Thursday, January 18, 2018



1月18日(木曜日)2018


お正月のしめ縄飾りも外され「松の内」も終りましたが、家に残っている百人一首のかるたが面白いので写真を撮りました。先ず、一番古いものから。古い木箱にそれは入っていました。印刷でしょうが、草書で絵も描かれています。作者と上(かみ)の句が書いてあって左の赤い字は下(しも)の句の始まりです。明治の曾祖父の時代に購入されたものでしょうが、これでかるた遊びをするのは現代人にはハードルが高すぎます。当時は百人一首の和歌を諳んじていることは常識だったのでしょうが、読み手はこの草書を読まなくてはいけないし、取り手は下の句を暗記していること、またこの草書が読めなければ札を取る事ができません。この下の句を見つけるのが私には何と大変なことか。色々な情報を駆使して何とか下の句を見つけたものもありますが、文字が解読できずペアが見つけられないもがたくさんあります。使い古されたこれらの札を見るとお正月に皆が賑やかに遊んでいたことが想像できます。昔の人達の知的レベルの高さに感心します。次のかるたも木箱に入ったものですが、これは文字だけです。これは私が子供の頃に家族で遊んだ記憶があります。父が読み手となり、祖母、母、四人の兄達と私がバラバラに置かれた札の周りに丸くなって頑張って取っていたのを覚えています。私はまだ小さい子供だったので母と一緒でしたが、亡くなったすぐ上の兄が張り切って札を取っていました。最後の色付きのかるたは私が中学か高校の時に買ったものです。古き良き時代の一場面が蘇ってきます。The decoration of New Year's sacred straw rope was taken off and the New Year's celebration was over, but I would like to write a little more on a thing related to new year's entertainment. It is a card game called Hyaku-nin Isshu (One Hundred Tanka Poems by One Hundred Celebrated Poets) which my family had played for a long time. The oldest one is from the Meiji period. The cards were kept in an old wooden box. The letters are probably printed but all are written in cursive Japanese with black ink drawing. It starts with the poets' name and then the first half of the poem is on each card. The left tiny red letters are starting words of the second half poem. It is too hard for the modern Japanese people to play with these cards. One of the reasons is that unless you are familliar with those cursive style of Japanese, you can not read the poem although old people could easily read those. The other reason is that you should memorize the second half of the poem beforehand because it is the game to take the card with the second half of the poem when you hear the first half and it seems that the reader doesn't give much clue. These hundred cards should be paired, but I haven't found many of the second cards yet because it is so difficult to read cursive letters for me. I highly respect old people who were educated and played with those cards. Another completely different set of cards were also in the wooden box and those are newer than the first one. Those are letters only. I remember that my family played with those on new year's day. My father was a reader and my grandmother, mother, my four brothers and I sat around the scattered cards on which the second half of the poems were written. Since I was small, I sat with my mom. My youngest brother was very excited to play the game. I recall the old good days of new year's day.