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見猿聞か猿言わ猿 mizaru kikazaru iwazaru See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

見猿聞か猿言わ猿 (mizaru kikazaru iwazaru), see not, hear not, say not, is three monkeys read aloud, a pun on the negative ざる. A manuscript of 1597 already keeps three monkeys named by the three negatives. This study follows the proverb's moral of prudence, its fourth monkey, and the English see no evil from 1890.

Japanese Scroll of See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil (mizarukikazaruiwazaru) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil見猿聞か猿言わ猿mizaru kikazaru iwazaru

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

見猿聞か猿言わ猿, see not, hear not, say not, is three monkeys read aloud: the oldest witness found, a manuscript of 1597, already keeps a set of three monkeys named by the three negatives, a Kyoto hall has the figures by 1632 and 庚申 halls by about 1700, and the sentence in the proverb's order first appears in a comic poem of 1649 that puns on them. The pun is the spelling: 猿 is read さる and voices to ざる, the negative ending. The Japanese tradition's own moral is prudence about other people's faults, with a fourth monkey, not thinking; the Confucian line and the Nikkō carving are pairings and an instance, not origins. The English see no evil is the travelers' gloss on a sentence that has no object, in print at Nikkō by 1890 and in Murray's guidebook by 1891, given to each monkey by name in Lafcadio Hearn's Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan of 1894 and carried into English speech by the travel books that followed.

Overview

The sense. The old sense is prudence about other people's faults, and it comes with a fourth monkey. From the 1597 manuscript through the Tendai poems to the 1810s, the Japanese tradition's own moral is that not seeing, not hearing and not saying are the easy three, and not thinking is the hard one [1][2]. In 1891 a count leaving politics was reported calling himself the Three-monkey Recluse [3]; in 1896 a review says 三猿主義, the three-monkey principle, of the same 井上伯, who watches coldly from on high [4]; in 1897 it is said of fathers who will not see to a child's moral education [5]; and a dictionary of 1946 glosses it pigheadedness [6]. Today's dictionaries carry both: a rule of restraint, and a name for looking away [7][8].

The words. Three verbs in the classical negative: 見ざる, not seeing, 聞かざる, not hearing, 言わざる, not saying. The sentence has no object, and the dictionaries supply one. The 精選版日本国語大辞典 says 他人の欠点・あやまち、あるいは自分に都合の悪いものなど, other people's faults and mistakes, or what is inconvenient to oneself; デジタル大辞泉 says 余計なことは, what is none of your business [7]; a dictionary of 1906 calls the whole a recluse's rule, 隱遁する義 [9]; the ことわざを知る辞典 says 他人の欠点やあやまちなど、悪しきことは, bad things, such as other people's faults and mistakes [8]. The sentence itself names no object, and the word evil came into it in English, below. The pun is the point of the spelling. 猿, monkey, is read さる, and in compounds it voices to ざる, which is also the negative ending, so 見猿 reads mizaru and means, at once, not seeing and the seeing monkey. The spelling with 猿 is the headword form in both major dictionaries [7]. The three monkeys as a set are 三猿, san'en or sanzaru [10].

The proverb in English. The bilingual dictionaries from Hepburn 1867 to 1946 never carry the English maxim; Hepburn has mizaru only as a headword glossed 不見, neg. of mi, miru [11][12], and the 1946 Standard has only the three monkey principle; pigheadedness [6]. The formula went into English through the guidebooks and the travel books, not through a dictionary: Satow and Hawes's guidebook of 1881 has the pun at the Nikkō stable, not hearing, not speaking and not seeing monkeys, with no object [13]; a traveler's book of 1890 says the Nikkō monkeys cover their faces that they may not see any wrong, hear no evil, nor speak a bad word of each other [14]; Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Japan, Chamberlain and Mason's, explains the Kōshin monkeys by 1891 as the blind monkey, the deaf monkey, and the dumb monkey, the idea being that they will neither see, hear, nor speak any evil [15]; a traveler's book of 1892 has the three no evil clauses at Nikkō [16]; Hearn's Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan of 1894 gives the three apes their names with evil [17]; and the proverb dictionaries date see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil in English speech from 1905 [18][19]. Buchanan has it in 1965 as a headword with a literal and a gloss [20]; not in Galef (1987, 2000) or Zona (1996) [21][22][23]; Trimnell in 2004 carries the formula as if it were the proverb [24].

