今笑い後で泣く ima warai ato de naku Laugh Now, Cry Later
今笑い後で泣く (ima warai ato de naku), laugh now, cry later, renders an English motto that circulates with the paired theatre masks and has no dated history. The one Japanese proverb in its territory, 今泣いた烏がもう笑う, runs the other way: a crying child already laughing.
Abstract
今笑い後で泣く, laugh now, cry later, is Japanese for an English motto that circulates with the paired theatre masks, and nothing dated is known for the English. The Japanese is in no book to 1946 in the National Diet Library under five spellings, and in no dictionary opened. The one Japanese proverb in its territory, 今泣いた烏がもう笑う, runs the other way.
Overview
The sense. An English motto rendered into Japanese, with no Japanese life before it and no traceable author.
The words. 笑い and 泣く, laugh and cry; 今 and 後で, now and afterward.
The text in English. The English fits the Japanese.
The historical record
No date. An English motto, and a proverb that runs the other way. Laugh now, cry later circulates with the paired theatre masks as a tattoo motif, and nothing dated is known for its English; its Japanese is in no book to 1946 in the National Diet Library under five spellings [1], and in no dictionary. The one Japanese proverb in the same territory runs the other way: 今泣いた烏がもう笑う, the crow that was crying a moment ago is already laughing, said of a child's quick change of mood, first cited from Saitō Ryokuu's 門三味線 of 1895; it means fickleness, not consequence, and is not this saying [2].
What is not a source. The motto has no source in either language. 今泣いた烏がもう笑う is named here so it is not later taken for the ancestor of 今笑い後で泣く; it is the opposite saying.
A reading
Honest Japanese for an English motto with no author, which is not a fault. Its one Japanese neighbor is a child's tears turning to laughter; the motto runs from laughter to tears.
References
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 今笑い後で泣く in five spellings, 0 books to 1946. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
- 「今泣いた烏がもう笑う」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/今泣いた烏がもう笑う-435773