Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

0
Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight

七転八起 nana korobi ya oki Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight

This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 七転八起 (nana korobi ya oki). It spans a picture book of 1798 where a rat consoles a falling boy, the Zen idiom of writhing in agony the proverb is cut from, the daruma doll that became its emblem, and two competing English forms in print since the 1970s.

Japanese Scroll of Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight (nana korobi ya oki) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight (nana korobi ya oki)

Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight (nana korobi ya oki) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

View Scroll ›

Abstract

七転八起, fall down seven times, get up eight, is a Japanese proverb attested as a saying by 1798, in a picture book where a rat consoles a boy who keeps falling in his golden straw sandals. Its Edo sense is consolation about the turns of luck; its Meiji sense, once the four characters were also read as a Chinese-style word, is resolve. It is cut on the pattern of a Zen idiom for writhing in agony, and by 1902 it is paired with the self-righting daruma doll, the emblem it carries today. English has rendered it as a description since 1872 and as the modern imperative, fall down seven times, get up eight, since the 1970s; a shorter form, fall seven times, stand up eight, is now the commoner of the two.

Overview

The sense. The tradition holds two senses. The older is consolation about luck: a person is knocked down seven times and gets up eight, so bad is followed by good, said to someone in trouble by a rat in 1798, a friend in 1803, a lover in 1824, a long-lost relative in 1825. The newer is resolve: not giving up, getting up once more than one is knocked down, which is what the kanji word came to mean when Meiji started using it as a noun for a life or a career and what the daruma doll stands for.

The words. Four characters, two verbs with their counts. 七 nana, seven. 転 korobi, to fall over, to tumble; the older books write 轉 or 顛, one word in three shapes. 八 ya, eight. 起 oki, to get up. The arithmetic is the point: seven falls need only seven risings, and the proverb asks for eight. The current proverb dictionary explains the extra one as the number of standing up once more than one was knocked down, and adds the folklore of the two numbers, seven for many with a shadow on it, eight for the auspicious spread of the character's two strokes. The characters are read two ways. As a Japanese sentence they are ななころびやおき, the proverb, which is the older reading. As a Sino-Japanese word they are しちてんはっき, a yojijukugo the big dictionary first finds in 1885, meaning the same thing as a noun. Under both sits an older idiom that shares three of the four characters, 七転八倒 shichiten battō, to writhe in agony, which is Chinese and Zen; the proverb is cut on its pattern with the last verb turned from topple to rise.

The proverb in English. The Meiji bilingual dictionaries render it as a description, not a slogan: 高橋 in 1888 gives Seven times falling and eight times rising up [1], Brinkley in 1896 Seven times down (but) eight times … [2], and 島田 in 1900 To be successful the eighth time after seven repeated failures [3]. Hepburn's second edition of 1872 already has it under the verb, (prov.) to fall seven times and rise eight [4], and his fourth of 1888 keeps it [5]. Buchanan's 1965 collection, the standard American one of its generation, does not carry it; Okada's of 1958 captions a daruma with it, and Kenkyūsha's dictionaries of 1942 and 1974 enter it. The modern English form is in print by 1974, unattributed [6]; it enters the Japanese-proverb shelf with Galef in 1987 [7], is a Korean proverb in Grant's 1982 book [8], a chapter title in Rubin's 1996 book [9], and reaches the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs in 2008 [10]. Trimnell in 2004 gives a third wording [11]; the Little Oxford in 2009 canonizes the terser form, now the commoner of the two [12]; Galef's 2012 reissue keeps the 1987 wording [13], and Higashida's 2016 memoir carries the proverb as a title [14].

The historical record

1798, Jippensha Ikku 十返舎一九, 御徳用黄金艸鞋, a picture book in two volumes, in the National Diet Library's copy. A boy called 三太郎 has been given golden straw sandals and told to wear them out working, day and night; he keeps slipping and falling, and a rat picks him up: ころんでもいゝ七ころび八おきとたとへのとふりころんでも又おきるものなれはそこをしんぼうせねばならす, it's all right to fall; as the saying goes, seven falls and eight risings; one falls and gets up again, so that is where you must bear it. The phrase is already the saying, たとへ, and already a consolation [15].

Around 1800, the 俚言集覧, a dictionary of common sayings compiled by Ōta Zensai 太田全斎, read in its 1900 edition. Among the entries beginning with seven, 七乞食○七轉八起七小町, the four characters stand in a list without a gloss: a saying a lexicographer of the age already had to hand [16].

1803 imprint, 山東京伝, 裡家算見通坐敷. In a comic piece on household fortunes: 人は七ころび八おきといふことがあれば, since there is the saying that a person falls seven times and rises eight [17].

