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花は桜木人は武士 hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi Among Flowers the Cherry, Among Men the Warrior

Its earliest printing read is a seventeenth-century comic verse credited to the monk Ikkyū. There the warrior heads all people, and Yoshino all flowers.

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Japanese Scroll of Among Flowers the Cherry, Among Men the Warrior (hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Among Flowers the Cherry, Among Men the Warrior花は桜木人は武士hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

花は桜木人は武士 hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi is defined in デジタル大辞泉 as 花では桜が第一であるように、人では潔い武士が第一であるということ, as among flowers the cherry is first, so among people the clean-hearted warrior is first, and JMdict marks it a proverb [1][2]. The earliest witness I read, 『尤之双紙』 in its 1634 printing (first printed 1632), puts it in a list: a section on 物のかしらの品々, the heads of all kinds of things, from the gods to the twelve signs, closes on a comic verse (狂歌) it credits to the Zen monk 一休, 人は武士 はしらはひの木 うをは鯛 小袖はこうばい 花はみよし野, among people the warrior, among pillars cypress, among fish the sea bream, among robes the plum-red, among flowers Yoshino [3][4]. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典's first instance, 『仮名手本忠臣蔵』 (1748), quotes it to turn it over, a warrior telling a merchant no warrior could match his resolve; every English rendering read here, from Nitobe Inazō's Bushido (1900) on, gives the ranking sense, and Nitobe himself, in 1919, called the age that sang it over [1][5][6][7]. I read the saying as a ranking before it was anything else, and today, in the dictionaries and in most of the recent prose read, as a proverb of excellence and of the cherry.

Overview

The sense. デジタル大辞泉: 花では桜が第一であるように、人では潔い武士が第一であるということ, as among flowers the cherry is first, so among people the clean-hearted warrior is first [1]. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (日国), under 花: 花では桜がすぐれており、人では武士がすぐれている, among flowers the cherry excels, among people the warrior excels, and it gives 花は桜に as a variant [1]. ことわざを知る辞典 gives the same sense and adds, in its note, that the Japanese esteem for the cherry, for its brilliance in bloom and the grace of its falling (散り際の潔さ), arose against the background of the warrior class's rise [1]. JMdict 2828341, marked proverb: the best flowers are the cherry blossoms, the best individuals are the samurai; as the cherry blossom is first among flowers, so is the warrior first among men [2].

The words. 桜木 sakuragi is 桜の木, a cherry tree, and デジタル大辞泉 gives this saying as its example [8]. 武士 bushi is the warrior. は marks each topic: as for flowers, the cherry; as for people, the warrior. The two halves are set side by side with no verb, as in a list.

The reading. はなはさくらぎひとはぶし in JMdict; hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi [2].

The historical record

1632, 1634 and 1649. The last line of a list. 『尤草紙』 (also 『尤之双紙』) is a 仮名草子, a book in kana, of lists in the manner of 『枕草子』, credited to 斎藤徳元 and printed in Kyoto in 1632 [9]. The National Diet Library's record for its copy of the 1649 printing says there was no movable-type edition, that the first was printed by 恩阿斎 in 1632, and that a 1634 printing by 中野道伴 and the 1649 printing by 藤井吉兵衛 followed [4]. In the 1634 printing, held by the National Institute of Japanese Literature and read at the page, section 三 of the second volume opens on frame 6 [3]; its heading, read in the 1649 printing, is 物乃かしら乃品々, the heads of all kinds of things [4]. Its entries begin with the head of the seven generations of heavenly gods, 国常立尊, and run on through emperors, sects and animals to 十二支のかしらは子, the head of the twelve signs is the rat, and the heads of scales, feathers, the naked, fur and shell: 龍, 鳳凰, 人, 麒麟, 亀, among them 裸乃かしらハ人, the head of the naked creatures is man [3][4]. Then:

有时。一休和尚乃狂哥に 人は武士　はしらはひの木　うをは鯛 小袖はこうばい　花はみよし野

Once, in a comic verse of the priest Ikkyū: among people the warrior, among pillars cypress, among fish the sea bream, among robes the plum-red, among flowers Yoshino. The words quoted are the 1649 printing's, in the same place in that book [4]; the 1634 printing has the same verse [3]. Both write 时, the short form of 時, and 乃 for の, and the は of each pair is the kana form from 者; the kana after 狂哥 is read as に. The 1632 edition itself is not opened here. 一休宗純 lived from 1394 to 1481, and デジタル大辞泉 says the witty tales told of him are of later date (世に伝えられる頓智咄は後世のもの) [10]. The book gives the verse to him about a century and a half after his death, and no earlier source for it is read here.

