's vital lands      Ensemble:   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      Arbiter:   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