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住めば都 sumeba miyako Home Is Where You Live

Japanese Scroll of Home Is Where You Live (sumeba miyako) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
住めば都 Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

住めば都, live there, and it is the capital, is a Japanese proverb that any place, however remote or poor, becomes home once one has lived in it. Its oldest witness found is a Taira court poem written in exile, which the 源平盛衰記 sets at sea in 1183 and the common 平家物語 at Yashima a year later, where the place of exile is the court because the child emperor is there; in a tale of the Muromachi kind, its own date unknown, of Minamoto no Yoshitsune 義経 refusing an island's hospitality, the emperor has dropped out and the sentence has become an offer to anyone. It stands as a proverb in a miscellany of early Edo dated 1614, in a proverb book by 1656, and in a hokku of Bashō's by 1666. A twin one vowel away, 住まば都, means the opposite — settle where the capital is — and two modern dictionaries call reading 住めば都 in that sense an error.

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Overview

The sense. The sentence was true before it was wise. For two courtiers in exile, a Taira in 1183 or 1184 and a poet of the Southern Court within two centuries, where the sovereign dwells is the court (雲居 in the first poem, 都 in the second) was a fact of Japanese political grammar; in the first poem it is also a consolation that did not console, for it says and yet. The tale of Minamoto no Yoshitsune takes the emperor out and makes it an offer: stay, anywhere is a capital. The 1614 witness makes it a rule with its own proof, and where you do not live, even the capital is a journey. The proverb book of 1638 has its sibling, even hell is home, and that of 1656 the proverb itself. The songs make it a village's pride; 春水 makes it love's; 蘇峰 in 1896 makes it Stoicism, heat and cold are in the mind. The modern dictionaries flatten it to habituation and warn against reading it in its twin's sense. In none of these is the place chosen. That is the one thing every sense keeps: the capital is wherever you already are.

The words. Two words. 住めば, sumeba, is the verb 住む, to dwell, in its conditional form: if one lives there, once one lives there. 都, miyako, is the capital, and in 1872 Hepburn still defined it as the place in which the Mikado resides, the Imperial city [1]. The デジタル大辞泉 still leads with that sense, 皇居のある土地, the land where the imperial palace is, and has a fourth, 天皇が仮の住居とする行宮, a detached palace the emperor makes his temporary dwelling; the 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives the first sense its oldest example, an emperor in the 日本書紀 who builds a 行宮 in Buzen, 故其処を号けて京と曰ふ, and so the place was named the capital; and the デジタル大辞泉 files 住めば都 under its second sense, the capital as a country's center [1]. That is the word's old sense, and it is the reason this proverb could begin as a sentence about the emperor. 藤井乙男's 1910 dictionary glosses the whole: おのが住所となればいかなる邊鄙も都のやうに思はる, once it is one's own dwelling, however remote a place comes to seem like the capital [2]. The modern dictionaries add the turn the proverb took: 精選版日本国語大辞典, どんなさびしい田舎や不便な所でも、住み慣れれば住みよくなって、離れにくいものだ … 転じて、物質的わびしさも慣れれば、精神的楽しさになる, however lonely or inconvenient the place, once you are used to it it is good to live in and hard to leave; by extension, material bleakness, once you are used to it, becomes a pleasure of the spirit; ことわざを知る辞典 extends it to any hard circumstance, 厳しく辛い境遇も、慣れてしまえば苦にならず [3]. The proverb is about habituation, not about choice. It has a twin one vowel away that means the opposite. 住まば都, sumaba miyako, is if you are to live anywhere, let it be the capital. The 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives it its own headword and gloss, 住むなら都がよい, and its earliest quotation for it, a 隆達節 song it dates 1593–1611, is older than its earliest for 住めば都: 住まば都よ、捨てば都、あぢきなの身や, if I am to live, the capital; if I am to cast off, the capital; what a wretched self (the song gives 捨てば no object), which 高野辰之's 1928 edition of the 隆達節 prints 住まば都よ　捨てば都　あぢきなの身や. The デジタル大辞泉 warns under the main entry: 住むのなら都会が良いの意で使うのは誤り, to use this to mean "if one is to live, the city is best" is an error; ことわざを知る辞典 likewise calls it a 誤解 to take 「住めば」 as 住むならば, if you are to live, and so to favor Tokyo [3]. Neither names 住まば都; the sense they rule out is the twin's. Sumaba is a distinct phrase, not a variant of sumeba. The reading is sumeba miyako. The archive writes it 住めば都, すめば都, 住ば都 and すめばみやこ, one proverb in four spellings.