The historical record

1597, in a manuscript of 無住's 沙石集 (the tales themselves are of 1283). The oldest text this study found. One manuscript of the collection, the 成簣堂本, copied in 慶長二年, 1597, by its 1943 editor's list of the manuscripts, carries a passage the others lack; the editor finds that copy close to the collection's longer first form, so the passage may be older than the copy, but 1597 is the date it can be held to [1]: 或人世のつねには三猿をたもつ。道人は四猿をたもつべし。其中に殊にたもつべきは、不思なりと云心をよめる, someone said: the ordinary man of the world keeps three monkeys; a man of the Way should keep four, and the one above all to keep is not-thinking [1]. Then the poem: いはざるとみざるときかざると世にはあり思はざるをばいまだみぬかな, not-saying, not-seeing and not-hearing there are in the world; not-thinking I have yet to see [1]. The three monkeys are already a set named by the three negatives, and already worldly prudence next to a monk's harder rule; the passage does not say what the monkeys look like.

1632 and 1675. The three-monkey hall at 粟田口 in Kyoto, and the Tendai story. A guide of 1632, 尤草紙, knows a hall of three monkeys at 粟田口, with the speechless one in the middle, its mouth closed, and the not-seeing and not-hearing ones flanking it, said to be the work of 傳教大師, the founder of Japanese Tendai; litigants borrowed the monkeys to win their suits. A scholar's notebook of 1675, 遠碧軒記, gives the learned explanation: the Tendai master's three truths, 空假中, were set against 不見不聞不言, not seeing, not hearing, not saying, and the founder expressed that as monkeys. The attribution to the founder is legend, and the Edo writers who repeat it say とかや, so they say. Both are quoted in 藤井乙男's 諺語大辞典 of 1910, in the 日本社会事彙 of 1891 and, from 山東京伝's 疑問録, in the 続燕石十種 of 1909 [25][26][2].

1649. 石田未得, 吾吟我集, a collection of comic verse, book six, the poem On the Monkey in a series of love poems on animals. うき事はみざるきかざるいはざるよ かほあかめあふうらみせんなし, my grievance is see-not, hear-not, say-not; we just blush at each other, and resenting it is no use [27]. The collection is dated 1649 by the 日国 and the 大辞泉, and 1644, finished and perhaps printed that year, by the ニッポニカ [28]. The first appearance of the sentence, and it is already a joke on the monkeys: the poem is on the monkey and the three negatives are its pun. The 日国 takes this as the first attestation [7]. The poem is also quoted by 藤井 in 1910 [25].

About 1700. 天野信景, 鹽尻. The same story, and a correction, in its ninety-sixth book: 此固無庚申之由緣、而浮屠置庚申堂者誤也, this has no connection with 庚申, and the monks who set them in 庚申 halls are mistaken, as quoted in a book of 1932 [29]. By about 1700, then, the monkeys already sat in 庚申 halls.

About 900 to 1782. The 庚申 stones. The three monkeys' second home is the 庚申 vigil, a Taoist practice in which three worms inside the body report a sleeper's sins to Heaven on the night of the 庚申 sign, a belief attested in Japan from about 900 [30][31]. The monkeys attach to it by another pun, 申 being read saru. The 日国's first 庚申塚, a roadside 庚申 mound, is in a comic verse of 1782, and the dictionaries say such mounds mostly carry a stone carved with the three monkeys [32]; 鹽尻 finds the monkeys in 庚申 halls about 1700 [29], and an English encyclopedia of 1993 dates the custom of carving them on 庚申 pillars from the late Muromachi period without naming its witness [33]. The proverb dictionary of 1910 files the maxim under 庚申塚ノ三猿 as well as under itself [25]. The learned writers of Edo agree that the attachment came later.