1805 and 1808, 曲亭馬琴, read in the typesets of the 1880s. Bakin uses the four characters as a stock phrase of the narrator's voice, with the reading over them: 七轉八起といへば。よき事もあり。あしき事もなくてや, as they say, seven falls eight risings: there are good things, and are there not bad ones too (三七全伝南柯夢) [18]; 人は七轉八起とかいふ世話もあるに, there is that saying, a person falls seven and rises eight (南総里見八犬伝) [19]. Once he uses it in the other idiom's sense: a poisoned man 七轉八起して狂ひ死にぞ死たりける, writhed, and died raving, with the on-reading しつてんはつき over it, where the dictionaries would write 七転八倒 [20]. The two idioms were not yet sorted in his prose.

1821, 春亭三暁, 十種香萩廼白露, and 1824, Tamenaga Shunsui 為永春水, 菊廼井草紙, two sentimental novels. わかき時には七ころび八おきといへば, when one is young, they say, seven falls eight risings [21]; and, in a quarrel about a husband's failures, それも人は七轉八起とやらだから, still, they say a person falls seven and rises eight, so [22]. Spoken consolation, both times, about luck that may turn.

1825, Hana Sanjin 鼻山人, 風俗粋好伝, second series, illustrated by Keisai Eisen 渓斎英泉. A reunion scene, and the line that is the proverb's Edo sense in one breath: ハテ人は七轉び八起じや。悪い跡は善といふから, well, a person falls seven and rises eight; they say good comes after bad. The printed characters are 七轉び八起 with their kana beside them, in the third column of the right-hand page [23].

1885, 坪内逍遙, 当世書生気質, the first modern novel, read in the 1886 printing. A student holds forth on a fifty-year life: 人生五十年、其五十年間にやあ失策もあるし成功もあるも恥もかく名誉も得る七転八起、一栄一辱、棺に白布を蓋ふにいたつて初めて其名誉が定まるんだ, fifty years of a life, and in them failures and successes, shame and honor, seven falls and eight risings, a glory and a disgrace; only when the coffin is covered with white cloth is a man's honor settled. This is the sentence the 日本国語大辞典 gives as the first citation of the word しちてんはっき: the four characters as a noun, and a whole life as its subject [24].

1894, Mozume Takami 物集高見, 日本大辞林, the Imperial Household's dictionary. ななころびやおき。七轉八起。おくることの、ころぶことよりもおほくあるをいふことわざ, a proverb meaning that one's risings are more than one's fallings. The proverb's first dictionary definition [25].

1902, 日本社会事彙, second volume, the entry on daruma. On the papier-mâché dolls made at 高崎: 世人の之を購ふ所以のものは。盖し春夏秋蠶の當らんを祈り。且は七轉八起の功德に據らむが爲め, people buy them to pray that the spring, summer and autumn silkworm crops come in, and to draw on the merit of seven-falls-eight-risings. The doll that rights itself when pushed over is the proverb's emblem, and this is the earliest print pairing of the two [26].

1910, 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典, the great proverb dictionary. 【七顛八起】人世の浮沈定めなきこと。又困難に屈せずして、世と闘ふことにいふ, the ups and downs of a human life, which nothing fixes; also said of not yielding to hardship and fighting on in the world. Two senses in one line, the old and the new. The next entry is 【七顛八倒】のたうちて苦みもがくこと, to writhe and struggle in pain, with its source, the 碧巌録: 到這裏七顛八倒、於一切時中、得大自在. The proverb and the idiom it is cut from sit one above the other on the page [27].

The dictionaries today. 大辞泉 enters both readings: ななころびやおき《七度転んで八度起き上がる意から》多くの失敗にもめげず、そのたびに奮起して立ち直ること。転じて、人生には浮き沈みが多いことのたとえ; and しちてんはっき, not giving up however often one fails, and seeing it through. The proverb dictionary's examples are 岡本綺堂 in 1912 and 相馬愛蔵 in 1952; the yojijukugo dictionary's is 是川銀蔵 in 1991 [28]. The four-character kanji form is by far the commonest in print before 1945 (654 books listed by the National Diet Library's index against 410 for the headword spelling and 58 for the all-kana one), and the classical facet holds nothing before 1798 under any of nine spellings.

What is not a source. The Zen idiom 七顛八倒 is the pattern, not the source: it means writhing, its books are the Song recorded sayings and the 碧巌録, and no dictionary derives the proverb from it beyond setting the two side by side. The Korean 칠전팔기, the same four characters read in Korean and listed among a hundred Korean proverbs in an American book of 1982, is the same coinage in another language; which cut it first the sources do not settle [8]. The daruma doll is the proverb's emblem, in print with it by 1902, not its origin. And If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, which Galef and the Oxford dictionary set beside it, is an English proverb of the nineteenth century with its own history.

The proverb in English

1872. James Curtis Hepburn, 和英語林集成, second edition, under korobi. Nana korobi ya oki, (prov.) to fall seven times and rise eight [4].