The proverb in English. The earliest known English, within the sources this study swept, is a list of Japanese proverbs in The Phoenix of 1872, Sumeba Miyako. Where you live, there is the Capital. (No place like home.): literal, keeping the capital, so the sentence can still be true of an emperor [4]. Chamberlain's Handbook of 1888 gives If you live in a place, it becomes the capital so far as you are concerned, with There is no place like home in brackets [5]; Brinkley's dictionary of 1896 keeps the capital and reaches for Latin, ubi bene, ibi patria [6]; 井上十吉 in 1897 or 1898 gives the Phoenix's equation again, Where we live, there is the capital [7]; Lafcadio Hearn in 1899 sets it beside its sibling, Even Hell itself is a dwelling-place, as Wheresover one's home is, that is the Capital, adding in his own brackets or, Imperial City [8]. 藤井 in 1910 gives There is no place like home, and the Italian To every bird its own nest is charming, both proverbs of the home one already has, the opposite direction from a proverb about the home one grows into [2]. In 1940, writing in English as Huzii, he renders it Where I live is always the best town and keeps the bird, beside a new parallel, A man's house is his castle [9]. Takehara Tsuneta 竹原常太's Japanese-English dictionary had repeated 藤井's equation by 1928, and his abridged edition of 1941 keeps it [10]. Buchanan in 1965 gives the right literal and gloss but a parallel that points the wrong way, an Englishman's home is his castle, the parallel Huzii gave in 1940 and Okada in 1958, a proverb that, as it is commonly read, is about a man's right to his own house, not about growing used to a place [11]. Trimnell in 2004 keeps the 1872 direction and the right sense [12]. The Galef collections of 1987, 2000 and 2012 and Zona's of 1996 do not carry the proverb; the 2012 Galef attaches There's no place like home to a different Japanese proverb, birds return to their old nests.

The historical record

1183, or 1184. A Taira courtier in exile, a poem the chronicles date and give differently. In the 源平盛衰記, book 33, the Taira have fled the capital with the emperor, been driven from 太宰府, from 山鹿城 and from 柳 in 豊前, and put to sea; the thirteenth night of the ninth month comes, 今夜は名を得たる月なり, tonight's is the famed moon, and the courtiers are given the topic love, on the moon; one of them writes 君すめばこゝも雲居の月なれどなほ戀しきは都なりけり, since you, my lord, dwell here, this too is the moon above the cloud-palace; and yet what I long for is the capital. 雲居, kumoi, is the place where the clouds are, and the 精選版日本国語大辞典 also gives it as 皇居。宮中。また、天皇、皇室をもいう, the imperial palace, the court, and also the emperor himself, so the moon is the sky's and the court's at once. They looked at one another, the chronicle says, and wrung out their sleeves; the next chapter brings them to Yashima. The emperor is Antoku 安徳, born 1178, whom the Taira carried west in the seventh month of 1183 to 太宰府 and then to Yashima [13]. Who wrote it, and when, depends on the chronicle. The 源平盛衰記 names no year; its sequence follows the flight of 1183 and precedes the arrival at Yashima. In the 源平盛衰記 the poem stands under Taira no Tokitada 平大納言時忠, and Taira no Yukimori 左馬頭行盛's poem is the next one, 名にしおふ秋のなかばも過ぎぬべしいつより露の霜に替らむ; the 長門本 平家物語 has the same night in the middle of the ninth month, but on land: the court has stopped at 蘆屋の津 and shut itself in 山鹿城 with 兵藤次秀遠, on the Kyushu coast, and the poem stands under 平大納言時忠 as 君すめば是も雲ゐの月なれど. The common text of the 平家物語 gives it to Yukimori and sets it a year later, at Yashima, in the autumn after the women remember that 去年の今日は都を出しぞかし, a year ago today we left the capital: 今は八島浦にして、秋の月に悲ぶ, now at the bay of Yashima they grieve under the autumn moon. 藤井 in 1910 and the 俚言集覧 of 1899 cite it from the common text [14][2][15]. The proverb's sentence is here in its first form, 君すめば, since the sovereign dwells here, and it is literally true: where the sovereign dwells is the court, 雲居, and so this moon is the palace moon. It is also a consolation that fails: what the poet still longs for is the capital.

