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石の上にも三年 ishi no ue ni mo sannen On a stone for three years

Japanese Scroll of On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
石の上にも三年 Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

石の上にも三年, three years, even on a stone, is a proverb of endurance, and it once had a second half: 石の上にも三年居れば温まる, sit three years even on a stone and it warms. The haikai handbook 毛吹草, with a preface of 1638, already lists it in the long form; the earliest dated sentence known is 井原西鶴's, printed in 1694 after his death, which quotes the short form, seven characters and no verb, and marks it a saying of the people; among the books searched here the English begins in 1918, in 武信由太郎's Kenkyūsha dictionary, beside it is a long lane that has no turning. The Indian monk the web attaches to it has no witness cited here and no stone in his legend as the encyclopedia tells it, and the Edo pairing with Bodhidharma 達磨 at his wall is a joke, not a source.

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Overview

The sense. Today's sense is that endurance is repaid [1]; the uses read here bend it, to staying put, to a complaint, to warmth between people. What moved is the image. With the verb, the stone warms and the sitter is rewarded; without it, from the late seventeenth century on, the seven characters name only the sitting, and the reward has to be supplied by the hearer [1]. 西鶴's use is advice to tradesmen not to move shop, the stone, as I read it, a place of business and the three years the time to settle in, before the pots and pans have cooled (鍋釜ぬくもりもさめぬに) [2]; the 1933 dictionary reads the warmth as between people, and its twin entry names a bride and her mother-in-law [3]; and not a few now take it, the ことわざを知る辞典 notes, to mean put up with it long enough and you get used to it [1].

The words. 石の上, ishi no ue, is on a stone; the one Edo picture of the proverb found here seats its hero on a stone he has bought [4]. にも is even on, and the も is the proverb's concession. 三年, sannen, three years, which the ことわざを知る辞典 reads less as a strict count than as the symbolic span in which one settles into a new place or work [1]. The proverb once had a second half: 石の上にも三年居れば温まる, sit three years even on a stone and it warms, where 居る means to sit [1]; a collection of 1901 gives すめは, dwell, in its place, and a book of 1718 writes 居れや [5][6]. The dictionary has the short form settling gradually from about the end of the seventeenth century, and notes that, the warming image lost, not a few now take the proverb to mean put up with it long enough and you get used to it, which is not what the stone said [1].

The proverb in English. Among the bilingual dictionaries searched here, the proverb is first found in 1918, in 武信由太郎's 和英大辞典, twice: under 石, Perseverance prevails (wins). It is a long lane that has no turning, and under 三年, It's dogged does it [7]. It is not in Hepburn (1872, 1888), Brinkley (1896) or Inouye (1909) at their entries for 石 [8][9][10][11], and nineteen other dictionaries of 1902 to 1948, each read on the page where it would stand, do not carry it either: thirteen ordered by the Japanese word (three of them, of 1915 to 1925, are Japanese dictionaries in romaji order that give an English word only here and there), and six English-Japanese dictionaries at stone, perseverance and patience [12]. Two of the six meet the English proverbs of patience with other Japanese: a phrase book of 1904 sets 點滴も石を穿つ beside Little strokes fell great oaks, and a dictionary of 1911 turns Patience wears out stones word for word into 忍耐は石を磨損す [12]. Of the English proverb books opened here, Huzii 1940 is the first to carry it, as his example of the iroha sayings, with the sitting and no warmth [13]; Okada, in the second edition of 1958 read here (the first, of 1955, not opened), is the first to keep the warming stone [14]; Buchanan 1965 gives it the parallel perseverance brings success [15]; Corwin 1968 has the stone wear out [16]; the postwar Kenkyūsha dictionaries keep the 1918 sense and drop the long lane [17][18][19]; Maynard 1993 draws the sitter [20]; Trimnell 2004 gives the seven characters as they stand [21]. In the text layers of Galef (1987, 2000) and Zona (1996) it is not found [22][23][24].

