Page:Child-life in Japan and Japanese child stories (Ayrton, Matilida Chaplin. , 1901).djvu/76

58 are rid of their cards first, win the game. The one holding the last card is the loser. If he be a boy, he has his face marked curiously with ink. If a girl, she has a paper or wisp of straw stuck in her hair.

The One Verse (from each of the) Hundred Poets game consists of two hundred cards, on which are inscribed the one hundred stanzas or poems so celebrated and known in every household. A stanza of Japanese poetry usually consists of two parts, a first and second, or upper and lower clause. The manner of playing the game is as follows: The reader reads half the stanza on his card, and the player, having the card on which the other half is written, calls out, and makes a match. Some children become so familiar with these poems that they do not need to hear the entire half of the stanza read, but frequently only the first word.

The game of Ancient Odes, that named after the celebrated Genji (Minamoto) family of the Middle Ages, and the Shi Garuta are all card-games of a similar nature, but can be thoroughly enjoyed only by well-educated Chinese scholars, as the references and quotations are written in Chinese and require a good knowledge of the Chinese and Japanese classics to play them well. To boys who are eager to become proficient in Chinese it often acts as an incentive to be told that