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苦は楽の種 ku wa raku no tane No Pain, No Gain

This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 苦は楽の種 (ku wa raku no tane). It spans two and a half centuries, from a comic novel of 1774 to the dictionaries of today, and examines the pair the proverb belongs to, the list of nine household precepts it heads and the three names those precepts have carried, and how it came into English.

Japanese Scroll of No Pain, No Gain (ku wa raku no tane) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
No Pain, No Gain (ku wa raku no tane)

No Pain, No Gain (ku wa raku no tane) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

苦は楽の種, hardship is the seed of ease, is a proverb that lives as a pair, 楽は苦の種、苦は楽の種, and its oldest witness in Japanese is a comic novel of 1774, where the pair is already a sermon commonplace, while Hakuin's autobiography of 1768, read in English, has the pair as the six characters a Sendai old man brushed for everyone who asked; a kabuki play of 1793 says the same thought in other words. From the 1840s the proverb heads a list of nine household precepts, the same nine in nearly the same order in every copy, credited by an Edo manuscript to the shogun Yoshimune for his heir, by an 1843 reader to a wise lord, and from 1880 to Tokugawa Mitsukuni, first with a hedge, then as his autograph, his testament, his house precepts. The pedigree is a tradition that settled on Mitsukuni in the Meiji decades, and the proverb is older than any version of the list known.

Overview

The sense. One sense from 1774 to today: sow hardship now, reap ease later, and the pair adds that ease sown now is hardship later [1][2]. What the record adds is a pedigree. From the 1840s the proverb heads a list of nine household precepts, the same nine in nearly the same order in every copy, and the copies disagree about whose they are: an Edo manuscript gives them to the shogun Yoshimune for his heir [3]; the 1843 farmers' reader gives them to a wise lord [4]; from 1880 on they are Mitsukuni's, first with a hedge (so the world says), then as his autograph, his testament, his house precepts [5][6][7][8]. Another manuscript of the 1890s prints a different list under Hideyoshi's name and notes in the margin that it agrees with 西山公's writing [9]. The precept list is real and old; the name on it is a tradition that settled on Mitsukuni in the Meiji decades, and the proverb is older than any version of the list known. A Buddhist tract, undated, gives the pair a third life as the doctrine of a sect (尼乾子経) that taught ease now means suffering hereafter, which is the pair read as karma [10].

The words. 苦 (ku) is hardship, toil, suffering; the dictionaries paraphrase it 苦労 [2]. 楽 (raku) is ease, comfort, 安楽; the same character read tanoshimi is pleasure, and one early witness has that word instead [11]. 種 (tane) is a seed, and the seed is the whole figure: hardship is not a price paid for ease but the thing ease grows from. The proverb lives as a pair, 楽は苦の種、苦は楽の種, ease is the seed of hardship, hardship the seed of ease, and 精選版日本国語大辞典 says under the shorter headword that it is used 「楽は苦の種、苦は楽の種」と続けて, continued into the pair [2]. The second half is the half that consoles. The old printed form is 樂 for 楽 and the witnesses below keep it.

The proverb in English. Hepburn's 1872 dictionary does not head it [12]; Brinkley's of 1896 does, under 苦, pain begets pleasure [13], and Hearn gives the pair in 1899 as pleasure is the seed of pain; pain is the seed of pleasure [14]. From there the English runs through Kin 1955, Okada 1958, Blyth 1960, Buchanan 1965, Zona 1996 and Galef 2000 and 2012, in two wordings, the seed (Hearn, Okada, Buchanan) and the source (Kin, Zona, Galef), with the dictionaries' equations beside them, no cross, no crown in Kenkyūsha 1983 and no pain, no gain in the Kodansha kanji dictionary of 2013 [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].