The historical record

1638. 毛吹草, 松江重頼's haikai handbook, the list of sayings. The handbook carries a preface dated 1638 and was printed in 1645 [25]; its second book holds a list of some seven hundred sayings, 世話付古語. The list has the proverb with its second half, in kana but for 三年: いしのうへにも三年ゐれバあたゝまる, sit three years even on a stone and it warms, in the line after いしにこしかけたることし, like sitting on a stone. It is read here at the leaf, in the University of Tokyo General Library's copy, a later impression of the printing with the 1638 preface, which the catalogue dates before 1655: book two, leaf 二ノ卅三 [25]. 藤井乙男's typeset reproduction of the list, of 1929, prints the same line with kanji supplied by the editor, 石のうへにも三年ゐればあたゝまる after 石に腰かけたるごとし [26]. The 日国 names the handbook as its first witness without quoting it [1]. A collection of 1901 gives the early form as 石の上にも三年すめはあたゝまる, read すめば, and hangs 毛吹草 on it, with a second collection; the handbook's own verb is ゐれバ, sit, not すめば, dwell [5][25].

1694. 井原西鶴, 西鶴織留, book four, the first sentence of the first chapter. 西鶴 died in 1693; the book was printed in 1694 [2]. 商人職人によらず住なれたる所を替る事なかれ、石の上にも三年と俗言に傳へし, whether merchant or craftsman, do not change the place you have grown used to; "three years even on a stone," as the common saying has it. On the leaf 西鶴 quotes the short form, seven characters and no verb, and marks it 俗言, with the reading ぞくご, a common saying, as the 日国 prints it. The proverb was already a proverb in 1694, and already short [2].

1718. やふにまくは, a book of the floating world. 石の上にも三年居れやぬくもる, sit three years even on a stone and it warms, with the verb still on [6].

1720. 九思軒鱗長, 和国小性形気, a character-sketch book, the first sentence of book three. 石の上にも三年居れば煖るといひならはせし世話も今は人の氣も短く, the old saying that three years' sitting warms even a stone; but people's tempers are short now. The verb kept, and already a complaint that the proverb no longer holds [27]. The author's name is 九思軒鱗長 in the National Diet Library's catalogue, and one record there writes it 九思(二)軒, so 九二軒 is also found [27]. 藤井乙男's 諺語大辞典 of 1910 quotes it, with 煖まる, under the short title 小性氣質 [28].

1791. 石上三之助辛抱, a comic book by 樹下石上. The proverb taken literally for a laugh: a man sits cross-legged on a rock with a meal tray and a kettle beside him, and いしのうへにも三年といふ事がたいくつなあれは, three years on a stone is tedious, what tires him is climbing up and down [4].

1828. 十返舎一九, 有喜世諺草. 石の上にも三年, and two columns on, in the running words beside the picture, 辛抱, the word for endurance [29].

About 1844. A manuscript miscellany, the item 達磨の辨. 石の上にも三年といへ共九年面壁の達磨あり, three years on a stone, they say, but there was Bodhidharma, nine years facing a wall, and ten years for a courtesan to become a wife: three, nine, ten, all long enough to know sweet from sour. A joke setting two famous sittings side by side [30].

1897. P. Ehmann, Die Sprichwörter und bildlichen Ausdrücke der japanischen Sprache, number 960. Ishi no ue ni mo sannen, Selbst auf einem Stein (kann man) drei Jahre (sitzen), even on a stone one can sit three years, and then: Die vollständige Form des Spr., die aber nie gebraucht wird, soll lauten, the full form of the proverb, which however is never used, is said to be the one that ends in atatamaru, it warms. A collection printed in Tokyo in 1897, then, knows the long form only as a form that is never used. Ehmann marks with a star the proverbs he takes to be Chinese, and this one has none [31].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典. 【石ノ上ニモ三年】忍耐の德に譬ふ, a figure for the virtue of endurance, with 西鶴's sentence and the 気質物's, and no source; 茨の中にも三年の辛抱, three years' endurance even among thorns, entered as its twin [28].

1933. 中野吉平, 俚諺大辞典. The one dictionary read here to read the warmth as between people: 石の如き冷かなる所にも三年辛抱すれば、相互の思情溫りて深くなる, endure three years even in a place cold as stone and the feeling between you warms and deepens; its twin entry adds 姑嫁の間も, between a mother-in-law and a bride too [3].

The dictionaries today. The 日国: たとえつらくてもしんぼう強くがんばれば、やがて報われるということ, however hard, endure and you will be repaid in time, with 毛吹草 as first witness and 西鶴 as first quotation. The ことわざを知る辞典 restores the verb, dates the shortening, and records a use in which a go-between quotes it to a new wife who wants to go home [1].