1888. Hepburn, fourth edition, page 832. The same entry, nana korobi ya oki, (prov.) to fall seven times and rise eight, still an example under the verb, not a headword [5].

1888, Takahashi Gorō 高橋五郎, 漢英対照いろは辞典, Tokyo, 長尾景弼, p. 504. ななころびやおき 七轉八起(人生は禍多けれども又終に福にも至るの義をいふ) Seven times falling and eight times rising up. The gloss is the consolation sense: a life has many misfortunes but comes at last to fortune [1].

1896, F. Brinkley and others, 和英大辞典, pages 998 and 1071. Twice: as a headword, marked as a proverb, Nanakorobi-yaoki, Seven times down (but) eight times up; i.e. to be at last crowned with success after repeated failures; and under oki, marked literally, Nana korobi ya oki, seven times falling down and eight times getting up (in allusion to the extreme mutability of man's fortune) [2].

1900, 島田豊 and Shimada Otomaru 島田弟丸, 学生用和英字典, Tokyo, 博文館. To be successful the eighth time after seven repeated failures [3].

1942. 研究社, Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, page 1323. A headword: nanakorobi-yaoki (七転び八起き). Vicissitudes of fortune; ups and downs of life. 七転び八起きな生涯 a checkered career. 彼の生涯は七転び八起きだった. He has had many ups and downs in his life. The wheel of Fortune turns round. / Have fortitude under misfortune [29]. The English is a description of a life, not the slogan.

1958. Okada Rokuo, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, pages 113–114. A daruma tumbler captioned with the proverb — "Daruma" tumblers are not only toys for boys, but are also mascots for Japanese shopkeepers because they bob up the moment they are knocked over — and the entry: Nana-korobi ya-oki. Seven falls and eight rises, glossed as a life of ups and downs and closed with It is a long lane that has no turning [30].

1974. 研究社, fourth edition, page 1184. The 1942 entry, with one more sentence: 世の中は七転び八起きだ. If you fall down seven times, get up eight. / Life is full of ups and downs. / The wheel of fortune turns round [31]. The slogan form, if you fall down seven times, get up eight, is in a Japanese dictionary in 1974, the year Kip Quotes prints it in America.

1974, Kip Quotes, Clifton Burke, Taylor Publishing. Fall down seven times; get up eight. The earliest print of the modern English form in the Internet Archive's index, unattributed there [6].

1982, Bruce K. Grant, Korean Proverbs: Dragon Head, Snake Tail, Salt Lake City, Moth House. Fall down seven times and get up eight, among a hundred Korean proverbs [8].

1987, David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tokyo and Rutland, Tuttle, no. 100. 七転び八起き Nana-korobi ya-oki. Fall down seven times, get up eight, and in his list of equivalents, If at first you don't succeed, try, try again [7].

1996, Lillian B. Rubin, The Transcendent Child, New York, Basic Books. The title of chapter one [9].

2004, William Scott Wilson, The Lone Samurai, page 128. Of the daruma doll: a popular round, legless doll of the patriarch is seen almost everywhere and is accompanied by the saying, Life is falling down seven times, getting up eight / Jinsei nanakorobi, ya'oki [32].

2004, Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest. NANAKOROBI YAOKI 七転び八起き "Fall down seven times...Stand up eight." Don't allow yourself to become discouraged by failure … All setbacks are temporary [11].

2008, The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, fifth edition, Oxford University Press. FALL down seven times, get up eight. Japanese proverb, with its first citation from the New York Times of 24 August 1997: 'I always told him, "Fall down seven times, get up eight,"' said John Kim, the bridegroom's father [10].

2009, Little Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press. Fall seven times, stand up eight. Japanese proverb; compare If at first you don't succeed … [12].

2012, David Galef, Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, no. 100, p. 118. Nana-korobu, ya-oki. Fall down seven times, get up eight [13].

2014, Alexander Bennett, Hagakure, page 101, maxim 127. It was customarily said at the time of Lord Katsushige: "You won't make a true man of service unless you have experienced being a rōnin seven times. Fall down seven times, and get up eight (nanakorobi-yaoki)." … It should be thought of as being like a self-righting doll [33].

2016, Naoki Higashida, translated by David Mitchell and K. A. Yoshida, Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8, Hodder & Stoughton. The proverb as a title [14].

Today. Two English forms compete. Fall down seven times, get up eight is the Meiji dictionaries' descendant and Galef's; Fall seven times, stand up eight, the Little Oxford's, is now the commoner in print (over a thousand items in the Internet Archive's index against seven hundred). JMdict glosses the proverb not giving up; keeping at it until one succeeds; falling seven times, getting up eight, and adds the vicissitudes of life as a second sense, which is the older one [34]. The house's title, Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight, is Galef's 1987 wording with times dropped, and his credit stands. A rendering of this line must keep the count, both verbs, and the eighth rising as one more than the falls; never give up loses the arithmetic that is the proverb.