By 1381. Fujiwara no Tametada 藤原為忠, in the 新葉集, the Southern Court's anthology of 1381. Among the poems composed at the detached palace of 天野, the mountain temple 金剛寺 that served the exiled court as a palace: 君住めば嶺にも尾にも家居して深山ながらの都なりけり, since my lord dwells here, people have built houses on every ridge and spur, and, deep in the mountains though it is, it is a capital, as a 1943 selection from the anthology prints it. 家居 is 家を造って住むこと, building a house and living in it, in the 精選版日本国語大辞典 [15]. The 1899 俚言集覧, the witness first opened here, prints 宮居して for 家居して and 源山なからの for 深山ながらの, and in the National Diet Library's snippets the 河内名所図会 of 1801 and several later guidebooks also print 宮居して; the anthology's text reads 家居して. The 新葉集 was completed in 1381 and gathers the Southern Court's poems from 1331 on. The same sentence, from another exiled court in another war, within two centuries, and still about the emperor, here naming the capital outright [15].

Muromachi period. 御曹子島わたり, a tale of the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune's voyage to the islands, an 御伽草子 of the kind the Muromachi period told; the tale's own date is not known, and ことわざを知る辞典 says the expression has been used since the middle ages [3]. On the island of Ezo he asks how far it is to 千島の都, the capital of the Thousand Isles he is bound for, and the islanders answer: これより都へは、順風よくして七十餘日、只よの常の船路ならず、同じくは是にとゞまり給ふべし、住めばいづくも都なり, from here to that capital is seventy-odd days with a fair wind and no ordinary voyage; you had better stay here; live anywhere, and it is a capital. The emperor has dropped out of the sentence. It is now about anyone, and it is an invitation. Yoshitsune declines and sails on [16].

1614. 慶長見聞集, a book of things seen and heard in the new capital of Edo, book two. 野の末山の奧にも住ば都、すまざれば都も旅也, at the end of the moor or the back of the mountains, live there and it is a capital; where you do not live, even the capital is a journey, as the 1912 typeset prints it; the 精選版日本国語大辞典 quotes the line as 野の末山のおくにも住ば都、すまされば都も旅なり. The book says it in an argument that Edo too is a capital, since people now go up to it: かく京の人をはじめ諸國より江城へのぼるといへば、江戸は都にあらずや, since people go up to the castle of Edo from Kyoto and every province, is Edo not a capital? The earliest quotation the 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives for the proverb as a proverb, and the one that states its logic whole: the second half is the proof of the first [17]. The year is the book's traditional one. The 日本大百科全書 gives 1614 as the year it is said to have been written, notes a view that the attribution to its author, the Hōjō retainer Miura Jōshin 三浦浄心, is a later fiction, and says the book also holds matter of the Kan'ei period, 1624 to 1644, so the date cannot be confirmed [18].