What is not a source. The web, and Japanese Wikipedia, attach an Indian monk, Pārśva 脇尊者, said to have left home at eighty and sat three years on a stone until enlightened [32]. The encyclopedia entry for the monk has the vow and the three years and no stone and no sitting: he vowed not to lay his side down until he understood, hence his name [33]. No source cited here from before this century ties him to the proverb, and Wikipedia's own sources are a temple newsletter and a 2023 magazine piece [32]. What Edo did tie to it is Bodhidharma's nine years at the wall, as a joke about two long sittings, in a manuscript of about 1844 [30], repeated in a 1914 book of comic proverb glosses [34]; a pairing, not a source. Wikipedia gives that pairing a second life as a Chinese origin, 中国が由来という説もある, on the strength of the 2023 magazine piece [32]. No source cited here from before this century makes that claim either; Ehmann in 1897 did not count the proverb among those he took for Chinese [31], and the Buddhist canon and the Chinese classics searched here have no three years on a stone. The image is domestic, a cold stone and a patient sitter.

The proverb in English

1918. 武信由太郎, 武信和英大辞典, Kenkyūsha's Japanese-English dictionary, pages 638 and 1699. Under 石: 石の上にも三年: Perseverance prevails (wins). / It is a long lane that has no turning, between 他山の石, the fault of another is a good teacher, and 點滴石を穿つ, constant dropping wears away stones. Under 三年: 石の上にも三年: It's dogged does it, after 禍も三年經ては用に立つ, there is no evil but will serve some good in the end [7]. Two English proverbs for one Japanese, and neither has a stone in it.

1939. The same dictionary, its eighty-second printing, reproduced by Harvard in 1942, page 638. 石の上にも三年. Perseverance prevails (wins). / It is a long lane that has no turning, the 1918 line with its colon become a stop [17].

1940. Huzii Otoo (藤井乙男), Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, page 38. As the example of the most familiar group of proverbs, those formed by taking for their beginnings each of the Japanese alphabet, "iroha", most of which, he says, relate to common habits, good or bad, of people, without any regard for moral points of view: ("i") "Isi no ue nimo sannen." (Sit for three years, even if on a piece of stone.) [13]. The author is the compiler of the 諺語大辞典 of 1910, where the proverb is a figure for endurance [28]. The first English proverb book cited here to carry it: the short form, the sitting carried into the English, and no warmth. The romanization is the book's own.

1958. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, second edition (first edition 1955), page 68. Ishi no ue nimo sannen. Three years' sitting even on a stone. This is one of the proverbs inculcating a cheerful endurance of the ills of life. Even a cold stone will get warm from being sat upon for a long time. Perseverance prevails, and patience may wear out a stone, and then Lord Avebury on money that comes in slowly and the long lane that has no turning [14]. The first English cited here to keep the warming.

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, page 159. Ishi no ue ni mo sannen: "Sit patiently for three years even on a rock." Perseverance will win through any difficulty, for even a cold stone will get warm if you sit on it a long time. You must not expect your undertakings to succeed immediately. English parallel: Perseverance brings success [15]. In the chapter on patience.

1968. Charles Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, page 183. Ishi no ue ni mo sannen 石の上にも三年, marked a proverb, Perseverance will even wear out a stone, in the group under 我慢, endurance [16]. The only headword rendering here that keeps the stone and loses the sitting; Okada's gloss had ended on the same figure, patience may wear out a stone [14].

1974 and 1983. Kenkyūsha's fourth edition, page 555, and its Collegiate third edition, page 65. 石の上にも三年. Perseverance will win in the end. / Perseverance brings success; the Collegiate keeps the first [18][19]. The 1918 long lane is gone.

1993. Michael L. Maynard and Senko K. Maynard, 101 Japanese Idioms, number 70, pages 146–147. "Sitting on a stone for three years" (perseverence wins in the end; endurance is a virtue.), with a drawing of a man cross-legged on a rock in the rain, a paragraph on out-sitting the competition, and a dialogue in which a shopkeeper with no customers is told Ishi no ue ni mo sannen [20]. The book's spelling of perseverance is its own.

