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急がば回れ isogaba maware In a Hurry, Go the Long Way Round

急がば回れ (isogaba maware) means: in a hurry, go the long way round. It is the fourth line of a poem about a ferry on Lake Biwa and the long bridge at Seta. The poem was written down a century before the book that gives it its usual author.

Japanese Scroll of In a Hurry, Go the Long Way Round (isogaba maware) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
In a Hurry, Go the Long Way Round急がば回れisogaba maware

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

急がば回れ, if you are in a hurry, go round, is the Japanese proverb for taking the sure road over the risky shortcut, and it is the fourth line of a waka on the crossing at the south end of Lake Biwa: もののふの矢橋の舟は早くとも急がば回れ瀬田の長橋, the warrior's ferry from Yabase may be quicker, but if you are in a hurry go round by the long bridge at Seta. The reference books give the poem to the renga master 宗長 Sōchō, after a collection of comic tales of 1628; the oldest witness read for this history, the anthology 雲玉和歌抄, finished in 1514 by its colophon, sets it more than a century earlier under the Heian poet 源俊頼 Minamoto no Toshiyori, with its compiler's word that it is the reason of the world. The saying stands alone in a list of proverbs in a book whose preface is dated 1638, and as 急げば廻る, hurry, and you go round, in a list dated by its heading to the 1580s and known through a copy of 1773; it came into English in 1872, and was soon matched there to more haste, less speed. I read the proverb as the poem's line, a maxim from its first appearance, and hold the dictionary's other view beside it.

Overview

The sense. デジタル大辞泉: 早く着こうと思うなら、危険な近道より遠くても安全確実な方法をとったほうが早く目的を達することができるというたとえ, a figure saying that if you want to arrive sooner, you reach your goal sooner by the safe and sure way, however far, than by the dangerous shortcut. ことわざを知る辞典 adds that in anything haste raises the risk, so one should choose a sure means though it seems slow [1]. 大辞泉 notes under 急ぐ that the proverb's 急ぐ is about the speed of acting, where せいては事を仕損ずる, haste spoils the work, uses せく, a mind not at rest [2].

The words. 急がば is 急ぐ, to hurry, in the conditional of the classical language: if you hurry. 回れ (廻れ, and in older spelling まはれ) is the imperative of 回る, to go round [2][3]. The poem's places are on the Tōkaidō at the south end of Lake Biwa. 矢橋 (Yabase), in today's Kusatsu, was the landing of a ferry across the lake to Ōtsu, which in the Edo period served as a shortcut on the Tōkaidō [4]. 瀬田の長橋, the long bridge at Seta, is another name for the 瀬田の唐橋 [5]; the land road went round the lake by it, and the hurried took the boat (1650 to 1695, below).

The text in English. The first English rendering read for this history is in the second edition of Hepburn's Japanese-English dictionary, 1872: if you are in a hurry go around [6]. Later books render it make a detour, take a roundabout way, take the roundabout route, and set it beside English proverbs: the more haste, the less speed, make haste slowly, haste makes waste [7][8][9][10][11][12].

The historical record

1514. 雲玉和歌抄: the poem, under 源俊頼. 衲叟馴窓, the compiler, finished this anthology of old poems with his own comments in 1514, by the colophon of the copy read, 永正十一年四月六日作者衲叟馴窓書之 [13]. In its miscellaneous book, after a poem of Tsurayuki's, it sets 題しらす, topic unknown, with the name 俊頼 at the foot of the column, and then the poem: ものゝふのやはせの舟ははやくともいそかはまはれせたの長はし [13]. The compiler's comment follows at once: 此哥世上のことはり人の覚悟諸事に渡るへし, this poem is the reason of the world; a person's readiness should reach to all things [13]. The copy read, at the ノートルダム清心女子大学, records an exemplar of 1566 [13]; two modern typesets of other copies, of 1967 and 1968, carry the same poem and comment, one with 俊頼's name [14][15]. 源俊頼 died in 1129 [16]. Whether he wrote the poem is not settled here: his own collection, 散木奇歌集, could not be searched with any instrument the house holds (see Notes). The anthology gives it to him; it is the oldest witness of the poem read.

