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

石の上にも三年 (ishi no ue ni mo sannen), three years, even on a stone, is a proverb of endurance that once had a second half, sit three years even on a stone and it warms. 井原西鶴 quoted it in 1694 as a saying of the people, in advice to tradesmen not to leave the place they have settled.

Japanese Scroll of On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen)

On a stone for three years (ishi no ue ni mo sannen) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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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 dictionaries name 毛吹草 of 1638 as the first witness without quoting it; the first dated sentence is 井原西鶴's of 1694, which quotes the short form, six characters and no verb, and marks it a saying of the people; the English begins in 1918, in the first Kenkyūsha dictionary, as it is a long lane that has no turning. The Indian monk the web attaches to it has no witness and no stone in his own legend, and the Edo pairing with Bodhidharma 達磨 at his wall is a joke, not a source.

Overview

The sense. One sense from 1694 to today: endurance is repaid [1]. 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 six 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 a place of business and the three years the time for custom to warm [2]; the 1933 dictionary's use is the go-between's, the stone a cold household [3]; the modern ear, the ことわざを知る辞典 says, often hears only get used to it [1].

The words. 石の上, ishi no ue, is on a stone, a rock rather than a paving stone; the one Edo picture of the proverb puts its hero on a garden boulder [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 not as a count but 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 [5][6]. The dictionary dates the shortening to the late seventeenth century, and warns that without the verb many now hear the proverb as stay long enough and you get used to it, which is not what the stone said [1].

The proverb in English. The proverb enters the bilingual dictionaries 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 sixteen other bilingual dictionaries of 1902 to 1948 have no entry for it [12]. The English proverb books carry it from Okada 1958, who keeps the warming stone [13]; Buchanan 1965 gives it the parallel perseverance brings success [14]; Corwin 1968 has the stone wear out [15]; the postwar Kenkyūsha dictionaries keep the 1918 sense and drop the long lane [16][17][18]; Maynard 1993 draws the sitter [19]; Trimnell 2004 gives the six characters as they stand [20]. Galef (1987, 2000) and Zona (1996) do not carry it [21][22][23].

The historical record

1638. 毛吹草, 松江重頼's haikai handbook, the list of sayings. The 精選版日本国語大辞典's first witness, given as the source without a quotation [1]. The first six half-leaves of the proverb section in the 1662 printing do not carry the line, and no transcribed copy answers a full-text search at the National Institute of Japanese Literature [24]. A collection of 1901 gives the early form as 石の上にも三年すめばあたたまる and hangs 毛吹草 on it [5].

1694. 井原西鶴, 西鶴織留, book four, the first sentence of the first chapter. 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云に傳へし, 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. Two things are on the leaf that the dictionaries flatten: 西鶴 quotes the short form, six characters and no verb, and he marks it 俗云 with the reading ぞくげん, a saying in the mouth of the people. 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].

The eighteenth century. A 気質物, a character-sketch book. 石の上にも三年居れば煖ま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. It is quoted in 藤井乙男's 諺語大辞典 of 1910; the book is not identified [25].

1791. 石上三之助辛抱, a comic book by 樹下石上. The proverb taken literally for a laugh: a young 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, since 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 … 辛抱, the proverb glossed with the word for endurance [26].

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 [27].

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 [25].

1933. 中野吉平, 俚諺大辞典. The one dictionary 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 the use the 1933 reading comes from: a go-between quoting 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 [28]. 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 [29]. 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 [28]. What Edo did tie to it is Bodhidharma's nine years at the wall, as a joke about two long sittings, in the 1844 manuscript [27], a 1914 book of comic proverb glosses [30] and two almanacs; a pairing, not a source. No source cited here claims a Chinese origin; 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, the first Kenkyūsha 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 [16].

1958. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 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 [13]. The first English proverb book cited here to carry it, and the first English 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 [14]. 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 [15]. The one rendering that keeps the stone and loses the sitting.

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 [17][18]. 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 [19]. 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 [20]. The six characters as they stand, verb dropped.

Today. JMdict: perseverance prevails; three years on a (cold) stone (will make the stone warm), the Edo verb restored in parentheses. 研究社: Perseverance will win in the end [31]. The house title, On a stone for three years, is the six 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; the stone and its warming reach English with Okada in 1958, and the one rendering that keeps the stone, Corwin's wear out a stone, loses the sitting. The one open textual question is the 1638 verb, 居れば or すめば, and it waits on the leaf.

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, 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. A local mirror of the National Diet Library's digitized prewar books, searched on 石の上 and ishi no ue and three years on and cold stone in sixteen bilingual dictionaries of 1902 to 1948, from 和英会話辞書 (1902) to 集約英和辞典 (1948); the list and the counts are held in the research record.
  13. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1958, p. 68 (the shelved copy).
  14. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, p. 159.
  15. Charles Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, p. 183, under gaman (the shelved copy).
  16. 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).
  17. 増田綱 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th ed., Kenkyūsha, Tokyo, 1974, p. 555, s.v. ishi (the shelved copy).
  18. 市川三喜 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Collegiate Japanese-English Dictionary, 3rd ed., Kenkyūsha, Tokyo, 1983, p. 65, s.v. いし (the shelved copy).
  19. Michael L. Maynard and Senko K. Maynard, 101 Japanese Idioms, Passport Books, 1993, no. 70, pp. 146–147 (the shelved copy).
  20. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, 2004, p. 60.
  21. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees, Tuttle, 1987.
  22. David Galef, Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, Tuttle, 2000.
  23. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, 1996.
  24. 『毛吹草』, 1662 printing, National Institute of Japanese Literature, BID 100306717, canvases 51–53. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100306717
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 『麗斎叢書』35, manuscript, National Diet Library pid 2577191, scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2577191/1/25
  28. 「石の上にも三年」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/石の上にも三年
  29. 「脇尊者」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/脇尊者-52865
  30. 『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
  31. 「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, Takase Studios LLC)

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

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