The historical record

1768. 白隠, 壁生草, in Norman Waddell's English of 1999. The Zen master's autobiography, on his early years at Shōin-ji: Years ago, Shōtō Rōkan of the city of Sendai was constantly besieged by requests for specimens of his calligraphy. He always obliged petitioners by writing the same six characters: "Pleasure is the seed of suffering. Suffering is the seed of pleasure." Those inscriptions in ink were treasures greatly to be cherished [24]. The translator's note: the old man is unidentified, and the line was perhaps a popular saying of the time. The English is the witness; the Japanese passage awaits its leaf. If it reads as the English does, the pair was a calligrapher's stock line six years before the novel below, and the oldest witness is a brush. Hakuin's recorded sayings, in the same translator's English of 2014, have him tap his staff on the high seat and give the pair before a word about the locust plague [25].

1774. 『笑談医者気質』, a comic novel of doctors' manners (Osaka, preface dated 安永三年), book five. The dictionaries' earliest citation for the pair, and the earliest known witness [1]. The chapter is about a doctor's wife delighted by her neighbors' talk, and it opens on a sermon: 樂は苦の種苦は樂の種。惡人程うるさき者はあらねど。善人を見出すの種なれば善惡は水波の如しと, ease is the seed of hardship, hardship the seed of ease; nothing is so tiresome as a bad man, but since he is the seed by which the good one is discovered, good and bad are like water and its waves [26]. In the 1895 collected edition of the kishō novels the book's preface is dated 安永三きのへ午の春, spring of 1774 [26]; the 1774 printing itself is not digitized at the National Diet Library.

1793. 並木五瓶's kabuki play 『五大力恋緘』, final act. The dictionaries' citation for the short form, in other words: これ、小万さん、其やうにくよくよと、もし、苦は楽みの元といふぞえ, now, Koman, don't fret so; they say hardship is the source of pleasure, you know. That is 精選版日国 quoting the 評釈江戸文学叢書 edition [2]. The 1928 『日本戯曲全集』 typeset of the play prints the speech differently: コレ、小万さん、其やうにクヨ〳〵と……併し、苦は樂しみの元ぢやなア, … but hardship is the source of pleasure, isn't it [11]. The kotobank page that dates the citation 1793 also gives the play's premiere as 1794 (寛政6) at the Naka theater in Osaka [2]. Either way the play is later than the novel and says it in different words.

Undated, Edo. 『故花菴備忘録』, a manuscript miscellany (三木維清 comp.). The proverb as the second of nine precepts, and the earliest form known of the list that the later witnesses attach to Mitsukuni, here under another name: 有徳大君より長福君へ進せられし御譬書 一欲と酒と色とは敵と知るへし 一苦は楽の種楽は苦の種と知るへし 一主と親とは無理なるものと思ふへし 一下人は足らぬものと知るへし … 右九ヶ条, the admonitory writing presented by the shogun Yoshimune (有徳院) to his heir Ieshige (長福丸): know that desire, drink and lust are enemies; know that hardship is the seed of ease and ease of hardship; think of master and parent as unreasonable; know that servants fall short … the above, nine articles [3].

1843. 『農家心得種』, a farmers' reader (手塚敬義). 賢君の御壁書の御教に ○苦は樂の種樂は苦の種と知るべし ○主と親とはむりなるものと思へ下人は足らぬものと知べし ○子ほどに親を思へ子なきものは身にたくらべて近き手本にすべし ○掟におぢよ火におぢよ … ○欲と色と酒とは敵と知べし ○朝寝すべからず … ○分別は堪忍にありと知べし, from the teaching of a wise lord's wall-writing: know that hardship is the seed of ease … [4]. The lord is 賢君, a wise lord, and not named. The proverb heads the list.

1841. 『役者舞台扇』, a book on kabuki actors (四文舎我笑・百文舎外笑, 河内屋太助), the opening. The pair as a commonplace one can string with others: 楽は苦の種苦は楽の種早牛も淀遅牛もよどまぬ水の流るゝごとく, ease the seed of hardship, hardship the seed of ease; fast ox or slow, like water that never stands still [27].

1880. 『諸家随筆ぬきがき』, a manuscript of extracts (白井光太郎), fascicle 5, leaf 43. 水戸黄門光國卿御作のよし世に云傳ふ書あり 苦ハ楽のたね楽ハ苦の種と知るべし 主人と親とハ無理成ものと知べし 恩を忘るへからず 子ほど親を思へ …, there is a writing the world hands down as said to be by Lord Mitsukuni of Mito: know that hardship is the seed of ease … [5]. The name arrives with a hedge, 御作のよし世に云傳ふ, said to be his, so the world passes it on.