1810s. 山東京伝's questions and the 兎園 circle's answers. The novelist asked where the 庚申 monkeys covering their eyes, ears and mouth came from and who first said it. The antiquarians reached for the Tendai poems attributed to 慈惠大師, and admitted they could not find them in any scripture. One quoted a travel book's version of the fourth monkey: 見す聞すいはさるまてはつなけとも思はさるこそつなかれもせす, you can tie up the not-seeing, the not-hearing and the not-saying, but the not-thinking cannot be tied [2].

About 1800. 大田南畝, on a picture. Three monkeys under a cherry tree: the white one shuts its own mouth and covers the other two's ears and eyes with its hands. His verse: 面白い事をもみざるきかざるはさくらを花といはざるの智惠, not seeing or hearing the interesting thing is the wisdom of not calling the cherry a flower [34]. The maxim as a wit's dodge.

1891. The three-monkey recluse. The Japan Weekly Mail of 7 February 1891 reports that Count Inoue, living retired with the 古今集 and the 萬葉集, would henceforth be the Sanyen Koji, or Three-monkey Recluse, and explains the name by a celebrated picture of three monkeys, one asleep, another with its paw to its mouth, and the third holding a paw to each ear, and by the pun on saru: the name means he has left politics [3]. In 1896 a review says of the same 井上伯, 三猿主義を固執して、冷然高見の見物を爲す, he holds to the three-monkey principle and watches coldly from on high [4]. The maxim as a statesman's retirement.

1894. 尾崎紅葉, 紫. 物言へば唇寒し秋の風、見猿聞か猿言は猿がよし, Bashō's line about the cold that follows speaking, then see-monkey, hear-monkey, say-monkey is best, said of a man enduring a talker [35]. The spelling with 猿 in exactly this pattern.

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典. The standard proverb dictionary files the sentence with a Chinese moral source from a Song tract, 省心詮要, 耳不聞人之非、目不視人之短、口不言人之過, the ear does not hear others' faults, the eye does not see others' shortcomings, the mouth does not speak others' errors; the 1649 poem; a Buddhist teaching verse; and the Tendai story [25].

Undated. A dōka attributed to 一休. Among the didactic verses printed as Ikkyū's in Blyth's English of 1962 is Nanigoto mo mizaru iwazaru kikazaru wa, tada hotoke nimo masaru narikeri, who sees naught, says naught, hears naught, simply surpasses the Buddha; the three negatives in the proverb's order but for the middle two, the attribution Blyth's, and the Japanese source unnamed [36]. The collections of Ikkyū's dōka are Edo compilations, so the verse dates the pairing of the three verbs with a Buddhist moral no earlier than the 沙石集 manuscript does.

The dictionaries today. The 日国: 他人の欠点・あやまち、あるいは自分に都合の悪いものなどは、見ない、聞かない、言わないということを表わす, with the 1649 poem as first attestation [7]. The ことわざを知る辞典, under the kana spelling, adds the modern turn: 自己保身のために見て見ぬふりをする場合にも使われ、現代では否定的なニュアンスを伴うことも少なくありません, it is also used of looking away to protect oneself, and today often carries a negative shade, and notes that three-monkey images have since been discovered in many parts of the world, so the Japanese pun cannot be the whole story [8].

What is not a source. Confucius. The line always cited, from the Analects, is 非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動: four clauses, the fourth do not move, the object what is not ritual, and no monkey [37]. The Xunzi's 勸學 has a four-clause cousin with a different fourth, 使目非是無欲見也，使耳非是無欲聞也，使口非是無欲言也，使心非是無欲慮也, eye, ear, mouth and mind [38]. The Edo dictionaries cite neither; they cite the Song tract above, three clauses in the Japanese order about other people's faults. The Analects link is a twentieth-century pairing, and the fourth monkey sometimes added to fit do not move is a rationalization after the fact; the Japanese fourth monkey is not thinking. The famous carving at the Nikkō shrine is an instance, not an origin: the earliest book in a local mirror of the National Diet Library's digitized prewar books to connect it with the maxim is a railway guide of 1919 [39], while the English guidebooks give the carving the pun from 1881 [13] and the no evil clauses from 1890 [14], and Lloyd in 1907 reads the same carving as a Zen emblem of what cannot be transmitted, Eye hath not seen it, ear hath not heard it, tongue hath not spoken it [40]. The attribution of that carving to the sculptor 左甚五郎 is hearsay in an English traveler's book of 1890, reputed to be the handiwork of the celebrated left-handed, hunchback dwarf, Hidari Jingoro [14]; no book in the local mirror of the National Diet Library's prewar books names him with the three monkeys.

