EDO - selling spectacles

LINK
http://darumasan.blogspot.jp/2012/02/megane-glasses.html

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. Repairmen　and Business in Edo 江戸の修理屋 .

megane uri, meganeuri　眼鏡売り　selling glasses,
exchanging old ones for new ones

One of the first pair of glasses in Japan  in the possession of Tokugawa Ieyasu, now preserved at Kunozan 　久能山東照宮.

The vendors and repairmen of glasses were quite a news in the beginning of Edo, later people got more used to them.
They carried their merchandise in a wooden box with glasses painted on them.



They called out for their merchandise in a high-pitched voice,
meganeeya megane　めがねーーーや　めがね

hence the following senryu:

呼び声に細く長くは眼鏡売り
yobikoe ni hosoku nagaku wa meganeuri

the vendor of spectacles
calles out in a thin
and long voice



source :　runomi.at.webry.info

There were still many people who could not read or write in the beginning of the Edo period.

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