1893. 『善悪合鏡』, a Shingaku lecture (蕉雨逸人, 心学 series), first fascicle. The nine articles again, credited to Mitsukuni's own hand: 又同卿自筆九ケ條の寫に云く 一苦は樂の種樂は苦の種としるべし 一主と親とは無理成物と思へ …, and a copy of the same lord's autograph nine articles says …; the 同卿 is 水戶黄門光圀卿, named a few lines on [6].

1894. 『明治節用大全』, a household encyclopedia (博文館), the section of maxims. ○苦は樂の種樂は苦の種と知るべし(以下九則水戶西山公の遺訓) ○主と親とは無理なるものと思ひ下人は足らぬものと知るべし … ○分別は堪忍にありと知るべし, … (the following nine rules are the testament of Lord Nishiyama of Mito). 西山公 is Mitsukuni's name in retirement [7].

1896. 岡谷繁実『名将言行録』(牧野書房 ed.), book 46, Tokugawa Mitsukuni, pp. 280–281. The great Meiji compendium of the lives of commanders: 光圀の家訓に曰く、苦は樂の種、樂は苦の種と知るべし。主人と親とは無理なるものと思へ、下人は足らぬものと思へ。子程に親を思へ、子なき者は身に校べて近き手本とすべし。掟に恐れよ、火に恐ぢよ、無分別者に恐ぢよ。欲と色と酒とは敵と知るべし。朝寐すべからず。物言すべからず。被官は家を定めよ、主人は被官に慈悲をせよ。分別は堪忍にありと知るべし。九分は善し十分は必ずこぼるゝと知るべし, Mitsukuni's house precepts say: know that hardship is the seed of ease and ease of hardship; think master and parent unreasonable, servants wanting; love your parents as you would a child, and if you have no child measure by your own body and take a near example; fear the law, fear fire, fear the thoughtless; know desire, lust and drink for enemies; do not sleep late; do not talk idly; a retainer should settle his house and a master be kind to his retainers; know that judgment lies in patience; nine parts is good and ten will surely spill [8]. The same book's own first edition (玉山堂, 1869) is digitized only through book 30.

Between 1890 and 1900, a commonplace. A rakugo-style sermon of 1894 plays on the pair (鍬樂の種, a hoe is the seed of ease, a pun on 苦は) [28]; a Kanazawa savings bank's advertisement in an 1894 city guide prints 苦は樂の種 beside 塵も積もれば山となる [29]; two haiku anthologies of 1893 use it in verses (苦は樂の種と畑打つ主哉, "hardship the seed of ease," says the master, tilling) [30]. The proverb is in some 730 digitized books in the short form and 490 in the pair [31].

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 現在の苦労は、将来の幸福のもとになるということ. 精選版日国 for the pair: 楽をすると、あとで苦を味わわなくてはならないし、苦を忍べばあとで楽ができる, take it easy and you will taste hardship later; bear hardship and ease comes after. ことわざを知る辞典: 苦労しておけば、後々楽になる, with the note for the pair that 苦楽は相伴うもので、どちらか一方だけということはない, ease and hardship go together; you never get just one [2][1].

What is not a source. Galef pairs the proverb with 禍福はあざなえる縄の如し, good and bad luck are twisted together like rope strands; Buchanan pairs it with 楽あれば苦あり [18]. Both are kin, not sources. The nine-precept list is a use of the proverb, not its origin, since the novel of 1774 has the pair as a sermon commonplace already; and the 1793 play's 苦は楽みの元 is the same thought in other words, not the proverb's first form.

The proverb in English

1896. Frank Brinkley, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, page 772. Under 苦: Ku wa raku no tane, 苦ハ樂ノ種, pain begets pleasure, marked as a proverb, and at once its reverse, Raku areba ku ari, 樂アレバ苦アリ, where there is a pleasure, there is a pain, men have both pains and pleasures [13]. The first English, and it drops the seed.