1580s, by its heading. 急げば廻る in a list of sayings. A list called 北條氏直時代諺留, proverbs noted from the time of Hōjō Ujinao, heads itself 北條氏直ノ時分ノ諺思合する事ども多キ故ニ書留之, the proverbs of Ujinao's time, written down because so many of them ring true [17]. 北条氏直 was head of the Later Hōjō from 1580 until Hideyoshi took Odawara in 1590 [18]. Among its sayings is いそげばまわる, hurry, and you go round: a statement, not the poem's imperative [17]. The list is known through a copy: its colophon says that 多賀常政 copied it in 1773 from a book said to be in the hand of the father of 物茂卿, that is 荻生徂徠, and a later hand recopied that in 1790 [17]. The encyclopedia names 徂徠's father 方庵 (1626–1706); the colophon writes 蓬庵 [19][17]. 藤井乙男 found the six-leaf manuscript in the library of Tokyo Imperial University, judged it lost in the earthquake of 1923, and printed his own copy in full in 1929 [17]. So the date of the saying here is the list's heading, carried by a copy of 1773. 中野吉平's dictionary of proverbs (1933) and a handbook of 1978 cite this list for 急げば廻る [20][21]; ことわざを知る辞典's current by the sixteenth century names no witness [1].

1623 to 1628. 醒睡笑: the poem, under 宗長. 安楽庵策伝's collection of comic tales, compiled by 1623 and presented in 1628 [22], has an entry on the proverb: いそかはまはれといふ事は。ものごとにあるべき遠慮なり。宗長のよめる, the saying "if you are in a hurry, go round" is a caution that belongs to everything; Sōchō composed: and the poem [23]. 宗長 (1448–1532) was a renga master of the late Muromachi period [24]. So the attribution the reference books carry is a century younger than the 1514 witness, and the poem's first reader had already made it a maxim for everything. The print read at the National Diet Library, of 1658 by the library's record, writes the first line 武士(ものゝふ)のやばせのわたりちかくとも, though the Yabase crossing is near [23]; the typesets of 1912 and 1931 have though the boat is quick, the form 雲玉 has [25][26]. Both texts run on: near in 諺草 (printed 1701), as 藤井乙男's dictionary of 1910 reports it [27][28], in 世間手代気質 (1730) [29] and in 武道初心集 [30]; quick in 人倫訓蒙図彙 (1690), まことぐさ (1692), 世話重宝記 (1695) and 明倫歌集 [31][32][33][34].

1638. 毛吹草: the saying alone. 松江重頼's haikai handbook carries in its second book a list of common sayings, 世話付古語, and いそがばまはれ stands in it as one saying among others, between like a bird starting up at your feet and the fast ox reaches Yodo, and so does the slow [35][36]. The list is dated by its preface, 1638 [37]. It is the oldest witness read of the imperative form standing without the poem.

1650 to 1695. Two forms, a recent poem or an old one. 安原貞室's 片言 (1650), a book on correct speech, takes up whether isogeba mawaru, the form the 諺留 writes, is a wrong way to say isogaba maware, calls the poem perhaps a poem of recent times, and adds that 勢多からげ, hitching up the skirts for the long road by Seta, may have come from going round there (read in a typeset of 1931) [38]. まことぐさ (1692), which by the library's record is a retitled reprint of articles taken from 片言, has the same words, read at the leaf: いそげばまはるといふは あしき詞かといへり。近(ちか)き代(よ)の哥にや, they ask whether saying isogeba mawaru is a wrong word; perhaps a poem of recent times [32]. 人倫訓蒙図彙 (1690), describing the Yabase ferryman, writes that the land road round by Seta is easy, but travelers in a hurry take this boat, and calls the poem 古哥, an old poem, with no name [31]. 世話重宝記 (1695) says the saying comes from the poem and gives it to 宗長法師 [33]. Within fifty years of 醒睡笑 the books disagree on whether the poem was old or new, and on whose it was.