The proverb in English

1881. Ernest Satow and A. G. S. Hawes, A Handbook for Travellers in Central and Northern Japan, the route to Nikkō. At the sacred stable, carved monkeys severally represented as closing their ears and mouths and shading their eyes with their hands, called the monkeys of the three countries, India, China and Japan, and also punningly called kika-zaru, iwa-zaru and mi-zaru (not hearing, not speaking and not seeing monkeys) [13]. The pun in English, with no object.

1890. L. C. Goodwin, A Winter in Japan and China, page 9. At the Nikkō stable: some of them hold their hands over their mouths, others over their ears, while some of them have their eyes covered with their hands; and it is said that this is done that they may not see any wrong, hear no evil, nor speak a bad word of each other [14]. The oldest English no evil found, and a guide's telling, it is said.

1891 and 1894. Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Japan, Chamberlain and Mason, third edition, page 80, and fourth edition, page 44. The Introduction's list of deities, under Kōshin: This being the day of the Monkey, it is represented by three monkeys (sambiki-zaru) called respectively, by a play upon words, mi-zaru, kika-zaru, and iwa-zaru, that is, "the blind monkey," "the deaf monkey," and "the dumb monkey." Stone slabs with these three monkeys in relief are among the most usual objects of devotion met with on the roadside in the rural districts of Japan, the idea being that this curious triad will neither see, hear, nor speak any evil [15]. The third edition of 1891 has the same paragraph with trinity for triad, it stands unchanged in the fifth edition of 1898, and Munro in 1905 and Smith in 1910 quote it as Chamberlain and Mason's [15][41][42]. The pun, the roadside stones and the evil are all here by 1891.

1891 and 1892. Nikkō in the travel books. Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore's Jinrikisha Days in Japan of 1891 has the stable's carvings of monkeys with eyes, or ears, or mouth covered with their paws — the signification being that one should neither see, hear, nor speak any evil [43]. Ethel Gwendoline Vincent, Newfoundland to Cochin China, page 143, of the three monkeys on the stable: one signifying that you must see no evil; the other that you must hear no evil; the last that you must speak no evil [16]. Both from travelers with a guide.

1894. Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, volume one, the chapter Bon-odori, page 97. He is now Saruda-hiko-no-mikoto; and his presence is revealed only by the statues of the Three Mystic Apes which are his servants, — Mizaru, who sees no evil, covering his eyes with his hands, Kikazaru, who hears no evil, covering his ears with his hands, Iwazaru, who speaks no evil, covering his mouth with his hands [17]. In the Enoshima chapter he finds them carved under roadside 庚申 stones [17]. This is the earliest English to give each monkey its name with evil, and the wording the later books copy; the formula itself is older, above, and evil is an English gloss on a Japanese sentence that has no object.

1896 to 1899. Nikkō in the guidebooks. The Yale Book of Quotations finds Don't see any wrong … don't hear any wrong … don't talk any wrong in Robert C. Hope's Temples and Shrines of Nikko of 1896, describing the carvings on the Sacred Stable [18]; Noyes in 1899 quotes the same words as the facile pen of N. Ban's, punningly called first mizaru (don't see any wrong); second, kikazaru (don't hear any wrong); third, iwazaru (don't talk any wrong) [44].