1899. Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, page 188. Number 73 of his Buddhist proverbs: Raku wa ku no tane; ku wa raku no tane. Pleasure is the seed of pain; pain is the seed of pleasure [14]. The seed kept, the pair whole, and the wording the proverb books use for sixty years.

1900. Lafcadio Hearn, Shadowings, page 127. In the essay on women's names, a footnote on the name Raku: The name seems curious, in view of the common proverb, Raku wa ku no tane, — "Pleasure is the seed of pain" [17].

1955. Dictionary of American Proverbs, page 192. Under pleasure, after No pleasure without pain: Pleasure is the source of pain; pain is the source of pleasure [15]. The source wording, forty years before Zona and Galef repeat it word for word.

1958. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, page 97. Ku wa raku no tane. Pain is the seed of pleasure. "No pleasure without pain." "No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown." —William Penn. The reverse is expressed in the proverb: Raku areba, ku ari [16]. Penn's line is the title of his book of 1669, and the equation Kenkyūsha prints in 1983.

1960. R. H. Blyth, Japanese Life and Character in Senryu, page 306. A senryū by 周魚 that turns the proverb over: Ku wa raku no tane de nakatta kafu no shiwa, The troubles were not the seeds of happiness, — the wrinkles of this widow [19].

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, p. 169. Raku wa ku no tane, ku wa raku no tane: "Pleasure is the seed of pain, pain is the seed of pleasure." English parallel: Rest comes from unrest, and unrest from rest [18]. The entry above it, Raku areba ku ari, gets No pains, no gains. Buchanan keeps the seed and gives the pair whole, in Hearn's words.

1983. Kenkyūsha's New Collegiate Japanese-English Dictionary, page 338. Under く⁴ 苦: 苦は楽の種. No cross, no crown [22]. Penn's equation, from Okada.

1996. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, page 98. Pleasure is the source of pain; pain is the source of pleasure [20], the 1955 dictionary's line.

2000 and 2012. David Galef, Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, no. 21, and Japanese Proverbs, no. 121. The entry gives the English equivalent in the book's own square brackets: Raku wa ku no tane, ku wa raku no tane. Pleasure is the source of pain; pain is the source of pleasure. You have to take the rough with the smooth. The 2012 note: The idea behind this maxim is both Buddhist—things of this world that delight also cause sorrow—and psychological—true joy comes only after some hardship is overcome [20][21]. Galef's source is Kin's and Zona's, and his note adds the Buddhist reading the undated tract above actually holds.

2013. Jack Halpern, The Kodansha Kanji Dictionary. Under 苦: 苦は楽の種 くはらくのたね No pain, no gain [23]. The house title's equation, in a kanji dictionary.

Today. ことわざを知る辞典 gives There is no pleasure without pain [2]. EDRDG at jisho: one cannot have pleasure without pain; no pain, no gain [32]. The house title, No Pain, No Gain, is the English proverb the Japanese sits nearest, and it loses the seed; the house explanation's literal line, pain is the seed of comfort, keeps it. A rendering must keep the seed, and should give the pair once, since the scroll's half is the consoling half of a saying that cuts both ways. The English proverbs the equations reach for have their own dates: no pains, no gains from 1577, there is no pleasure without pain from Tudor English, take the rough with the smooth from about 1400 [33][34][35].

A reading

A proverb with a seed in it, and the seed is what to keep: not that pain buys gain, but that ease grows from hardship, and hardship from ease. The pedigree the Meiji books gave it, first of Mitsukuni's nine precepts, is a tradition with three names on it and the proverb older than all three. In English the seed held from Hearn to Buchanan and gave way to a source in 1955; the Japanese never lost it.