1638. 毛吹草, the earliest collection of proverbs of the Edo period. みやこもたびはうし ぢごくもすみか, even the capital is hard when you are a traveler; even hell is home. The proverb's sibling, in the earliest Edo book to gather proverbs: 1638 is the 精選版日本国語大辞典's date for it, and 藤井 in 1929 gives its printing as 正保二年, 1645, which he counts ten years before 世話尽 [19].

1656. 世話尽, the next Edo proverb collection after 毛吹草 in 藤井's account, book two, leaf 33. In the list of sayings beginning with す, between すいよりぎやう and すねものゝにがわらひ: すめばみやこ. The proverb in a proverb book, in the hand of its first printing [19][20].

1666. Matsuo Bashō 松尾芭蕉, in the anthology 続山井 (1667). たんだすめ住ば都ぞけふの月, as 服部畊石 prints it, only shine clear: live here and it is the capital, today's moon. 服部 glosses it 今日の月よたゞ澄め、住めば都ぞ, and says it plays 「澄」 and 「住」 on the moon and the man; he dates it to 1666 because the anthology was printed in the tenth month of 1667 and he counts all its autumn and winter verses as of the year before [21]. A decade after the proverb book, the proverb is common enough to pun on.

1703. 松の葉, a songbook. 鳥も通はぬ山なれど住めば都よ我が里よ, a mountain no bird visits, but live there and it is a capital, my own village. A song line in the 七五七五 measure, and still sung in the provinces two centuries later: a Shimane boat-launching song collected in 1914 has 住めば都に尙まさる, and a Gunma folk song of 1925 has the 1703 line word for word [22].

1716 to 1817. Edo fiction and the stage. 西沢一風's 今源氏空船 (1716) gives the proverb to an exile of twenty years on an island, はや廿年余を此嶋にすめばみやことたのしみ, more than twenty years on this island, and living here, he enjoyed it as a capital; 近松's play 浦島年代記 gives it to a fisherwoman proud of her province, 面々の楊貴妃住めば都, to each his own beauty; live there and it is the capital; 山東京伝 in 1813 sets it after the song's first half, 鳥もかよはぬ所なれど住ば都とおもふにや, a place no bird visits, but perhaps they think, live there and it is a capital; and by 1817 a comic book introduces it with とやら, as they say [23].

1832. Tamenaga Shunsui 為永春水, 春色梅児誉美, the first of the sentimental novels. 外は田畑の薄冰、心解けあふ裏借家も、住めば都にまさるらん, thin ice on the fields outside, but a back-alley rented room where two hearts thaw is better than the capital, once you live in it. Love makes the tenement a capital; the dictionary still quotes the line under 裏借屋 [24].

1888 to 1896. Meiji prose. 宇田川文海 in 1888, 住めば都とか云ふ譬喩もあれば、山家の住居を面白いものと思へは; a tract of 1891, 地獄も住み家深山の奧荒磯の浦も所謂住めば都なり, pairing the proverb with its sibling; and Tokutomi Sohō 徳富蘇峰 in 1896 making a maxim of the mind of it: 熱も冷も … 心より生ずる … 住めば都とは、則ち此の意味なり, heat and cold are born in the mind; this is what "live there and it is the capital" means [25].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典. 【住メバ都】, with the gloss quoted above and four sources in order: the 平家物語 poem, the 御伽草子 islanders, the 松の葉 song, and the Chinese cousin from 荀子; then two English and Italian parallels, There is no place like home and To every bird its own nest is charming. Beside it, 【住メバ田舍モ名所】, live there and even the country has its famous sights, and elsewhere 【地獄モ住所】住メバ都と同意 [2].

1929 and 1933. 藤井 lists it among the two- and three-word proverbs, 「善は急げ」「十人十色」「住めば都」「氣は心」, and reproduces a comic song that strings proverbs together, 我いまだ住めば都を見ず候程に. 中野's 俚諺大辞典 of 1933 repeats 藤井's gloss and sources and, under the sibling 地獄も棲所, names the 1699 諺草 as the book that first set 荀子 beside it [26][27].