1906 to 1914. The travel books. The formula is a fixture of the English book about Japan: Fisher in 1906 makes the Nikkō monkey Nikko's holy trade-mark … bidding the harsh censor, "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" [45]; the Japan Weekly Mail in 1908, the year of the monkey, explains the pun, tivasaru, hikasaru, misaru for not-speaking, not-hearing and not-seeing, and calls it a good motto for monkey-year: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil [46]; Joly's Legend in Japanese Art of 1908 lists the three mystic apes under Kōshin, MIZARU, with a hand over his eyes, who sees no evil [47]; Lady Lawson in 1910 has them symbolize Oriental reserve, Not see, Not hear, Not talk, with Zaru, the termination of each infinitive giving a pun on "Monkey" (Saru) [48]; Davis's Myths and Legends of Japan of 1912 gives them in a footnote, He who sees no evil, He who hears no evil, He who speaks no evil [49]; Pier's Temple Treasures of Japan of 1914 names the stable's three brown and white monkeys "Mizaru" or "See no evil" and so on [50]; Isabel Anderson's Spell of Japan of 1914 closes with the little apes of Nikko … Mizaru, who sees no evil [51]. Lloyd alone reads them differently: in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan of 1907 and his Wheat among the Tares of 1908, the Nikkō carving tells what the heart of Buddha is, Eye hath not seen it, ear hath not heard it, tongue hath not spoken it [40], and Lawton's Empires of the Far East of 1912 copies him word for word [52].

1905 to 1955. The proverb in English speech. The Yale Book of Quotations dates see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil to the Forum of February 1913 and speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil to the Dallas Morning News of 9 July 1905 [18]; the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs opens its entry with an Army and Navy Stores catalogue of 1926, The three wise monkeys, and Whiting's Modern Proverbs runs the sayings from 1931 to 1983, hear nowt, see nowt, say nowt among them [19][53]; Kin's American proverb dictionary of 1955 files it under Virtue, Mieder's under evil, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations under Proverbs, and Doyle's Dictionary of Modern Proverbs lists it in the appendix of proverbs found to be older than 1900 [54][55][56][57].

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, page 76. Mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru: Lit., "Not to see, not to hear, not to speak." That is, not to see other's faults, not to hear other's scandals, and not to talk of other's failures [20]. He explains the pun, zaru for saru, describes the three monkeys with their hands to eyes, ears and mouth as see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, and adds that the emphasis is negative — not what one should do, but what one should not do [20]. The travelers' evil is the gloss here too, seventy years on, and the proverb is read as a rule of good breeding.

1974 to 2002. The reference books. Nelson's character dictionary of 1974 has 三猿 san'en as three monkeys who see, hear, and speak no evil [58]; the Kodansha Encyclopedia of 1993, under Three Monkeys, gives not seeing (mizaru), not hearing (kikazaru), or not speaking (iwazaru) and dates the carving of the figures on Kōshin pillars to the late Muromachi period [33]; Garrison's Kodansha Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms of 2002 heads the entry "see monkey, hear monkey, speak monkey", glosses it see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, gives two modern example sentences about keeping out of other people's quarrels, and explains zaru as a play on the negative ending [59].

2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, page 91. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." Don't concern yourself with that which does not concern you. Mind your own business and avoid trouble [24]. The English formula carried as if it were the proverb.

Today. JMdict: see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil; the three wise monkeys [60].

A reading

The monkeys and their names arrive together: the oldest witness, a manuscript of 1597, already keeps three monkeys named by the three negatives; a Kyoto hall has the figures by 1632 and 庚申 halls by about 1700, and the sentence in the proverb's order first appears in 1649 as a pun on them. The 猿 spelling is not a flourish on a kana proverb: it is the pun, and it is the dictionaries' own headword. Which came first, the figures or the words, the witnesses do not settle; I read the maxim as the monkeys read aloud. The English evil is the travelers' word, in print by 1890, and the Japanese tradition's own moral is the fourth monkey, that not seeing, hearing and saying are easy and not thinking is the hard one.