A reading

The proverb is older and stranger than its dictionary entry says. The big dictionary's first citation of 1885 is only the first for the Chinese reading of the four characters; the saying itself is in a picture book of 1798, already called a saying, spoken by a rat to a boy who cannot stay on his feet. Its first sense is not resolve but consolation about luck, bad is followed by good, and every Edo speaker of it is comforting someone. The resolve is what Meiji read into the kanji word and what the self-righting daruma, paired with it in print by 1902, carries. And the phrase is cut on a Zen idiom for writhing in pain, three characters shared, the last verb turned from topple to rise; Bakin still used it in both senses in one decade. Three things stand under the four characters: the rat and the sandals, the eighth rising, the doll with no feet.

References

  1. 高橋五郎『漢英対照いろは辞典』, 長尾景弼, 1888, p. 504. National Diet Library pid 902745, scan 260. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902745/1/260
  2. F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1896, pp. 998 and 1071, s.vv. Nanakorobi-yaoki, Oki. National Diet Library pid 903159.
  3. 島田豊・島田弟丸『学生用和英字典』, 博文館, 1900. National Diet Library pid 870126, scan 396. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870126/1/396
  4. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, 2nd ed., American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1872, s.v. korobi (the shelf copy's scan page 305).
  5. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, Z. P. Maruya, Tokyo, 1888, p. 832, s.v. korobi. Internet Archive japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft
  6. Clifton Burke, Kip Quotes, Taylor Publishing, 1974. Internet Archive kipquotes0000clif.
  7. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, Tokyo and Rutland, 1987, no. 100.
  8. Bruce K. Grant, Korean Proverbs: Dragon Head, Snake Tail, Moth House, Salt Lake City, 1982.
  9. Lillian B. Rubin, The Transcendent Child, Basic Books, New York, 1996.
  10. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 2008.
  11. Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004.
  12. Little Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 2009.
  13. David Galef, Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, 2012, no. 100, p. 118.
  14. Naoki Higashida, tr. David Mitchell and K. A. Yoshida, Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8, Hodder & Stoughton, 2016.
  15. 十返舎一九『御徳用黄金艸鞋』, 寛政10 (1798). National Diet Library pid 9892863, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9892863/1/9
  16. 太田全斎『俚言集覧』, c. 1800, 1900 edition. National Diet Library pid 991570, scan 412. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991570/1/412
  17. 山東京伝『裡家算見通坐敷』, 享和3 (1803). National Diet Library pid 9892405, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9892405/1/15
  18. 曲亭馬琴『三七全伝南柯夢』, 東京稗史出版社, 1883 typeset. National Diet Library pid 878502, scan 26. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/878502/1/26
  19. 曲亭馬琴『南総里見八犬伝』第7輯. National Diet Library pid 879295 (search record).
  20. 曲亭馬琴『稚枝鳩』, 共隆社, 1886 typeset. National Diet Library pid 879731, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/879731/1/9
  21. 春亭三暁『十種香萩廼白露』, 文政4 (1821). National Diet Library pid 9893239, scan 13. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9893239/1/13
  22. 為永春水『菊廼井草紙』, 文政7 (1824). National Diet Library pid 8942788, scan 18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8942788/1/18
  23. 鼻山人『風俗粋好伝』, 渓斎英泉 画, 文政8 (1825). National Diet Library pid 8942994, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8942994/1/17
  24. 坪内逍遙『当世書生気質』, 1886 printing. National Diet Library pid 887446, scan 171. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/887446/1/171
  25. 物集高見『日本大辞林』, 宮内省, 1894. National Diet Library pid 863449, scan 550. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/863449/1/550
  26. 経済雑誌社『日本社会事彙』下巻, 1902. National Diet Library pid 1805636, scan 344. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1805636/1/344
  27. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 256. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/256
  28. 「七転び八起き」・「七転八起」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉・四字熟語を知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/七転び八起き-589160
  29. 武信由太郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyūsha, 1942 (the Harvard University Press printing), p. 1323, s.v. nanakorobi-yaoki.
  30. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1958, pp. 113–114.
  31. 増田綱 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1974, p. 1184, s.v. nanakorobi-yaoki.
  32. William Scott Wilson, The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi, Kodansha International, 2004, p. 128.
  33. Alexander Bennett, translator, Hagakure: The Secret Wisdom of the Samurai, Tuttle, 2014, p. 101.
  34. JMdict, 「七転び八起き」・「七転八起」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/七転八起

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 · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every claim tested at its address; most resolve; the differing readings are one finding, right on the number and wrong on the cause — the index reports more than it lists; the rest not openable, stated to the check rather than shown, most leaves re-opened by hand from the OCR text, all verbatim