By 1701. A proverb in a play. In 近松門左衛門's 『蝉丸』, first staged at the 竹本座 in Osaka in 1701 by デジタル大辞泉 (日国 calls 1701 a revival and puts the first performance before February 1693), a line reads 花は三吉野人は武士、譽は雲井にかほりける, among flowers Yoshino, among people the warrior; his fame was fragrant up to the clouds: read in a 1910 typeset, whose editor glosses it by quoting the verse from 『尤草紙』, a comic verse on the heads of things (物の頭を詠じたる狂歌) [11][12].

1748. Quoted to be overturned. In act ten of 『仮名手本忠臣蔵』, 大星由良助, the leader of the loyal retainers, bows to the merchant 天河屋義平, whom a line a few columns earlier calls a townsman born (生れながらの町人), and says [5][13]:

花は櫻木、人は武士と申せども、いつかな〳〵武士も及ばぬ御所存

They say among flowers the cherry, among people the warrior; but never, never could a warrior match your resolve. This is 日国's first instance [1]. The words here are those of an 1884 丸本-style typeset and an 1895 typeset, read at the page; the 1748 丸本 is located in the University of Tokyo's 黒木文庫 copy, on frame 87, and not transcribed [5][13][14].

1766. A braggart's line. In 上田秋成's first book, the 浮世草子 『諸道聴耳世間猿』 (1766), a speaker uses it of himself (the chapter read in part): 立も居るも花ハ三吉野人ハ武士, standing or sitting, among flowers Yoshino, among people the warrior: read at the page in an 1839 printing [15][16].

1887. The cherry's fall and the warrior's death. The National Diet Library's full-text search, oldest first, finds the saying set beside dying in 1887. A snippet of the journal 『教育報知』 (December 1887), not opened at its page, reads after the saying: 散るべき時に散りてころ眞の花と云ふべけれ死そべき時に死してころ眞の武士と云ふべけれ (the snippet prints ころ and 死そ, read here as こそ and 死す), only a flower that falls when it should fall is a true flower; only a warrior who dies when he should die is a true warrior [17]. This is a snippet, one witness, and not a floor.

1900. Into English. Nitobe Inazō, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, first edition, p. 107: "As among flowers the cherry is queen, so among men the samurai is Lord," so sang the populace [6].

1911–14. A state school song. The Ministry of Education's 『尋常小学唱歌』 was published in six volumes from 1911 to 1914 [18]. Its song 靖国神社, Yasukuni Shrine, for the fourth year, begins: 花は櫻木人は武士 その櫻木に圍まるる 世を靖國の御社よ 御國の爲にいさぎよく 花と散りにし人々の 魂はここにぞ鎭まれる, Among flowers the cherry, among people the warrior: shrine that brings peace to the land, ringed by those cherry trees; here rest the spirits of those who for their country fell like blossoms, cleanly. These words are read in search snippets that agree, five of them read here (1913 to 1959); the library serves no page image for the three items tried, so the song's own page is not opened here [19].

1919. Nitobe calls it over. In 「平民道」, the way of the common people (『実業之日本』, 1 May 1919), Nitobe argues that 武士道 was a class morality, and that the class is gone [7]:

昔の如く「花は桜木、人は武士」と謳った時代は過ぎ去って、武士を理想あるいは標準とする道徳もこれまた時世後れであろう。

The age that sang, as of old, "among flowers the cherry, among people the warrior" has passed, and a morality that takes the warrior as its ideal or its standard is likewise out of date. He allows that, with 士 taken broadly as any educated person of standing, to sing 「花は桜木、人は士」 would not be out of date (あな勝ち時代錯誤ではあるまい); he calls for 平民道 in place of 武士道, and names 平民道 the extension of 武士道 (平民道は武士道の延長) [7].