References

  1. 「楽は苦の種苦は楽の種」, 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/楽は苦の種苦は楽の種-655824
  2. 「苦は楽の種」, デジタル大辞泉 · 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/苦は楽の種-482032
  3. 三木維清 輯『故花菴備忘録』, manuscript, National Diet Library pid 11446267, scan 36. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11446267/1/36
  4. 手塚敬義『農家心得種』, 1843, National Diet Library pid 2536178, scan 36. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2536178/1/36
  5. 白井光太郎 編『諸家随筆ぬきがき』5, manuscript, 1880, National Diet Library pid 2576028, scan 45. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2576028/1/45
  6. 蕉雨逸人 述『善悪合鏡：心学講義』, 1893, National Diet Library pid 758805, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758805/1/24
  7. 博文館編輯局 編『明治節用大全：伝家宝典』, 博文館, 1894, National Diet Library pid 898143, scan 278. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/898143/1/278
  8. 岡谷繁実『名将言行録』, 牧野書房, 1896, book 46, pp. 280–281, National Diet Library pid 778868, scan 151. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/778868/1/151
  9. 蜂屋茂橘『椎の實筆』, manuscript, 1896, National Diet Library pid 2574762, scan 106. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2574762/1/106
  10. 蘆迺屋徳明『角組葦』, undated, National Diet Library pid 2562508, scan 13. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2562508/1/13
  11. 渥美清太郎 編『日本戯曲全集』第六巻, 春陽堂, 1928, p. 70, National Diet Library pid 1883929, scan 41. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1883929/1/41
  12. Hepburn, dictionary of 1872, National Diet Library pid 993689. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689
  13. F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 1896, p. 772, s.v. Ku 苦 (the shelved copy). https://archive.org/details/cu31924082117288
  14. Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, Little, Brown, Boston, 1899, p. 188, no. 73 (the shelved copy). https://archive.org/details/inghostlyjapan00hear
  15. Dictionary of American Proverbs, edited by David Kin, Philosophical Library, New York, 1955, p. 192 (the shelved copy).
  16. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1958, p. 97 (the shelved copy).
  17. Lafcadio Hearn, Shadowings, Little, Brown, Boston, 1900, p. 127, footnote (the shelved copy). https://archive.org/details/shadowings00hear
  18. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, p. 169.
  19. R. H. Blyth, Japanese Life and Character in Senryu, Hokuseido, Tokyo, 1960, p. 306 (the shelved copy).
  20. David Galef, Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, Tuttle, 2000, no. 21.
  21. David Galef, Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, 2012, no. 121.
  22. Kenkyūsha's New Collegiate Japanese-English Dictionary, third edition, Kenkyūsha, Tokyo, 1983, p. 338, s.v. く⁴ 苦 (the shelved copy).
  23. Jack Halpern, The Kodansha Kanji Dictionary, Kodansha, Tokyo, 2013, s.v. 苦 (the shelved copy).
  24. Norman Waddell, tr., Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin, Shambhala, 1999, the Shōin-ji chapter and its note 38; the original 壁生草 printed at Shōin-ji, 1768 (the shelved copy's text layer, without page numbers).
  25. Norman Waddell, tr., Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn, Counterpoint, 2014, the address on the locust plague (the shelved copy's text layer, without page numbers).
  26. 博文館編輯局 校訂『校訂気質全集』, 1895, pp. 362–363, National Diet Library pid 1882651, scan 437. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1882651/1/437
  27. 四文舎我笑・百文舎外笑『役者舞台扇』, 河内屋太助, 1841, National Diet Library pid 2554748, scan 4. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554748/1/4
  28. 伊東洋二郎『説教心の種』, 1894, National Diet Library pid 818471, scan 58. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/818471/1/58
  29. 『金沢市街独案内』, 1894, National Diet Library pid 764578, scan 64. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/764578/1/64
  30. 大淵渉 編『新撰発句拾万集』, 1893, National Diet Library pid 875160, scans 35 and 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875160/1/35
  31. National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 苦は楽の種 (732 books) and 楽は苦の種 (489 books). https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
  32. EDRDG (JMdict), 苦は楽の種, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/search/苦は楽の種
  33. F. P. Wilson, The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, Oxford University Press, 1970, p. 572, s.v. No pains, no gains, quoting Grange 1577 (the shelved copy).
  34. Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, University of Michigan Press, 1950, P420 (the shelved copy).
  35. Bartlett Jere Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500, Belknap Press, 1968, R220, p. 496 (the shelved copy).

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.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations