言わぬが花 iwanu ga hana Not Saying Is A Flower
This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 言わぬが花 (iwanu ga hana). It spans a Heian proverb of unspoken love to a pun on stage manuscripts of about 1800, and examines the widespread claim that the line is short for a longer maxim — a maxim no Japanese source has ever carried.
Abstract
言わぬが花, not saying is the flower, is a Japanese proverb whose earliest known witnesses are stage manuscripts of about 1800, where it is already a pun the audience knows, built on a Heian proverb of unspoken love, 言わぬは言うにまさる. A widely repeated claim holds the proverb is short for Not to speak is the flower of wisdom; no Japanese source carries that longer sentence, and the claim traces to one American paperback's own parenthetical literal, not to any text.
Overview
The sense. One sense from the stage of 1800 to the dictionary of today: the unsaid keeps a grace the said loses. The Edo stage uses it as a wink and a pun; Tsubouchi Shōyō 坪内逍遙 turns it on the art of the novel; Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男 reads it as taste; the 1915 dictionary adds advantage; the English dictionaries of 1909 to 1911 find its most Japanese use in 言はぬが花の年頃, a certain age, the age a woman does not state. What it is not is prudence. Silence is golden, its English equation since 1904, is about the safety of not speaking; this proverb is about the beauty of it.
The words. 言わぬ, iwanu, is not saying, with the classical negative ぬ kept in the proverb. が is the old nominative in a nominal sentence: not-saying is …. 花, hana, is the flower, and in this idiom the best of a thing, the graceful choice; the ことわざを知る辞典 notes the mold 「○○が花」, which limits an action and says nothing beats it, as in 知らぬが仏, not knowing is Buddha. It is not the flower of wisdom: no Japanese source completes the phrase, and the English book that says the proverb is short for a longer maxim invented the longer maxim, below. The dictionaries' constant is taste, not prudence. Fujii in 1910: 默止して言はざるが、却て勝れり、あらはに言ひては味なしなどいふ場合に用ふ, to keep silent is the better; used where saying it plainly would kill the flavor [1]. デジタル大辞泉: 口に出して言わないほうが味わいもあり、差し障りもなくてよい, unsaid it keeps its savor, and causes no trouble [2]. Wiktionary's gloss is 粋 or 奥ゆかしい, chic or reserved [3].
The proverb in English. Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 has nothing. Sakuma Nobuyasu 佐久間信恭's 和英中辞林 of 1904 gives Yuwanu ga hana. Silence is golden, the first equation [4]. Inoue Jūkichi 井上十吉 in 1909 and 1911 glosses そこはいはぬが花だ as On that point silence is golden [5][6]. Saitō Hidesaburō 斎藤秀三郎 in 1918 prefers Better leave it unsaid, The least said the soonest mended and The less said the better, keeping Speech is silvern but silence golden for the ancestor [7]. Daniel Crump Buchanan renders it Better leave it unsaid in 1965 [8]; Guy Zona's Not to speak is the flower of wisdom follows in 1996 [9]; Edward Trimnell's literal, Not saying is a flower, is the house's title, in 2004 [10].
The historical record
Heian. The ancestor, in the Tale of Genji and the poets. いはぬをもいふにまさると知りながらおしこめたるは苦しかりけり, knowing that not saying surpasses saying, still to hold it in is painful, in the 末摘花 chapter; the same figure in the 横笛 chapter, in the 大和物語 and in the 古今六帖, always of love unspoken. By 1638 the line 云はぬは云ふにまさる is a proverb in the first printed proverb collection, 毛吹草; the flower is not there yet [1][11].
About 1800. Two stage manuscripts. In 八陣守護城, a flower-arrangement scene: もう何事もいわぬか花のおもてなし, no more; not saying is the flower of this hospitality, with real flowers on the stage. In 實事譚血染紅葉: いわぬが花の春の道中, not saying is the flower of a spring journey. The line is already a saying the audience knows, and already a pun [12].
1816 to 1867. Comic books and kabuki. Kokontei Sanchō 古今亭三鳥 in 1816: いはぬか花のかに匂ふ, the scent of the flower unsaid; a 合巻 of 1824: いはぬがはなのちんざしき; Kawatake Shinshichi 河竹新七 in 1864 and a 合巻 of 1865: いわぬが花のかうしさき (格子先), the flower unsaid at the lattice. Every Edo witness runs the 花 on into the next phrase [12].
