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人間万事塞翁が馬 ningen banji saiō ga uma All is Saiou's Horse

This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 人間万事塞翁が馬 (ningen banji saiō ga uma). It spans a Han-dynasty parable, its telling as a Yuan monk's line of verse about listening to rain, a three-century error over who wrote it, and the reading its own catalogue got backwards.

Japanese Scroll of All is Saiou's Horse (jinkan banji saiou ga uma) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
All is Saiou's Horse (jinkan banji saiou ga uma)

All is Saiou's Horse (jinkan banji saiou ga uma) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

人間万事塞翁が馬, everything in this world is the old man's horse, is a Japanese proverb whose parable is Chinese, from the 淮南子's second-century-BC chapter on a frontier diviner whose lost horse becomes his family's survival. Its seven characters are a line of Zen verse by a Yuan monk about 1300, and the line is a Japanese proverb by the late 1500s, standing in the first Japanese proverb book of 1638. A Confucian scholar corrected the record in 1763: the couplet is not Su Dongpo's, as the proverb books had said for three centuries, but a lesser-known Yuan monk's. The first two characters, 人間, are read ningen in every witness from 1656 to 1939 and never jinkan, though a modern dictionary records the latter as a learned alternative.

Overview

The sense. The sense has not moved. The 節用集 says 不可喜不可悲, the 1673 glossary よろこぶべからず かなしむべからず, the 1910 dictionary 禍福は糾へる繩の如く常なき, and the modern dictionaries say the same in modern words: fortune reverses without warning, so neither good news nor bad is to be trusted yet. What the witnesses add is a temperament. In the 淮南子 the old man is a diviner who declines to react; in the monk's couplet he is the figure for a man listening to the rain; in the Japanese verb ほくそ笑む he is a half-smile. The proverb is used, then and now, as consolation after a loss, and 太宰治 in 1945 has a character say exactly that: 人間万事塞翁の馬。元気を出して、再挙を図るさ, the old man's horse; take heart and try again.

The words. 人間 is the word the reading turns on. In this line it is the Chinese word for the human world, not the Japanese word for a human being, and the question is how to say it. Every Japanese witness that writes the sounds says にんげん, ningen: the 1656 proverb book, the 1673 poetic glossary, the 1695 retelling, the Noh text the dictionaries take as the first attestation, 馬琴's own furigana in a novel, the 1910 proverb dictionary twice, and the dictionaries of the 1930s. An archive of seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-five public-domain books has no jinkan for this line at all. Jinkan is the Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word, and one modern dictionary records it as an interpretation some readers prefer: 「人間」を「じんかん」と読み、「世の中の運不運は見極めがたい」という意味だとする解釈もあります. It is a legitimate learned choice; it is not the older reading. 万事, banji, is all matters. 塞翁, saiō, is the old man at the frontier fort: 塞 is a border stronghold and 翁 an old man, and no text gives him a name. が is the classical possessive, the old man's. 馬, uma, is the horse; the seventeenth-century books spell it むま. The old man has a second Japanese name, 北叟, the old man of the north, and it survives in an everyday verb: ほくそ笑む, to smile to oneself, which the dictionaries trace to the 北叟笑い, the frontier old man's half-smile at every turn of fortune.

The proverb in English. The English career of the proverb begins in the Meiji dictionaries, and every later equation descends from them [1]. 井上十吉's dictionaries of 1909 and 1911 give The unexpected turns of the world's affairs [2]; 斎藤秀三郎 in 1918 gives Inscrutable are the ways of Heaven, in three places, the equation the house page still carries word for word [3]; the 1946 スタンダード和英辞典 gives Nothing is certain in the world [4]. The proverb is absent from Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 and from nine other Japanese-English dictionaries between 1904 and 1929. Buchanan in 1965 reads 人間 as ningen and renders an evil sometimes turns out to be a blessing in disguise, crediting the retelling to a 1955 Japanese booklet; a blessing in disguise carries only half the proverb, the half where bad turns good [5]. It is not in Galef's two collections, Trimnell's, or Zona's.