The dictionaries today. The dictionary glosses quoted under Overview's The words; ことわざを知る辞典's example is a 1952 story set in a Hokkaidō coal town, いまは、住めば都だと思っている, now I think of it as home. The National Diet Library's full-text index returns the main spelling in 24,107 items, 1,553 of them open without a login, and the kana spelling すめばみやこ from the 1656 leaf [28].

What is not a source. Two foreign cousins are set beside the proverb and neither is shown to be its parent. The Chinese is 荀子's 榮辱篇: 越人安越，楚人安楚，君子安雅, the man of Yue is at ease in Yue, the man of Chu in Chu, the gentleman in what is correct, and the passage says why, 是注錯習俗之節異也, it is a matter of habit and custom, not of nature; 藤井 and 中野 cite it, and 中野 says the pairing goes back to the 1699 諺草, which sets 荀子 beside the sibling 地獄もすみか [29][30]. Ehmann's census of 1897, which marks with a star every proverb he took for Chinese, gives this one (no. 2812, Wo man wohnt, da ist die Hauptstadt) without one [31]. The Latin is Pacuvius through Cicero's Tusculans, patria est, ubicumque est bene, one's country is wherever one is well, with Socrates calling himself a citizen of the world, and the Proverbia Senecae's non in loco, sed in homine est, it is not in the place but in the man; the Italian dictionary's tag ubi bene ibi patria is the late form [32]. The cousins differ: 荀子's is about habit and custom setting each man at ease in his own country, which is near the proverb's own sense of growing used to a place; Cicero's is about the man at ease wherever it is well with him; the Japanese proverb is about the place that becomes home. And the twin 住まば都, one vowel away, is not a variant but a contrary, earlier in the 精選版日本国語大辞典's quotations, and to be kept apart.

The proverb in English

1872. The Phoenix, a monthly magazine for Eastern Asia edited by James Summers, volume 2, no. 23, May 1872, page 191. Under Japanese Proverbs, number 55: Sumeba Miyako. Where you live, there is the Capital. (No place like home.) The earliest known English within the sources this study swept, and already both halves of what followed: the literal line, and the English proverb in brackets [4].

1888. Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, page 324. Number 29 of his list of proverbs: Sumeba miyako. If you live in a place, it becomes the capital so far as you are concerned. ("There is no place like home.") [5]

1896. F. Brinkley and others, 和英大辞典, page 1396. Under the verb, marked as a proverb: Sumeba miyako, すみば都, wherever I live, there is the capital (almost equal in sense to the Latin ubi bene, ibi patria — where it is well with me, there is my country) [6].

1897–98. 井上十吉, 英語学講義録, lessons in translating Japanese into English. 住めば都, Where we live, there is the capital. The Phoenix's equation of 1872 again, word for word but for the pronoun, and the best: literal, with the capital kept, so that the sentence can still be true of an emperor [7].

1899. Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, page 177. In note 2 to the Buddhist proverb no. 37, Jigoku mo sumika, Even Hell itself is a dwelling-place: A proverb of kindred signification is, Sumeba, Miyako: "Wheresover one's home is, that is the Capital, with or, Imperial City in his brackets. The pairing of the Japanese proverb books, in English [8].

1909. 井上十吉, 和英辞典, page 1049. Under 都: 住めば都. One gets used to any place [33].

1910. 藤井. There is no place like home, and the Italian To every bird its own nest is charming. Both are proverbs of the home one already has and loves, which is the opposite direction from a proverb about the home one grows into [2].

1915. 斎藤秀三郎, page 1237. Under so: Home is home, be it ever so homely. 見苦しくとも住めば都 [34].