2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, page 60. Three years upon a stone. Not many people would have the patience to spend three years sitting on a stone. It is said to encourage patience and perseverance, with the book's own square brackets around the first word of the last sentence [21]. The seven characters as they stand, verb dropped.

Today. JMdict: perseverance prevails; three years on a (cold) stone (will make the stone warm), the dropped second half restored in parentheses. 研究社: Perseverance will win in the end [35]. The house title, On a stone for three years, is the seven characters as they stand, and a reader who does not know the proverb gets a fragment, which is also what a Japanese reader of the short form gets; the page's explanation supplies the warming. What a rendering must keep is the stone, the sitting and the warmth.

A reading

西鶴, 1694, do not change the place you have grown used to, is the sentence the proverb stands on: it turns a motto into a piece of advice with a date and a speaker. The Indian monk is a modern web gloss with no witness and no stone in his own legend; the pairing with Bodhidharma is an Edo joke and is not a source. The English is older than the page once said: the 1918 dictionary already had two English proverbs for it, and neither has a stone in it; among the books opened here, the stone reaches English with Huzii in 1940 and its warming with Okada's second edition of 1958 (the first, of 1955, not opened), and the one rendering that keeps the stone, Corwin's wear out a stone, loses the sitting. The 1638 verb, long an open question, is ゐれバ, sit, in the handbook's list, not the すめば, dwell, of the 1901 collection; 西鶴's advice not to move house would have suited dwell, and it is not what the handbook says.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
石の上にも三年VB6CBlock
Japanese Scroll of On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
石の上にも三年VC6BCursive
Japanese Scroll of On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
石の上にも三年VD6BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
石の上にも三年VS5CSemi-Cursive