The historical record

Second century BC. 淮南子 (Huainanzi), the chapter 人間訓. The parable, without any proverb attached. A man skilled in divination lives near the frontier. His horse runs off to the nomads and the neighbors console him; he asks how they know it is not good fortune. The horse comes back leading a fine nomad horse and the neighbors congratulate him; he asks how they know it is not calamity. His son rides the new horse, falls and breaks his thigh; the neighbors console him. A year later the nomads invade, nine in ten of the young men die in the fighting, and the lame son and his father keep each other alive. The chapter's own moral: 故福之為禍，禍之為福，化不可極，深不可測也, so fortune becomes calamity and calamity fortune; the change cannot be exhausted and the depth cannot be measured [6].

About 1300. 晦機元熙 (Huiji Yuanxi), a Zen monk of Yuan China, the poem 寄徑山虛谷陵和尚. The seven characters are the seventh line of his eight-line poem, whose last couplet reads 人間萬事塞翁馬、推枕軒中聽雨眠, everything in the human world is the frontier old man's horse; I push away the pillow and lie in the veranda room listening to the rain. The couplet is a Zen monk's equanimity, not a moral. It is the line Japan took [7].

Thirteenth century, before the poem: the old man of the north in court poetry. The parable was in Japanese verse a century before the monk wrote, under the name 北の翁. The retired emperor Go-Toba 後鳥羽院, in exile after 1221, is quoted: いつとなく北の翁が如くせばこのことわりや思ひ入れなん, if I could be like the old man of the north, would I take this reason to heart?; Tsuchimikado 土御門院: 心をば北の翁にならへども又たちかへる駒だにもなし, I school my heart on the old man of the north, but no horse comes back to me. A poem by 公朝 already has the proverb's whole shape: 世の中は北の翁の馬なれや善きもあしきも後を知らねば, the world is the old man of the north's horse: good or bad, no one knows what follows. Why north: 馬琴 explained in an essay, 燕石雑志, that 塞, the frontier, meant the northern frontier, so the poets translated the word [8][9][10].

Fourteenth century. The Zen monasteries. Seisetsu Shōchō 清拙正澄, who came from China to Kamakura in 1326, preached the Chinese four-character forms from the hall: 塞翁得馬未必為福 塞翁失馬未以為禍, the old man gaining a horse was not necessarily fortune; losing one was not necessarily calamity. The 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives the 東海一漚別集, about 1375, as the first Japanese use of 塞翁が馬; the dictionary names only the title, and the book is the collected writings of the Zen monk Gidō Shūshin 義堂周信 [11][12].

Late 1500s. The Noh play 綾鼓, the passage sung by the chorus. 然るに世の中は、人間萬事塞翁が馬なれや, and so the world is the old man's horse in all things, with the reading にんげんばんじさいをうがうま written beside it in the 1908 edition. This is the line the 日国 takes as the first attestation of the full proverb [13][14].

Around 1500 to 1600. A 節用集, a household dictionary. Under the headword 寒翁 (for 塞翁) the book tells the parable in Chinese, draws the moral 不可喜不可悲之意, the sense that one should neither rejoice nor grieve, and adds 世俗口號云人間萬事塞翁馬, what the world says is: everything in the human world is the old man's horse. A proverb already, and called one [15].

1638. 毛吹草, the first Japanese proverb collection, by 松江重頼. 人間萬事塞翁が馬 stands in its list of sayings, between a sleeve you have can be waved and one you lack cannot and calamity too becomes the beginning of fortune [16].

1656. 世話尽, the second proverb collection, edited by 皆虚. 人間万事塞翁が馬 with every syllable written beside it: にんげん ばんじ さいおう が むま. The earliest dated witness that tells us how the line was said [17].

1673. 和歌呉竹集, a glossary for poets. きたの翁とは塞翁が事なり。宋人の句に人間万事塞翁馬推枕軒中聴雨眠 此句のこゝろは人間万事善も善ならず悪も必しも悪ならず よろこぶべからず かなしむべからず, the old man of the north is the frontier old man. A Song poet's line runs 人間万事塞翁馬推枕軒中聴雨眠; its meaning is that in the human world good is not good and bad is not necessarily bad, so rejoice at nothing and grieve at nothing. The reading beside the couplet is にんげんばんじさいをうがむま. This is the first witness to give the poem to the wrong dynasty, and the proverb books kept the error for three centuries [18].