1928. Takehara Tsuneta 竹原常太, スタンダード和英大辞典, page 774. Under miyako, the proverb, There is no place like home: 藤井's equation, eighteen years on. The copy read is the thirty-fifth printing, of 1928, of the revised and enlarged edition of 1926; the dictionary was first published in 1924, and that edition was not read. His abridged スタンダード和英辭典, first published in 1941 and read in its twenty-first printing of 1946, keeps the line under sumu, page 993: 住メバ都, There is no place like home [10].

1940. Huzii Otoo (藤井乙男), Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, page 72. "Sumeba miyako." "Where I live is always the best town." ("To every bird its own nest is charming." "A man's house is his castle.") [9]. 藤井's own book of 1940, in English: the capital become the best town, the Italian bird of 1910 kept, and the castle added, the parallel Buchanan gives in 1965. The romanization is the book's own.

1942. 研究社, Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, page 1243. Under 都, There is no place like home; the copy's text layer does not preserve the Japanese beside it, and elsewhere the same dictionary has the variant 見苦しくとも住めば我家, Home is home, however homely it may be [35].

1958. Okada Rokuo, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, page 149. Sumeba miyako. If you live long, no matter where, that place will be as good as the capital for you. The place you live in, however out-of-the-way it may be, is bound to become so dear to your heart after a long residence, that you will come to like it as the best place in the world. It is well said that "a man's house is his castle." "There is no place like home." [36] Okada's is the reading that keeps the growing-into.

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, page 180, chapter PRACTICALITY. Sumeba miyako: "If you live there, it is the capital." Where you live will become the capital in your eyes and the best of all possible places. English parallel: An Englishman's home is his castle. His literal is right and his gloss is right; his parallel, which Huzii in 1940 and Okada in 1958 had given as a man's house is his castle, points the wrong way, since the English proverb, as it is commonly read, is about a man's right to his own house and not about growing used to a place [11].

1968. Charles Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents. Sumeba miyako, 住めば都, Once I get accustomed to it, any place is good to live in (marked "(P)" in Corwin's headword system) [37].

1974. 研究社, fourth edition, page 1111. Under 都: 住めば都. There's no place like home [38].

1980. 研究社, Kenkyūsha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, fifth edition, page 172. Under bird: Every bird likes its own nest the best. どの鳥でも自分の巣を最も好む (cf.「住めば都」): the proverb as a cross-reference to the bird proverb 藤井 set beside it in 1910 [39].

2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, page 134. Wherever one lives is the capitol (his spelling), A person grows fond of the place in which he is living. Even if he didn't want to live in a particular town or region at first, over time he will come to think of it as the best place on earth. The 1872 direction, the capital kept, and the right sense [12].

Today. JMdict: you can get used to living anywhere; home is where you make it; wherever I lay my hat is home [40]. What a rendering must keep: the direction, from living to home and not from home to loving; the capital, which is what makes the sentence about an emperor possible; and the warning that sumaba is a different proverb.

A reading

The proverb began as a courtier's sentence about the emperor, where you dwell, my lord, is the capital, said twice in exile, the first time by a man who did not believe it, and in a tale of the Muromachi kind the people have made it true of themselves. The 1614 witness gives its logic entire, live there and it is the capital; do not, and even the capital is a journey; and there is a twin one vowel away that means the reverse and stands earlier in the 精選版日本国語大辞典's quotations. My own reading is that the proverb's whole force is in the failed consolation it began as. The courtier wrote that the moon of exile was the palace moon because the emperor was there, and then wrote that he still longed for the capital; the proverb is what happened when ordinary people took the first half and lived long enough somewhere for the second half to stop being true.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Home Is Where You Live (sumeba miyako) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
住めば都VB3CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Home Is Where You Live (sumeba miyako) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
住めば都VC3BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Home Is Where You Live (sumeba miyako) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
住めば都VD3BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Home Is Where You Live (sumeba miyako) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
住めば都VS3CSemi-Cursive

