心の儘 kokoro no mama Follow Your Heart
Abstract
心の儘, kokoro no mama, as the heart wills, is a classical Japanese phrase and a headword of the 日本国語大辞典. It is in the 竹取物語 of about 900 and in the 源氏物語, where it can already carry license as well as freedom, doing as one pleases, and it runs through the 今鏡, the 太平記, read here in a printing of 1603, a tea manual prefaced 1686 and 本居宣長. Its older form, kokoro no manima, stands in a poem the emperor Heizei answered with in 807, as the 類聚国史 records it. It reaches German in 1865 and English in 1867, the earliest the archives searched here hold, and in English the dictionaries agree on as one likes and the translators of single poems divide.
A reading
My reading is that 心の儘 says as the heart wills, and that follow your heart is a fair English for it if the buyer knows which way the phrase leans. The デジタル大辞泉 gives まま two senses, the state of a thing unchanged (その状態に変化のないこと) and the state one wishes, freedom (思い通りの状態。自由) [1], and the phrase takes the second: the 日本国語大辞典 glosses it 心に思う通り。心まかせ。思う存分 [2], and the Japanese-English dictionaries read here give just as one thinks, or likes (Hepburn, 1867), as one likes; according to one's own wishes (Brinkley, 1896) and at will; as one pleases (Kenkyūsha, 1974) [3][4][5]. Some translators of single poems give the phrase a sense no dictionary read here gives it: Watson's moon never wavers in its goal, LaFleur's Saigyō has my unchanged heart, and Konishi's English makes the picker's heart very like the flower [6][7][8]. The second sense carries the edge as well as the freedom: from the 源氏物語 on it can be license, and in the 太平記 it is a prince's excess and a minister's rule. Follow your heart turns a description into advice; the Japanese says how a thing was done, and leaves the reader to judge whether that was freedom or license.
Overview
The sense. As the heart wills: acting as one feels, freedom, and in the older texts sometimes the license to do as one pleases.
The words. 心 kokoro is the heart or mind; 儘 mama, which the デジタル大辞泉 derives from まにま, is the state one wishes [1]. The 日本国語大辞典 heads the whole phrase, 心に思う通り。心まかせ。思う存分。心のまにまに [2]. Its first example is the 日本書紀 of 720 in a reading of the Muromachi period from the 北野本, and its second the 竹取物語 [2]: the first is a later reader's Japanese laid on a text written in Chinese, so the 竹取物語 is the first text written in Japanese that the dictionary cites for it.
The text in English. Follow your heart is some sixty times as common in English books of the 2010s as in those of the 1970s [9]. Japanese renders it as an instruction, 君の思うようにしなさい, 自分の心に従えばいいんだよ, 貴方の心に従いなさい [10], and 心のまま is a description, as the heart wills, where the English is an instruction.
The historical record
807. The older form, in a poem. The emperor Heizei, at the 神泉苑 in the ninth month of 807, answered his brother the crown prince's poem on the fujibakama with a poem of his own [8]. 鹿持雅澄's 万葉集品物解, an appendix to his 万葉集古義, quotes it from the 類聚国史 as 袁理比度能已々呂乃麻丹眞布智波加麻、宇倍伊呂布賀久爾保比多理介利 and glosses the phrase コヽロノマニマ [11], and the 国史大系 edition of the 日本逸史 of 1897 prints 袁理比度能。己己呂乃麻丹眞。 with the same gloss [12]. 麻丹眞 is manima, the older form the デジタル大辞泉 derives まま from [1]: oru hito no / kokoro no manima / fujibakama / ube iro fukaku / nioitarikeri, in my rendering as the heart of the one who picks it wished, the fujibakama, fittingly, glows deep in color. Konishi's history of 1986 romanizes the line Kokoro no mama ni, the later form, and its English reads He who plucks them has / A heart that is very like / Purple-trousers in bloom [8]. The poem is the phrase's ancestor, not an early witness of 心のまま.