1695. 世話重宝記. The parable retold in Japanese, ending 人間生の事善悪禍福ともに極むべからず, in a human life good and bad, calamity and fortune, can none of them be settled, and 塞翁が馬 read さいおうがむま [19].

1763. Itō Tōgai 伊藤東涯, 秉燭譚. The Confucian scholar corrects the record: 人間萬事塞翁馬ト云ハ元ノ僧熙晦機ノ詩ナリ, the line is a poem by the Yuan monk 熙晦機, and he names its anthology, the 江湖風月集, the collection of Yuan Zen verse the Japanese monasteries read. The modern 日国 follows him. The proverb dictionaries of 1673, 1894, 1901 and 1933, and 俚言集覧, never did, and print the couplet as Su Dongpo's [7].

Early nineteenth century. 曲亭馬琴. The novelist used the line three ways: as the title of an illustrated comic book, 人間萬事塞翁馬, whose preface puns the horse on his own pen name and whose year of print stands unsettled; as a line in the 八犬伝, 禍福は糾纏の如し、人間万事往として、塞翁が馬ならぬはなし, fortune and calamity are a twisted rope; in all things human there is nothing that is not the old man's horse; and in an essay, 燕石雑志, as the explanation of why the court poets said north [20][14][10].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典, the standard proverb dictionary. Two entries. 【塞翁ノ馬】吉凶禍福の轉變常なきをいふ, it says that good and ill, calamity and fortune, turn without constancy, followed by the 淮南子 parable in Chinese, the court poems, and a 1638 haikai verse that puns the horse on the year of the horse: 萬事よき春や塞翁が馬の年. The long form is shelved under ニンゲン [8].

The dictionaries today. 精選版日本国語大辞典: 人間の吉凶や禍福は、転変きわまりがないことをいう, with the Noh line as first attestation and the monk's poem as its source. 故事成語を知る辞典: 一見、不運に思えたことが幸運につながったり、その逆だったりすることのたとえ。幸運か不運かは容易に判断しがたい, a figure for what looked like bad luck leading to good, or the reverse: luck and misfortune are not easily told apart, with Sōseki 漱石 in 1905–06 (人間万事塞翁の馬、七転び八起き) and Enchi Fumiko 円地文子 in 1979 (君がくよくよすることはないよ。人間万事塞翁が馬さ) as its examples [14].

What is not a source. 禍福は糾える縄の如し, fortune and calamity are strands of one rope, is a line from the 史記 that the dictionaries list as a synonym and that 藤井 used to gloss this proverb; it is a parallel, not an origin [21]. 沈む瀬あれば浮かぶ瀬あり, 楽あれば苦あり and 一の裏は六 are Japanese kin proverbs of the same sense. The Chinese four-character cut 塞翁失馬, usually completed 焉知非福, the old man lost his horse; how do you know it is not a blessing, is the form the saying takes in Chinese and in English books about China; it comes from the same parable by a different road and is not the Japanese proverb's source. Su Dongpo did not write the couplet, whatever the proverb books say.

The proverb in English

1904, イーストレーキ and 越山, 新撰英和熟語集. Under the English proverb It is an ill wind that blows nobody good the Japanese gloss reads 人間萬事塞翁の馬, with the translator's warning that the English saying is 意味深長 and not to be read by its letters [1].

1909 and 1911, 井上十吉, 和英辞典 and 新訳和英辞典. Saiō-no-uma, n. The unexpected turns of the world's affairs; 人間萬事塞翁の馬, The unexpected always happens in human affairs [2].

1918, 斎藤秀三郎, Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary. Inscrutable are the ways of Heaven = 人間萬事塞翁が馬, in three places [3]. Under heaven and again under inscrutable, 人間萬事塞翁が馬 both times [22].

1946, スタンダード和英辞典. Saiō-ga-uma … Nothing is certain in the world [4].

1958. Okada Rokuo, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, page 119. Ningen banji saio-ga-uma. Inscrutable are the ways of Providence. This proverbial expression refers to the inscrutability of the ways of Heaven. The allusion is to a story in a Chinese classic. An old man living near the Great Walls (this old man is referred to as a saio) had a horse… and the parable retold [23].