References

  1. James Curtis Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, second edition, 1872. National Diet Library pid 993689, scans 180 (p. 325) and 271 (p. 507). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/180 · 「都」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/都-570144
  2. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, pp. 546–547. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 290. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/290
  3. 「住めば都」・「住ば都」, 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/住めば都 · https://kotobank.jp/word/住ば都-2053961 · 高野辰之 編『日本歌謡集成』 巻6, 春秋社, 1928 by the colophon, 第一 隆達節小歌集, p. 11. National Diet Library pid 1176589, scan 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1176589/1/27
  4. James Summers ed., The Phoenix: A Monthly Magazine for India, Burma, Siam, China, Japan and Eastern Asia, vol. 2 (1871–72), no. 23, May 1872, p. 191, Japanese Proverbs, no. 55. Internet Archive, leaf 202. https://archive.org/details/the-phoenix-a-monthly-magazine-for-india-burma-siam-china-japan-eastern-asia-vol-ii-1871-1872/page/n202
  5. Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, Trübner, 1888, p. 324.
  6. F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1896, p. 1396, s.v. sumu.
  7. 井上十吉『英語学講義録』 第2学年 〔1〕, 英語学攻修会, 1897–98 by the library's record (a run of lecture issues; the issue's own date not found), p. 61. National Diet Library pid 869647, scan 33. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/869647/1/33
  8. Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, Little, Brown, 1899, p. 177, no. 37, note 2. Internet Archive, leaf 194. https://archive.org/details/inghostlyjapan0000lafc/page/n194
  9. Huzii Otoo (藤井乙男), Japanese Proverbs, Tourist Library 33, Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, 1940, p. 72, read on the house's shelf; the house's copy at the page: https://takase.com/library/books/tourist-library/33-japanese-proverbs/chapter-5#p72
  10. 竹原常太『スタンダード和英大辞典』, first published 1924; the copy read is the thirty-fifth printing of 1928, of the revised and enlarged edition of 1926, by its colophon. National Diet Library pid 1126806, scan 396 (p. 774). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126806/1/396 · 竹原常太『スタンダード和英辭典』, the abridged edition, first published 1941; the copy read is the twenty-first printing of 1946, by its colophon. National Diet Library pid 1126792, scan 502 (p. 993). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792/1/502
  11. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965, p. 180.
  12. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004, p. 134.
  13. 『源平盛衰記』巻33, in 『校註 日本文学大系』 vol. 16, 1926 by the library's record, pp. 296–301 (平家太宰府落ち … 平氏九月十三夜歌讀みの事 … 平氏屋島に著く事). National Diet Library pid 1018065, scans 158–160. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018065/1/160 · 「安徳天皇」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/安徳天皇-29452 · 「雲居」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/雲居-442549
  14. 『平家物語』, the common text, book 10, in 有朋堂文庫 1912, pp. 502–504. National Diet Library pid 1913638, scans 276–277. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913638/1/277 · 『平家物語 長門本』, book 15, 国書刊行会 1906, pp. 516–517. National Diet Library pid 991256, scan 270. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991256/1/270
  15. 『中世和歌選集』, 片寄正義 編, 湯川弘文社, Osaka, 1943 by the library's record, p. 121, 新葉和歌集. National Diet Library pid 1127599, scan 66. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1127599/1/66 · 「家居」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/家居-430639 · 『俚言集覧』, 中巻, 增補版, 1899 by the library's record for the volume. National Diet Library pid 991570, scan 221. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991570/1/221 · 「新葉和歌集」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/新葉和歌集-82693
  16. 『御曹子島わたり』, in 藤井乙男 校註『御伽草紙』, 有朋堂, 1922, pp. 78–79. National Diet Library pid 977912, scan 54. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/977912/1/54
  17. 『慶長見聞集』, 1614, book two. Cited at kotobank, 「住ば都」. https://kotobank.jp/word/住ば都-2053961 · the 1912 typeset in 『雑史集』 (国民文庫刊行会), pp. 516–517. National Diet Library pid 925907, scan 268. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925907/1/268