c. 1725. 武道初心集: not for the road alone. 大道寺友山's book of instruction for samurai, written about 1725 and first printed in 1834 [39], turns the poem to account in its article on travel. A retainer should not take the 四日市 boat or the 粟津 boat because the way is shorter: if he meets wind and waves on the 桑名 crossing that the whole realm uses, he can account for it, but if a mishap comes on a side road of his own clever choosing, he has nothing to say. It quotes the poem, with near, as a poem of the ancients, and ends that this frame of mind is not for the road alone but for everything [30]. The turn is to accountability more than to safety.

1862. 明倫歌集: 俊頼 again, from 雲玉. 徳川斉昭's anthology of moral verse, printed in 1862, sets the poem under 源俊頼 with its source noted as 雲玉集; in 佐佐木信綱's annotated edition of 1892 it stands on p. 200 in that form [34]. From here the 俊頼 attribution runs through the ethics and school books of the Meiji and Taishō years (see Notes), while the dictionaries, from 俚言集覧 to those of the 1910s, give it to 宗長 after 醒睡笑 [40]. Two attributions ran side by side for a century, each in its own kind of book.

1872 to 2012. The English. Hepburn's first edition of 1867 ends its entry ISOGI at I will hurry [41]; the second edition, 1872, adds Isogaba maware, (prov). if you are in a hurry go around [6]. In 1886 高橋五郎's guide to English for Japanese readers gives, as no. 330, The more haste, the worse speed, with its Japanese counterpart 急ガバ迂回レ [42]: the English proverb set beside the Japanese one, in that direction. In 1902 the proverb was argued over in English. E. W. Clement, lecturing to the Asiatic Society of Japan on calendars, rendered it if in a hurry, go round and took it to show that the Japanese take things leisurely; the Japan Mail answered that its correct form is isogeba mawaru, the nearest Japanese equivalent for "the more haste, the worse speed", and that it teaches that haste and flurry are fatal to successful accomplishment; the Japan Times, that it means if in a hurry, do not make a short cut because of the possible presence of hidden dangers and unexpected hindrances [43]. In 1910 藤井乙男's dictionary of proverbs set English sayings under the entry, among them Hasten slowly, The longest way round is the shortest way home and The more hurry, the less speed [28]. The pairing stayed. Okada's Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, in its edition of 1958, gives If you are in a hurry, make a detour and lists English expressions to match: Make haste slowly, haste is waste, A short cut is often a wrong cut, The longest way round is the shortest way there [7]. Buchanan (1965) gives When in a hurry make a detour, with The more haste the worse speed and Haste makes waste [8]; Corwin's dictionary of idiomatic equivalents (1968), Make haste slowly. The long way around is often the fastest [9]; Galef (1987), When in a hurry, take the roundabout route [10], and in that book's revised edition of 2012 The more haste, the less speed [11]; Trimnell (2004) gives Haste makes waste as the English [12]. The English proverbs say that hurry spoils the work. The Japanese one says to take the longer, surer road. By the end, the road had dropped out of the English: JMdict, the open dictionary that most English-language tools draw on, glosses the proverb today more haste, less speed and slow and steady wins the race [44].

A reading

The poem is the oldest thing in this history, and its first reader already took it as a maxim for everything: 衲叟 in 1514 wrote that it is the reason of the world, not advice for one ferry. I read 急がば回れ as that poem's fourth line, which became a saying in its own right. The line was in a list of proverbs by 1638, and a sibling statement, 急げば廻る, was current by the time a list dated to the 1580s wrote it down. ことわざを知る辞典 reads it the other way round: an old proverb that the poem quotes [1]. No witness read for this history puts the bare saying before 1514, and the 1650 book that asks about the two forms calls the poem recent, which tells against the poem being old in 1650, not for the proverb being older than the poem. The question stays open, and I do not decide it for the reader. The name is easier to judge. The oldest witness gives the poem to 源俊頼, and the familiar attribution to 宗長 comes a century after it, so neither can be called the author on the evidence read. What the page can say is whose name each book gives, and when. Signed, 典.