The English, 1915 to 1965. Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary (1915) uses it twice as an example: As the cherry is chief of flowers, so is the samurai chief of men (p. 37) and What the cherry is among flowers, that is the samurai among men (p. 1370), each with 花は櫻木人は武士 [20]. Huzii's Japanese Proverbs (1940), among proverbs that seem to be traceable to warrior life (p. 46): Cherry-blossoms of all flowers: Busi (warriors) of all men (p. 47) [21]. Okada's Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1958): Among blossoms, the cherry; among men, the warrior (p. 50), and Just as it had, and still has, pride of place among the flowers of this country, so the two-sworded samurai was highly esteemed in feudal Japan for his character. Hence this parallelism (p. 53) [22]. Buchanan's Japanese Proverbs and Sayings (1965), writing hana wa sakura: The cherry blossom among flowers, the warrior among men … Both are supreme in their line, a proverb that originated during the feudal period (pp. 119–120) [23].

Today. The library's full-text search, newest first, returns 6,873 items for the exact string; the snippets read from the most recent show it as a stock proverb in ordinary prose: a credit-union monthly (2012) says any Japanese has probably heard it; a retail-trade monthly (2011) quotes it with the rest of the list, pillars cypress, fish sea bream; a book on the Kobe earthquake's recovery (2005) lists it beside 花より団子 among words about flowers; a business monthly ties it to the cherry's clean fall and to 忠臣蔵 [24]. One writer (2004) calls it a thing said before the war (戦前は「花は桜木人は武士」といわれて) [24]. An army veterans' association's magazine quotes it at cherry-viewing parties (2004, 2009) and reprints a military song that carries it [24].

A reading

The saying begins as a ranking. Its first printed form is one line of a verse that names the best of each kind, pillars and fish and robes along with people and flowers, and the verse closes a list of heads that begins with the gods [3][4]. The flower in that verse is named by a place, Yoshino; the cherry tree, 桜木, comes later, and by 1748 the saying is common enough to be quoted and turned: a warrior bowing to a merchant [5]. Every English rendering read gives that sense, first among, supreme in their line [6][20][21][22][23], and so do the dictionaries, though デジタル大辞泉 gives the warrior as 潔い, clean-hearted, and ことわざを知る辞典 ties the esteem for the cherry to the grace of its fall [1]. The cherry's fall as the warrior's death is in print by 1887 and stood at the head of a state school song from the 1910s [17][19]; Nitobe, whose 1900 rendering is the earliest English read here, said in 1919 that its age was over [7]. Today it reads, in most of what I read, as a proverb of excellence and of the cherry, with the war chapter as a chapter of its history [1][2][24]. Hung as a scroll, it says what it said in 1634: of each kind, there is a best. Signed, 典.

Notes

The forms. The witnesses write three forms. 『尤之双紙』 (1634, 1649) writes 花はみよし野, and puts 人は武士 first [3][4]. 近松 (in a 1910 typeset) and 秋成 (in an 1839 printing) write 花は三吉野人は武士 [11][15]. 『仮名手本忠臣蔵』, in the typesets read, writes 花は櫻木 [5][13]; 日国 gives 花は桜に as a variant [1]; Buchanan writes hana wa sakura [23]. The scroll's text is 花は桜木人は武士, the form デジタル大辞泉, 日国 and JMdict head [1][2]. 三吉野 and みよし野 are Yoshino, a place name; the history does not present them as the scroll's text.

一休. The verse is credited to 一休 by 『尤之双紙』, about a century and a half after his death [3][4][10]. No earlier source for the credit is read here, so this history treats it as a legend whose earliest attestation read is the 1634 printing.

The earliest known. The 1634 printing is the earliest witness read at the page; the 1632 edition is reported by the catalogues and the library's record [4][9]. The National Institute of Japanese Literature's database lists holdings of the 1634, 1649 and later printings and of undated copies, and names no copy of 1632 [25]. Whether the verse was older than the book is not known from what was read.

The war chapter. The pairing with dying (1887) and the school song (1911–14) are read in search snippets, not at their pages [17][19]. The school song's later history, and how widely the saying was used in wartime, are not measured here.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Among Flowers the Cherry, Among Men the Warrior (hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
花は桜木人は武士VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Among Flowers the Cherry, Among Men the Warrior (hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
花は桜木人は武士VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Among Flowers the Cherry, Among Men the Warrior (hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
花は桜木人は武士VD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Among Flowers the Cherry, Among Men the Warrior (hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
花は桜木人は武士VS5JSemi-Cursive