  18. 「慶長見聞集」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/慶長見聞集-1162895
  19. 松江重頼『毛吹草』, 1638. Cited at kotobank, 「地獄も住家」. https://kotobank.jp/word/地獄も住家-2045593 · 藤井乙男『諺の研究』, 1929, p. 240 (江戶時代に最も早く諺を蒐集したものは毛吹草で、之に次いで世話盡がある). National Diet Library pid 1452761, scan 127. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/127
  20. 皆虚 編『世話尽』, 1656 (明暦2刊 in the library's record), book two, leaf 33. National Diet Library pid 2554768, scan 35. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554768/1/35
  21. 服部畊石『芭蕉句集新講』上巻, 四条書房, 1932 by the library's record. National Diet Library pid 1145820, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1145820/1/8
  22. 『松の葉』, 1703. National Diet Library pid 1874605, scan 140; the folk-song descendants at pid 1879145 (『俚謡集』, 1914 by the library's record), scan 222, and pid 1020918 (1925), scan 855.
  23. 西沢一風『今源氏空船』, 1716 (正徳6 in the library's record), book 5. National Diet Library pid 2586952, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2586952/1/9 · 近松門左衛門『浦島年代記』, in 『近松門左衛門全集』 vol. 3, 1922. National Diet Library pid 970013, scan 84. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970013/1/84 · 山東京伝『双蝶記』, 1813 (文化10 in the library's record), book 6. National Diet Library pid 2554018, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2554018/1/9 · 鼻山人『籬の花』, 1817 (文化14 in the library's record). National Diet Library pid 2534159, scan 14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2534159/1/14
  24. 為永春水『春色梅児誉美』, 1832; 1928 typeset. National Diet Library pid 1187751, scan 60. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1187751/1/60
  25. 宇田川文海, 1888 (National Diet Library pid 886950, scan 51); a tract of 1891 (pid 755479, scan 26); 徳富蘇峰, 1896 (pid 755005, scan 61).
  26. 藤井乙男『諺の研究』, 1929. National Diet Library pid 1452761, scans 14 and 205. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452761/1/14
  27. 中野『俚諺大辞典』, 1933. National Diet Library pid 1453041, scans 248 and 291. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1453041/1/248
  28. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search 「住めば都」 and 「すめばみやこ」, oldest first, as of 29 September 2026. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=住めば都&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  29. 荀子『榮辱篇』, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/荀子/榮辱篇
  30. 貝原好古『諺草』, 1699, in 『益軒全集』巻3, 1911. National Diet Library pid 992412, scan 414 (地獄もすみか 荀子云。越人安越。楚人安楚), read as the full-text search's excerpt; the volume is open in Japan only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992412/1/414
  31. P. Ehmann, Die Sprichwörter und bildlichen Ausdrücke der japanischen Sprache, Tokyo, 1897, p. 308, no. 2812. Internet Archive, leaf 336. https://archive.org/details/mitteilungender13unkngoog/page/n336
  32. Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes V.108, at the Latin Wikisource. https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Tusculanae_Disputationes
  33. 井上十吉『和英辞典』, 三省堂, 1909, p. 1049, s.v. 都.
  34. 斎藤秀三郎, Saitō's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, 正則英語学校出版部, 1915, p. 1237, s.v. so.
  35. 武信由太郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyūsha, 1942 (the Harvard University Press printing), p. 1243, s.v. 都.
  36. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, second edition, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1958 (first edition 1955), p. 149.
  37. Charles Corwin, ed., A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, s.v. sumeba miyako.
  38. 増田綱 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1974, p. 1111, s.v. 都.
  39. 小稲義男 ed., Kenkyūsha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, 5th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1980, p. 172, s.v. bird.
  40. JMdict, 「住めば都」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/住めば都

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, 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

Research depth: step 6 of our 10-step ladder, English sources · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 住めば都 (sumeba miyako)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/sumeba-miyako.