Notes

散木奇歌集. 源俊頼's own collection could not be searched for the poem. No typeset of it is in the National Diet Library's open text, and the 1829 prints there have no text layer. This history therefore says that 雲玉和歌抄 gives the poem to 俊頼, never that his collection lacks it.

The 俊頼 line in print. After 明倫歌集, the National Diet Library's full text has 俊頼 for the poem in moral and school books from 1879 [45], among them teachers' guides of 1904 and 1913 [46][47]. 中野吉平's 『俚諺大辞典』 (1933) prints the poem from 雲玉集 under 源俊頼, beside 醒睡笑's entry [20], and 金子武雄's 『日本のことわざ』, in its edition of 1986, gives it in the same words, with the compiler and the colophon's date, and 醒睡笑's 宗長 beside it [48]. The 1514 witness is not new to Japanese scholarship.

A Chinese parallel. 藤井乙男's dictionary of 1910 sets a line of the 漢書 beside the proverb [28]. When Emperor Yuan of Han would go to the ancestral temple by a towered boat, his censor 薛廣德 begged him to take the bridge, and the officer riding ahead, 張猛, said 乘船危，就橋安, to ride the boat is dangerous, to take the bridge is safe; the emperor took the bridge [49]. The dictionary prints 棄船危 and files the line under 薛廣德's biography, where it stands; the words are 張猛's. No witness read ties the poem to it, so it is a parallel and not a source.

The wind. The tellings give 比叡おろし, the wind off Mount Hiei, as the danger of the Yabase crossing. The oldest source read that says so is of 1902 [50]. The Edo witnesses give the geography without it (人倫訓蒙図彙 [31]) or name wind and waves on another crossing (武道初心集 [30]).

Sources not seen

散木奇歌集 in a modern edition (新編国歌大観; 私家集大成), which would test whether 源俊頼's own collection holds the poem.

雲玉和歌抄 in its other imaged copies (松平文庫, 篠山 青山文庫, 内閣文庫) at the leaf, and the two modern typesets of 1967 and 1968 at their pages.

諺草 at its leaf: the National Diet Library's print of 1701 is catalogued, but no image of it was served to the house's instruments.

北条氏直時代諺留 in any manuscript. 藤井乙男 judged the Tokyo copy lost in 1923, and a catalogue of 1890 lists a manuscript at the 内閣文庫, which was not opened.

The English books of 1926 to 1940 at their pages: We Japanese (1934), Okada's first edition (1935), and 藤井乙男's Japanese Proverbs (1940). Who first set which English proverb beside the Japanese one is not settled.

The studies of 雲玉和歌抄 listed in CiNii, among them 佐々木雷太's 『雲玉和歌抄攷』 (2011); none names the poem in its title.