1886. Shōyō, 当世書生気質. The novelist, on whether to spell out his characters' relations: 關係善きも惡きもあからさまに作者が自儘の考案もて。いえぬが花か讀む人が自得も花歟, or is it the flower for the author not to say, and the flower too for the reader to work it out? The print writes いえぬ, the Tokyo colloquial for いわぬ, with the reading はな beside each 花; the modern dictionary quotes it normalized [2].
1893 to 1933. The dictionaries. 古今俚諺類聚 (1893) and 俚諺類集 (1906) list it beside its ancestor; 皇国俚諺叢 (1901) sets a line of the 史記 beside it as near in sense; Fujii 1910 files it with the gloss above and no source, and enters the counter-proverb next to it, 言わぬが損, not saying is a loss; 大日本国語辞典 (1915) and 言泉 (1922) read it as both charm and advantage, 趣味また利益; 俚諺大辞典 (1933) as to keep silent is the better. None cites a source [1].
The dictionaries today. The ことわざを知る辞典: ことばで言わないほうが、かえってよい。はっきり言ってしまうと、身も蓋もない, better not to put it in words; said outright, there is nothing left, with Shōyō's sentence as its example; kotobank carries no 精選版日本国語大辞典 entry for this headword [2].
What is not a source. A longer maxim: that the proverb is short for Not to speak is the flower of wisdom. No Japanese source has that sentence, and the National Diet Library's pre-1945 books, searched under every spelling of 言わぬが花の, carry only the stage puns [12]. The sentence is Daniel Crump Buchanan's parenthetical literal of 1965, with wisdom his own addition to a line that has 花 and no 智; he does not say the proverb is short for anything. A 1996 English collection prints his parenthesis as a proverb in its own right. The Chinese parallel the 1901 collection offers, 桃李不言、下自成蹊, the peach and plum say nothing, and a path forms beneath them, is a pairing, not an origin [8].
The proverb in English
1918. 武信由太郎, 武信和英大辞典, page 426. Under hana 花, sense ①, among the proverbs: 言はぬが花: It would be better to leave it unsaid, beside 花より團子 and 花一時人一盛 [13].
1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, page 74. Iwanu ga hana: "Better leave it unsaid." (Lit., "Not to speak is the flower of wisdom.") The person who knows when not to speak has true self-discipline. English parallel: Silence is golden. His rendering is Saitō's, his parallel the 1904 equation [8].
1996. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, page 30. Not to speak is the flower of wisdom [9].
2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, page 62. Not saying is a flower. Some things are better left unsaid. [10]
The proverb is not in David Galef's collections of 1987 and 2000.
Today. JMdict: some things are better left unsaid; silence is golden. The house title keeps the flower, which is right; what a rendering must keep is the grace, not the caution, and some things are better left unsaid is the nearer of the two English proverbs [14].
A reading
The proverb is a late-Edo stage saying, no older than about 1800, made from a Heian proverb of unspoken love and the mold 「○○が花」, read by every Japanese dictionary as a matter of taste rather than caution, and given its English equation in 1904. My own reading: this is the proverb of the unsaid as grace, not of silence as safety; silence is golden is its prudent cousin.
References
- 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, 【言ハヌガ花】, National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/69
- 「言わぬが花」, デジタル大辞泉・ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/言わぬが花-430611
- 「言わぬが花」, Wiktionary, at Weblio. https://www.weblio.jp/content/言わぬが花
- 佐久間『和英中辞林』, 1904, National Diet Library pid 870208, scan 597. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870208/1/597
- 井上十吉『和英辞典』, 1909, National Diet Library pid 1869465, scan 203. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1869465/1/203
- 井上十吉『新訳和英辞典』, 1911, National Diet Library pid 870153, scan 204. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870153/1/204
- 斎藤秀三郎『熟語本位英和中辞典』, 1918, National Diet Library pid 1681530, scans 57 and 357. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681530/1/57
- Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965, p. 74.
- Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain: And Other Proverbs of Japan, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996, p. 30.
- Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004, p. 62.
- 松江重頼『毛吹草』, 1638/1645, as reprinted in 藤井乙男『諺の研究』, 1929, National Diet Library pid 1452761, scan 130. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/130
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on every spelling of いわぬが花, twenty-five spellings on both facets, returning the stage manuscripts and comic books of about 1800 to 1867. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly
- 武信由太郎 編『武信和英大辞典』, 研究社, 1918, p. 426, s.v. hana. National Diet Library pid 925665, scan 222. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/222
- JMdict, 「言わぬが花」, at Weblio 英和・和英辞典. https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/言わぬが花