About 900. 心の儘, in the classics. In the 竹取物語 the emperor sends a lady-in-waiting to see Kaguya-hime, who will not come out, and the old woman who raised her 心の儘にもえせめず, could not press her as she wished [13]; a handscroll in the National Diet Library, undated and catalogued as an early Edo copy, writes it …いひけれは心のまゝに / もえせめす [14]. In the 源氏物語 the edge is already there. In 篝火 Genji, for all his unwelcome desire, does not force himself on Tamakazura as his heart wills (憎き御心こそ添ひたれど、さりとて、御心のままに押したちてなどもてなしたまはず); in 常夏 he fears the world's censure if he acts as his heart wills (心のままにもあらば、世の人のそしり言はむ), and the young men in the garden do not pick the pinks as they please (心のままにも折り取らぬを) [15]. The 今鏡 has a retired emperor who means to rule as he pleases, 御心のまゝに世をまつりごたんと, where the printed leaf's hand leaves the こ unclear and the typeset editions read ご [16]. In the 太平記 it is a prince's excess and a minister's rule. A printing of 1603, the earliest dated copy in the Diet Library's full-text search, has 御心ノ儘ニ極後世ノ譏ヲ忘テ婬樂ヲノミ事トシ給シカハ, as his heart willed he went to extremes, forgot the censure of later ages and gave himself to pleasure alone, and 四海萬機ノ政只趙高カ心ノ儘ニソ行ヒケル, the whole business of the realm Zhao Gao ran as he pleased [17]; the text at Wikisource reads the first line 御心の侭に極侈, indulged himself at will [18]. It is in a tea manual prefaced 1686 (下火を心乃侭に直し) [19] and in 宣長's commentary on the 古事記 (古語を違へじと思ふ心のままには) [20], and the National Diet Library's full-text search finds it, as 心の儘 or 心の侭, in 24,011 items on 30 September 2026 [21].
1865 and 1867. Into German and English. August Pfizmaier, in a study of Japan's rulers in the age of legend printed in Vienna in 1865, transcribes a passage in which a god answers the heavenly grandson koko-ni kuni ari, mi-kokoro-no mama-ni ide-mase, and renders it Es gibt hier ein Reich, du kannst nach deinem Belieben dahin gelangen, there is a land here; you may go into it at your pleasure [22]. The dictionaries brought it into English: Hepburn in 1867 glossed kokoro no mama as just as one thinks, or likes [3], and in 1873, in the English–Japanese part, gave it as a Japanese word for liberty [23]; Brinkley in 1896, As one likes; according to one's own wishes; just as one pleases; at pleasure [4]; Kenkyūsha in 1974, at will, as one pleases or wishes, at one's pleasure and at one's own sweet will [5]. Dickins, translating the 竹取物語 in 1888, rendered the line Nor might the Ancient nor his goodwife constrain her, giving the old woman's act to the couple and leaving 心のままに without an English word of its own [24].
1912 and 2019. The English phrase, for other Japanese. English translators have set follow your heart on Japanese that is not 心のまま. J. Ingram Bryan and N. Nagai, translating the 伊勢物語 in 1912, close a woman's answering poem, しるしらぬ何か綾なくわきて言む思ひのみ社しるへ成けれ, longing alone is the guide, with Follow your heart, like me [25][26]. Meredith McKinney's 更級日記 of 2019 gives a husband's いかにいかに、心にこそあらめ, however it may be, it is for your heart to say, as You must follow your heart! [27][28]. The English of the two Japanese lines is mine.
2003 to 2015. The translators of poems. LaFleur renders Saigyō's kokoro no mama ni tsuki o yadosan as my unchanged heart / will give lodging to the moon [7]. A poem of Genshin's in the 沙石集, urayamashi / ikanaru sora no / tsuki nareba / kokoro no mama ni / nishi ni yukuran, is how enviable / that it moves as it pleases / toward the Western Paradise in Morrell's English [29] and How the moon, / whatever sky it's in, / never wavers in its goal, / moving ever westward! in Watson's [6]. Rodd renders a poem of the 新古今和歌集, kokoro no mama ni / wokeru tsuyu kana, as the dew too now settles / here to its heart's content [30].
What is not a source. The Chinese 心之所向 is a different phrase.
Notes
儘 is the full glyph, which Edo print often writes 侭 and the dictionaries write in kana; all three are one word. The printing of 1603 writes 儘 in full [17]; the 今鏡 and the handscroll of the 竹取物語 write まゝ [16][14].