References

  1. 「石の上にも三年」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · デジタル大辞泉 · ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/石の上にも三年-431901
  2. 井原西鶴『西鶴織留』巻四, 1694, National Diet Library pid 2554438, scan 3. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554438/1/3
  3. 中野吉平『俚諺大辞典』, 1933, National Diet Library pid 1766149, scans 39 and 47. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1766149/1/39
  4. 樹下石上『石上三之助辛抱』, 1791, National Diet Library pid 9892703, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9892703/1/19
  5. 『皇国俚諺叢』, 1901, National Diet Library pid 767884, scan 23. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/767884/1/23
  6. 『やふにまくは』, 1718, 巻2, National Diet Library pid 2568480, scan 14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2568480/1/14
  7. 武信由太郎 編『武信和英大辞典』, 研究社, 1918, pp. 638 and 1699, National Diet Library pid 925665, scans 328 and 851. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/328
  8. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, second edition, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1872, p. 171, s.v. Ishi (the shelved copy).
  9. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, Z. P. Maruya, Tokyo, 1888, p. 208, s.v. Ishi (the shelved copy).
  10. F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 1896 (by the library's record), pp. 453–454, s.v. Ishi (the shelved copy). https://archive.org/details/cu31924082117288
  11. 井上十吉, Inouye's Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 1909, p. 578, s.v. Ishi (the shelved copy).
  12. Nineteen dictionaries in the National Diet Library's digital collection, each read on the page image. Ordered by the Japanese word, at 石 and its run of compounds: 『和英会話辞書』 1902 (pid 870192, scan 278); 『和英中辞林』 1904 (870208, scans 203–204); 『実用和英新辞典』 1906 (903029, scan 149); 『和英新辞典』 1907 (903157, scans 263–264) and 1908 (903158, scan 109); 『和英大辞林』 1909 (870204, scan 201); 『新訳和英辞典』 1911 (870153, scan 293); 上田『ローマ字びき國語辭典』 1915 (1900620, scans 181–182) and 1925 (1900619, scans 183–184); 『ABCびき日本辞典』 1917 (958671, scans 488–491); 竹原常太『スタンダード和英大辞典』 1928, the thirty-fifth printing, of the revised and enlarged edition of 1926, first published 1924, by its colophon (1126806, scan 194); 『スタンダード和英辞典』 1946, the twenty-first printing of the abridged edition first published 1941, by its colophon (1126792, scans 159–160); and 渡部『和英引用辞典』 1910, a dictionary of sayings, at its group on 忍耐 (870190, scan 109; the rest of the book by text search). Ordered by the English word, at stone, perseverance and patience: イーストレーキ・越山『新撰英和熟語集』 1904, its appendix of English proverbs (870143, scans 70, 79 and 84; Little strokes fell great oaks at appendix p. 26; the rest of the appendix by text search); 神田・南日『英和双解熟語大辞典』 1909 (990169, scans 609, 614–615 and 742–743); 新渡戸稲造 等監輯『英和俗語熟語故事大辞典』 1911 (902975, scans 474 and 655–656, and its Proverbs and Maxims, Patience wears out stones at p. 1616, scan 814); 齋藤秀三郎『熟語本位英和中辭典』 1918 (1681530, scans 480–481, 488 and 653); 岡倉由三郎『新英和中辞典』 1929 (1904907, scans 294, 299 and 401); 『集約英和辭典』 1948 (2134829, scans 108, 110 and 143). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902975/1/814
  13. Huzii Otoo (藤井乙男), Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, 1940, p. 38, read on the house's shelf; the house's copy at the page: https://takase.com/library/books/tourist-library/33-japanese-proverbs/chapter-4#p38
  14. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, second edition, 1958 (first edition 1955, by the copyright page), p. 68 (the shelved copy).
  15. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, p. 159.
  16. Charles Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, p. 183, under gaman (the shelved copy, the seventh printing of 1986).
  17. 武信由太郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, the eighty-second printing of 1939, American edition, Harvard University Press, 1942, p. 638, s.v. ishi (the shelved copy).
  18. 増田綱 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th ed., Kenkyūsha, Tokyo, 1974, p. 555, s.v. ishi (the shelved copy, the twenty-fourth impression of 1991).
  19. 市川繁治郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Collegiate Japanese-English Dictionary, 3rd ed., Kenkyūsha, Tokyo, 1983, p. 65, s.v. いし (the shelved copy).
  20. Michael L. Maynard and Senko K. Maynard, 101 Japanese Idioms, Passport Books, 1993, no. 70, pp. 146–147 (the shelved copy).
  21. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, 2004, p. 60.
  22. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees, Tuttle, 1987.
  23. David Galef, Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, Tuttle, 2000.
  24. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, 1996.
  25. 松江重頼『毛吹草』, 巻二 世話付古語, leaf 二ノ卅三, preface 1638; a later impression of the printing with the preface of 寛永15 (1638), dated 寛永–承応 (before 1655) by the catalogue, the University of Tokyo General Library copy (連歌俳諧集成), canvas 67, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100419933/67 — the printing of 1645 (正保2) and the preface of 1638, 「毛吹草」, its dictionary entries at kotobank (精選版 日本国語大辞典: 寛永一五年序、正保二年刊). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%AF%9B%E5%90%B9%E8%8D%89-490969
  26. 藤井乙男『諺の研究』, 1929, the 毛吹草 chapter, p. 266, National Diet Library pid 1452761, scan 140. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/140
  27. 九思軒鱗長『和国小性形気』, 享保5 (1720), 巻三, National Diet Library pid 11223237, scan 3. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11223237/1/3
  28. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 1910, National Diet Library pid 862766, scans 45 and 70. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/45
  29. 十返舎一九『有喜世諺草』, 1828, National Diet Library pid 10300971, scan 6. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10300971/1/6
  30. 『麗斎叢書』35, manuscript, National Diet Library pid 2577191, scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2577191/1/25
  31. P. Ehmann, Die Sprichwörter und bildlichen Ausdrücke der japanischen Sprache, Supplement to the Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, Tokyo, 1897, p. 100, no. 960. https://archive.org/details/mitteilungender13unkngoog/page/n128
  32. 「石の上にも三年」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/石の上にも三年
  33. 「脇尊者」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/脇尊者-52865
  34. 『いろは諺新釈』, 1914, p. 116, National Diet Library pid 913076, scan 64. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/913076/1/64
  35. 「石の上にも三年」, JMdict · 研究社 新和英中辞典, at Weblio 英和・和英辞典. https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/石の上にも三年

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations

Research depth: step 6 of our 10-step ladder, English sources · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 石の上にも三年 (ishi no ue ni mo sannen)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/ishi-no-ue-ni-mo-sannen.