References

  1. 「花は桜木人は武士」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%8A%B1%E3%81%AF%E6%A1%9C%E6%9C%A8%E4%BA%BA%E3%81%AF%E6%AD%A6%E5%A3%AB-603288
  2. JMdict (EDRDG), entry 2828341, 花は桜木人は武士, read in the house's local copy of JMdict; online at jisho.org (its search page). https://jisho.org/search/%E8%8A%B1%E3%81%AF%E6%A1%9C%E6%9C%A8%E4%BA%BA%E3%81%AF%E6%AD%A6%E5%A3%AB
  3. 『尤之双紙』 下巻, 寛永11 (1634), 中野氏道伴版, National Institute of Japanese Literature copy, frames 6–8 (the verse on frame 8, right page), at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200015472/8
  4. 『尤之双紙』, 慶安2 (1649), 藤井吉兵衛版, scans 45–47 (the verse on scan 47, right page), and the item record's note on the editions, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533550/1/47
  5. 『仮名手本忠臣蔵』, 1895 typeset, act ten, pp. 136–137 (scan 64), at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876599/1/64
  6. Nitobe Inazō, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, first edition, Leeds & Biddle, Philadelphia, 1900, p. 107, read on the house's shelf; at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bushidosouljapa00nitogoog
  7. 新渡戸稲造, 「平民道」, 『実業之日本』 22巻10号, 1919年5月1日, read in Aozora Bunko from 『新渡戸稲造論集』 (岩波文庫, 2007). https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000718/files/50531_38559.html
  8. 「桜木」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%A1%9C%E6%9C%A8-509813
  9. 「尤草紙」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B0%A4%E8%8D%89%E7%B4%99-142510
  10. 「一休宗純」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%80%E4%BC%91%E5%AE%97%E7%B4%94-15378
  11. 近松門左衛門, 『蝉丸』, in 水谷不倒 ed., 『近松傑作全集 : 新釈插画』, 1910, p. 61 and the editor's note (scans 37–38), at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876711/1/37
  12. 「蝉丸」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%9D%89%E4%B8%B8-87681
  13. 『仮名手本忠臣蔵 : 義太夫丸本』, 1884, scan 47, p. 44, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/856352/1/47
  14. 『仮名手本忠臣蔵』, 寛延1 (1748) 丸本, University of Tokyo, Komaba, 黒木文庫 黒4142-0123, IIIF manifest (act ten from frame 80; the line on frame 87, right page). https://iiif.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/repo/iiif/4300fe01-f1dd-42ce-bbd8-c385125b1dcc/manifest
  15. 上田秋成, 『諸道聴耳世間猿』, 天保10 (1839) printing, scan 9, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554623/1/9
  16. 「諸道聴耳世間猿」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%AB%B8%E9%81%93%E8%81%B4%E8%80%B3%E4%B8%96%E9%96%93%E7%8C%BF-296200
  17. 『教育報知』, December 1887, a full-text search snippet (the item is readable in Japan only), at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3546050
  18. 「《尋常小学唱歌》」, 世界大百科事典 (旧版), under 唱歌, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B0%8B%E5%B8%B8%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%E5%94%B1%E6%AD%8C-1343748
  19. The song 靖国神社 in full-text search snippets, oldest first, among them 『小学校各教科用書に見えたる韻文の摸写的詳解』 (1913) and 『軍国日本の形成』 (1959), at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=その桜木に囲まるる&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  20. Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, S.E.G. Publishing Department, 1915, pp. 37 and 1370, read in the text layer of the copy on the house's shelf.
  21. Huzii Otoo, Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, 1940, pp. 46–47, read on the house's shelf.
  22. Okada Rokuo, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, 1958, pp. 50 and 53, read on the house's shelf.
  23. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, pp. 119–120, read on the house's shelf.
  24. 花は桜木人は武士 in the full-text search, newest first (6,873 items on 24 October 2026), snippets of the most recent items read, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=花は桜木人は武士&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_DESC
  25. 『尤之双紙』, work 7658, its list of holdings, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/7658

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-24, citations — the cited web addresses opened and the quoted words looked for at each; all 21 addresses answered with the words sought; the four books held here carry no address; nothing found to differ · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-24, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: both passed in the first round; their wordings applied, among them the list's heading as the heads of every kind rather than the best, 義平 as a townsman, the 1649 leaf's own forms 时 and 乃, and the head of the naked creatures, man, added to the list

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 花は桜木人は武士 (hana wa sakuragi hito wa bushi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/hana-wa-sakuragi-hito-wa-bushi.