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, page 156. Ningen banji Saiō no uma: "An evil sometimes turns out to be a blessing in disguise." (Lit., "People and all things are like Saiō's horse."), then the parable in five sentences, and The future often provides happy solutions of difficult problems. He reads 人間 as ningen, in 1965, and credits the retelling to Okada Rokuo's Japanese Proverbs (Japan Travel Bureau, 1955). A blessing in disguise carries only half the proverb, the half where bad turns good. The proverb is not in David Galef's Even Monkeys Fall from Trees (Tuttle, 1987) or Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk (Tuttle, 2000), nor in Edward Trimnell's Tigers, Devils, and Fools (2004) or Guy Zona's Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain (1996) [5].

Today. The house title, All is Saiou's Horse, is a literal rendering that gives an English reader nothing until the story is told. Its meaning line, inscrutable are the ways of heaven; fortune is unpredictable and changeable, is Saito's 1918 English with his Japanese gloss translated after it. What a rendering must keep: the old man, who is a person and not a name; the reversal running both ways; and the refusal to rejoice or grieve yet, which a blessing in disguise, every cloud has a silver lining and inscrutable are the ways of Heaven each lose in a different place.

A reading

Seven characters unchanged since the 1500s, with no owner, no sect and no legend. 人間 is read ningen in every witness from 1656 to 1939, from a proverb book to a Noh text to 馬琴's own furigana, and jinkan nowhere among them; jinkan is a learned modern choice, not the older reading. 塞 is a frontier fort, and the old man has no name in any text: Saiou is a description, not a surname. The fuller story is a Han parable, carried into Japanese court poetry as the old man of the north, given its seven characters by a Yuan Zen monk listening to rain, taught from the hall at Kamakura, and standing in the first Japanese proverb book of 1638. The old man's smile is still in the language as a verb.

References

  1. イーストレーキ・越山『新撰英和熟語集』, 1904. National Diet Library pid 870143, scan 77. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870143/1/77
  2. 井上十吉『和英辞典』, 1909, scan 651; 『新訳和英辞典』, 1911, scan 653. National Diet Library pids 1869465 and 870153. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1869465/1/651
  3. 斎藤秀三郎, Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, 1918. National Diet Library pid 1681530, scans 283, 325 and 764. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681530/1/283
  4. 『スタンダード和英辞典』, 1946. National Diet Library pid 1126792, scan 392. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792/1/392
  5. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965, p. 156.
  6. 『淮南子』人間訓, 2nd century BC, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/淮南子/人間訓
  7. 伊藤東涯『秉燭譚』, 1763, quoting 晦機元熙's poem. National Diet Library pid 2564858, scan 18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2564858/1/18
  8. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910. National Diet Library pid 862766, scans 167, 234 and 395. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/234
  9. 『大日本国語辞典』, 1915. National Diet Library pid 954645, scan 562. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/954645/1/562
  10. 『俚言集覧』, 1900 edition. National Diet Library pid 991569, scan 356. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991569/1/356
  11. 清拙正澄, 『清拙和尚語録』, manuscript, 14th century. National Diet Library pid 2537749, scan 71.
  12. 「塞翁が馬」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/塞翁が馬-507194
  13. 『綾鼓』, in 大和田建樹『謡曲評釈』, 1908. National Diet Library pid 876570, scan 23. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876570/1/23
  14. 「人間万事塞翁が馬」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典・故事成語を知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/人間万事塞翁が馬-593690
  15. 節用集, c. 1500–1600. National Diet Library pid 2532232, scan 89. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532232/1/89
  16. 松江重頼『毛吹草』, 1638; in 藤井乙男『諺の研究』, 1929, scan 147. National Diet Library pid 1452761. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/147
  17. 皆虚 編『世話尽』, 1656. National Diet Library pid 2554768, scan 6. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554768/1/6
  18. 『和歌呉竹集』, 1673. National Diet Library pid 2550690, scan 11. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2550690/1/11
  19. 『世話重宝記』, 1695. National Diet Library pid 2550735, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2550735/1/19
  20. 曲亭馬琴, 黄表紙集, 1926 typeset. National Diet Library pid 1018333, scans 9 and 104. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018333/1/9
  21. 『史記』, the 禍福は糾える縄の如し line.
  22. 斎藤秀三郎, Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, 1918, s.v. heaven, s.v. inscrutable.
  23. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1958, p. 119.

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