The Japan Mail and the Japan Times of 1902 at their own pages; they are read here as Clement reprints them.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「急がば回れ」, デジタル大辞泉 and ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/急がば回れ-432744
  2. 「急ぐ」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/急ぐ-432742
  3. 「回る」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/回る-636503
  4. 「矢橋」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版日本国語大辞典 and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/矢橋-143920
  5. 「瀬田の長橋」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/瀬田の長橋-547772
  6. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, second edition, 1872, p. 172, s.v. ISOGI, scan 104, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/104
  7. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, 1958, p. 69, read on the house's shelf.
  8. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, the section Caution, read on the house's shelf.
  9. Charles Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, s.v. ISOGU, read on the house's shelf.
  10. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees, Tuttle, 1987, no. 56, read on the house's shelf.
  11. David Galef, Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, 2012, no. 56, read on the house's shelf.
  12. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest, 2004, s.v. Isogaba maware, read on the house's shelf.
  13. 衲叟馴窓, 『雲玉和歌抄』, manuscript, ノートルダム清心女子大学 附属図書館, canvas 95 (the poem) and canvas 117 (the colophon), at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100170927/95
  14. 井上宗雄・島津忠夫 編, 『雲玉和歌抄』, 古典文庫, 1968 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12454547
  15. 中川芳雄, 「雲玉抄 地 (中川本)」, 『静岡女子短期大学研究紀要』 13, 1967 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1798604
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  17. 藤井乙男, 『諺の研究』, 1929, pp. 229–238, 「北條氏直時代諺留」, scans 121, 124 and 126, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/124
  18. 「北条氏直」, デジタル大辞泉 and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/北条氏直-14948
  19. 「荻生徂徠」, 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/荻生徂徠-17726
  20. 中野吉平, 『俚諺大辞典』, 1933, p. 64, s.v. 急がば迂廻れ and 急げば廻る, scan 39, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1453041/1/39
  21. 針原孝之, 『ことわざの基礎知識』, 1978 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12170062
  22. 「醒睡笑」, 日本大百科全書 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/醒睡笑-86075
  23. 安楽庵策伝, 『醒睡笑』, a print of 1658 (万治元, by the library's record), 巻一, scan 23, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554787/1/23
  24. 「宗長」, デジタル大辞泉 and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/宗長-18484
  25. 『醒睡笑』, in 『滑稽本集』, 1912, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1906668
  26. 『醒睡笑』, 1931, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1109968
  27. 貝原好古 編, 『諺草』 7巻, 1701 (元禄14, by the library's record), at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14670283
  28. 藤井乙男 編, 『諺語大辞典』, 1910, p. 63, s.v. イソガバマハレ, scan 47, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/47
  29. 江島其磧, 『世間手代気質』, 1730, scan 12, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533875/1/12
  30. 大道寺友山, 『武道初心集』, 中巻 「旅行」, in 『武士道叢書』 上巻, 1906, pp. 318–319, scans 188–189, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913544/1/188
  31. 『人倫訓蒙図彙』, 1690, scan 8, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2592441/1/8
  32. 『まことぐさ』, 1692 (a retitled reprint of articles from 片言, by the library's record), scan 22, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2534251/1/22
  33. 『世話重宝記』, 1695, scans 9–10, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2550735/1/9
  34. 徳川斉昭 編, 佐佐木信綱 校註, 『明倫歌集』, 1892, pp. 199–200, scans 111–112, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874548/1/112
  35. 松江重頼, 『毛吹草』, a print of 1662 (寛文2, by the library's record) in the 狩野文庫 of 東北大学, 巻二 世話付古語, canvas 60, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100306717/60
  36. 松江重頼, 『毛吹草』, 岩波文庫, 1943 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128297
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  39. 「武道初心集」, 日本大百科全書, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/武道初心集-125400
  40. 『俚言集覧』 中巻, 1899, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991570
  41. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, first edition, 1867, s.v. ISOGI, read on the house's shelf.
  42. 高橋五郎, 『英米語学独案内』, 1886, p. 282, no. 330, scan 149, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/869756/1/149
  43. E. W. Clement, "Japanese Calendars", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 30, 1902, Note N, pp. 66–69, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/transactionsasi04japagoog/page/66/mode/1up
  44. 「急がば回れ」, JMdict, at Jisho. https://jisho.org/word/急がば回れ
  45. 高平真藤, 『開化教諭百首』, 1879, scan 20, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873015/1/20
  46. 光風館編輯所 編, 『師範学校国文教科書参考』, 1904, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/868151
  47. 大槻文彦・市川源三, 『高等女学読本備考』, 1913, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/910431
  48. 金子武雄, 『日本のことわざ』, 1986 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12170342
  49. 『漢書』 巻七十一, 「薛廣德傳」, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/漢書/卷071
  50. 饗庭篁村, 『巣林子撰註』, 1902 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991463

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.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 急がば回れ (isogaba maware)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/isogaba-maware.