言わぬが花 iwanu ga hana Not Saying Is A Flower

Some things are better unsaid; said outright they lose their flavor and their grace. The proverb is about the beauty of the unsaid, and silence is golden, its English equation since 1904, is its prudent cousin about the safety of not speaking. It is an Edo saying, in print by 1729 in a Kyoto book of comic verse and sung in a kabuki love song of 1766, and a younger cousin of a Heian proverb of unspoken love in the Tale of Genji: not saying surpasses saying.

The novelist Tsubouchi Shōyō turned it on his own art in 1886: is it the flower for the author not to say, and the flower too for the reader to work it out?

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 言わぬが花.

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