Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight

七転八起, read nana korobi ya oki: fall down seven times, get up eight. The arithmetic is the point: seven falls need only seven risings, and the proverb asks for one more. It is already called a saying in an Edo picture book, where a rat consoles a boy who keeps slipping in golden straw sandals, and for a century it was a consolation about luck, said to someone in trouble: bad is followed by good. The resolve the scroll carries, not giving up, getting up once more than one is knocked down, is what Meiji read into the four characters when it began using them as a word for a whole life, and it is what the daruma doll, which rights itself when pushed over, has stood for in print ever since. The phrase is cut on an older Zen idiom that shares three of its characters, 七転八倒, to writhe in agony, with the last verb turned from topple to rise. The English title is David Galef's, from Even Monkeys Fall from Trees (1987), where he sets it beside If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The Japanese phrase 七転八起 meaning "Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight" is composed of the kanji 七 (read nana) meaning "seven", 転 (read korobi) meaning "to fall", 八 (read ya) meaning "eight", and 起 (read oki) meaning "to get up".

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