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
References
- 「儘」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/儘
- 「心のまま」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心のまま
- J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1867, p. 255, s.v. mama. https://archive.org/details/ajapaneseandeng00hepbgoog/page/n271/mode/1up
- F. Brinkley, Nanjō Bunyū and others, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 1896, p. 726, s.v. kokoro-no-mama. https://archive.org/details/cu31924082117288/page/n757/mode/1up
- Koh Masuda, editor, Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, fourth edition, Kenkyusha, Tokyo, 1974, p. 900, s.v. kokoro-no-mama.
- Burton Watson, translator, The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales, ed. Haruo Shirane, Columbia University Press, New York, 2011, p. 146, from the Collection of Sand and Pebbles (沙石集).
- William R. LaFleur, Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2003, p. 100, poem 697.
- Jin'ichi Konishi, A History of Japanese Literature, volume 2, The Early Middle Ages, translated by Aileen Gatten, ed. Earl Miner, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1986, p. 61.
- follow your heart, Google Books Ngram Viewer, English corpus. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=follow+your+heart&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=0
- "follow your heart", Weblio 英和辞典 example sentences (Tanaka Corpus, Tatoeba, and the Japanese-English Subtitle Corpus). https://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/"follow your heart"
- 鹿持雅澄, 万葉集品物解, in 万葉集古義, 吉川半七, Tokyo, 1898, scan 54, s.v. ふぢはかま, quoting the 類聚国史. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874338/1/54
- 日本逸史, in 国史大系 第6巻, 経済雑誌社, Tokyo, 1897, scan 78. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991096/1/78
- 竹取物語, at Wikisource (群書類從 text). https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/竹とりの翁物語_(群書類從)
- 竹取物語, a handscroll in three rolls, manuscript, undated (catalogued 江戸前期, early Edo), National Diet Library Digital Collections, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1287148/1/29
- 源氏物語, 篝火 and 常夏, at Wikisource. https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/源氏物語/篝火 · https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/源氏物語/常夏
- 続世継 (今鏡), c. 1170, printed edition, undated, National Diet Library Digital Collections, scan 18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546534/1/18
- 太平記 40巻, 古活字版, 冨春堂, 1603 (刊記「慶長癸卯季春既望 冨春堂 新刊」), 巻第十二 scan 57 and 巻第二十六 scan 62, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8943158/1/57 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8943165/1/62
- 太平記, 巻第十二 and 巻第二十六, at Wikisource. https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/太平記/巻第十二 · https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/太平記/巻第二十六
- 山田宗徧, 茶道便蒙抄, preface 1686, a manuscript copy, National Diet Library Digital Collections, scan 40. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2575277/1/40
- 本居宣長, 古事記傳, 巻2, the final draft in manuscript, 1785–88, National Diet Library Digital Collections, scan 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2545185/1/20
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for 心の儘. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=心の儘&fulltext=true
- August Pfizmaier, "Die Beherrscher Japans in dem Sagenzeitalter", Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Classe 49, Vienna, 1865, p. 247. https://archive.org/details/SitzungsberichteOsterreichischeAkademiePHC49/page/n258/mode/1up
- J. C. Hepburn, Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, abridged by the author, A. D. F. Randolph, New York, and Trübner, London, 1873, English-Japanese part, p. 104, s.v. Liberty. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepb/page/n447/mode/1up
- F. V. Dickins, The Old Bamboo-Hewer's Story, Trübner, London, 1888, p. 24. https://archive.org/details/oldbamboohewerss00dick/page/n37/mode/1up
- J. Ingram Bryan and N. Nagai, "The Ise Monogatari", The Japan Magazine 3, no. 1, Tokyo, May 1912, p. 29. https://archive.org/details/jm-1912-1913-v3/page/n46/mode/1up
- 伊勢物語, at Wikisource (群書類從 text). https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/伊勢物語
- Meredith McKinney, translator, Travels with a Writing Brush: Classical Japanese Travel Writing from the Manyōshū to Bashō, Penguin Classics, 2019, p. 93, from the Sarashina Diary (更級日記).
- 更級日記, at Wikisource (有朋堂文庫 text). https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/更級日記_(有朋堂文庫)
- Robert Morrell, translator, Collection of Sand and Pebbles, in Haruo Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, Columbia University Press, New York, 2007, p. 702.
- Laurel Rasplica Rodd, translator, Shinkokinshū: New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, Brill, Leiden, 2015, p. 198, poem 467.