References

  1. 無住『沙石集』, 1283; the 徳本 manuscript of 1597 in the 岩波 edition of 1943, 筑土鈴寛 校訂, National Diet Library pid 1040496, scan 186; the editor's list of the manuscripts, with the 成簣堂本 copied 慶長二年, scan 5. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1040496/1/186 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1040496/1/5
  2. 山東京伝, 疑問録, in 『続燕石十種』第2, 国書刊行会, 1909, National Diet Library pid 991280, scan 196. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991280/1/196
  3. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 7 February 1891, the paragraph Count Inouye (the archive.org text layer of the 1891 volume). https://archive.org/details/Japandailymail1891v1
  4. 『明治評論』, January 1896, National Diet Library pid 1583794, read in the library's full-text snippet (an out-of-commerce item). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1583794
  5. 前田長太 編『黒衣婦人』, 1897, National Diet Library pid 824449, scan 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824449/1/7
  6. 竹原常太『スタンダード和英辞典』, 1946, National Diet Library pid 1126792, scan 398. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792/1/398
  7. 「見猿聞か猿言わ猿」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/見猿聞か猿言わ猿
  8. 「見ざる聞かざる言わざる」, ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/見ざる聞かざる言わざる
  9. 熊代彦太郎 編『俚諺辞典』, 1906, National Diet Library pid 900343, scan 249. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/900343/1/249
  10. 「三猿」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/三猿
  11. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, Shanghai, 1867, p. 280, s.v. Mizaru (the shelved Tuttle reprint of 1983, and the archive.org text layer). https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb
  12. Hepburn, dictionary of 1872, under MIZARU.
  13. Ernest Mason Satow and A. G. S. Hawes, A Handbook for Travellers in Central and Northern Japan, 1881, Route 45, Nikkō, the sacred stable (the archive.org text layer; the page number is not legible in it). https://archive.org/details/ahandbookfortra00hawegoog
  14. L. C. Goodwin, A Winter in Japan and China, 1890, p. 9 (the archive.org text layer). https://archive.org/details/winterinjapanchi00goodiala
  15. Basil Hall Chamberlain and W. B. Mason, A Handbook for Travellers in Japan, 3rd ed., John Murray, London, 1891, Introduction, p. 80, and 4th ed., 1894, Introduction, p. 44, s.v. Kōshin; the same paragraph in the 5th ed., 1898 (the archive.org text layers). https://archive.org/details/handbooktravell00murr · https://archive.org/details/ahandbookfortra01masogoog
  16. Ethel Gwendoline Vincent, Newfoundland to Cochin China: by the Golden Wave, New Nippon, and the Forbidden City, Sampson Low, Marston, London, 1892, p. 143 (the archive.org text layer). https://archive.org/details/cihm_09246
  17. Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Houghton Mifflin, 1894, vol. 1, pp. 97 and 70–72. Internet Archive glimpsesunfamil05heargoog. https://archive.org/details/glimpsesunfamil05heargoog
  18. Fred R. Shapiro, The New Yale Book of Quotations, Yale University Press, 2021, p. 564, Proverbs no. 80.
  19. Jennifer Speake, The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 2015, s.v. SEE no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil (the shelved copy carries no page numbers).
  20. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, p. 76 (read at the shelf's text layer; the page image was not opened).
  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. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, 2004, p. 91.
  25. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 1910, p. 948, National Diet Library pid 862766, scans 492 and 124. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/492
  26. 『日本社会事彙』, 1891, National Diet Library pid 898056, scans 502–503. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/898056/1/502
  27. 石田未得『吾吟我集』, 1649; the 1776 Osaka reprint, National Institute of Japanese Literature, BID 200002654, canvas 45. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200002654
  28. 「吾吟我集」, デジタル大辞泉 · 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · 日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/吾吟我集-499022
  29. 金井紫雲『動物と芸術』, 1932, National Diet Library pid 1176096, scan 116, quoting 天野信景『鹽尻』, book 96. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1176096/1/116
  30. 「庚申待」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/庚申待
  31. 「三尸」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/三尸
  32. 「庚申塚」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/庚申塚
  33. Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, Kodansha, 1993, s.v. Three Monkeys.
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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), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 見猿聞か猿言わ猿 (mizaru kikazaru iwazaru)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/mizaru-kikazaru-iwazaru.