友よ水になれ tomo yo mizu ni nare Be Water My Friend
Abstract
友よ水になれ, friend, become water, is Bruce Lee's be water, my friend in Japanese, in the words of the title the line was given in Japanese in 2021. Lee spoke it in character, as the teacher Li Tsung in The Way of the Intercepting Fist, the episode of the television series Longstreet aired in September 1971, and recited it himself on The Pierre Berton Show that December, placing the lines in Longstreet himself; the interview's shorter wording is the one most of the Internet Archive's index windows print. In the Japanese books the National Diet Library has digitized, on the spellings searched, the line is translated from 1997, at first with the friend last and from 1998 with the friend first, as on the scroll.
A reading
Lee's line was spoken twice in 1971: first by his character, in an episode his student Stirling Silliphant wrote, then by Lee in his own voice, shorter, and the second is the wording most of the Internet Archive's index windows print. The Japanese of the 2010 essay, the 2021 title and the 2024 journal, 友よ first and なれ last, is the right order for it: the friend is addressed before anything is asked, and the line ends on what is asked, as a Japanese sentence ends on its verb.
Overview
The sense. An imperative with a vocative: be water, my friend. Water takes the shape of whatever holds it, and it can flow or crash; the friend is told to be like that.
The words. The words are ordinary. 水になれ is the imperative of なる, become; 友よ is the vocative, put first where English puts my friend last. The difference from the English is of address: Japanese puts the vocative first and the verb last. 水になる is also an idiom: the デジタル大辞泉 gives 消えうせる。むだになる。ふいになる, to vanish; to come to nothing; to be wasted, with 「努力が―・る」, the effort comes to nothing, and the 精選版 日本国語大辞典's earliest example is the 甲陽軍鑑 (early 17th century), 勝利の儀、みな水になる程に, since the victory would all come to nothing [1]. In the dictionaries' examples what comes to nothing is an effort or a victory; the line addresses a friend and follows Lee's lesson of water in the cup, so it does not read that way, but a reader who knows the idiom has it in mind.
The text in English. The English is Lee's, in two wordings of one passage: the episode's, and the interview's.
The historical record
16 September 1971. Longstreet. The Way of the Intercepting Fist, the first episode of the series Longstreet after its pilot film of 23 February 1971, written by Stirling Silliphant, aired on 16 September 1971; in it Lee played Li Tsung, an antiques dealer and martial-arts expert who becomes the martial-arts instructor of a blind insurance investigator [2]. Lee himself, in December, named the episode and placed the lines in it (You're talking to Longstreet … and I said) [3], and two books tell the scene. The episode was not viewed for this history. Three books print its line in a longer wording, with creep and drip between flow and crash, each read in the Internet Archive's index windows: Bruce Thomas's biography of 1994, in the Longstreet scene (Water can flow; it can flow or creep, or drip, or crash! Be water, my friend." Longstreet asks) [4]; Linda Tagliaferro's life of 1999, which names the episode [5]; and the 1997 volume of Lee's writings, The Tao of Gung Fu, whose window does not name it [6].
9 December 1971. The Pierre Berton Show. The interview the tradition remembers is real: the edition of The Pierre Berton Show dated 9 December 1971, recorded in Hong Kong, presumed lost, and found and aired again in 1994 [7]. Berton asked for the lines Stirling Silliphant wrote for you; Lee answered He's one of my students, you know; asked again for some lines that express your philosophy, he said Oh, I remember that. You're talking to Longstreet, and recited them: Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend [3]. This shorter wording is the one most of the Internet Archive's index windows print. John Little's 1996 book on Lee's thought prints it with flow, or it can crash [8], and his chronology there dates the interview 9 November 1971. Wikiquote sources the passage to the 2000 documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey and says Lee was reciting lines he wrote for Longstreet [9]; in the transcript Berton calls them Silliphant's, and Lee does not correct him.
1997 to 2024. In Japanese. The line came into Japanese by translation, and in the National Diet Library's digitized books, on the spellings searched, not before 1997. The Japanese edition of a book by Lee and John Little, 『ブルース・リーノーツ：内なる戦士をめぐる哲学断章』 (1997), keeps the English order: 水になりなさい。わが友よ [10]. In 横山文子's 1998 translation of Thomas's biography, 『覇者の遺産』, a quoted passage of the lesson closes 友よ、水になることです, with the friend first, in the index's excerpt [11], and a book on the Amida Sutra of the same year, 森重一成's 『阿弥陀経と出あう』, gives Lee's words as 友よ、水になりなさい [12]. In 2010 an assistant language teacher of the Nara city board of education, 石黒誠璽 (Seiji Ishiguro), closed an essay in the JET Programme section of the journal 『自治体国際化フォーラム』 with 「友よ、水のようになれ。」 ブルース・リー, become like water, after giving the cup and teapot lesson as 「心を空にしなさい、型にはまらず、決まった形のない水のようになるのです。…そのような水になりなさい。」 [13]. In 2021 the line became the Japanese title of Shannon Lee's Be Water, My Friend, her book on her father's philosophy: 『友よ、水になれ：父ブルース・リーの哲学』, translated by 棚橋志行 [14]. The scroll's words are that title's, without the comma, and a fire-service training journal of 2024 quotes Lee in the title's form, comma included, Be a water. My friend. 友よ、水になれ [15]. As saved for this history, Japanese Wikipedia's article on Lee [16] and kotobank's dictionary entries on him [17] do not carry the line.
What is not a source. The 2000 documentary is where Wikiquote found the passage, not where it began: the interview's wording is from 1971 by its transcript, and the episode's is from 1971 too, by Lee's own account and two books of the 1990s that tell the scene.
Today. What a rendering must keep is the vocative and the imperative; the 2021 title and the 2024 journal keep both, in the scroll's words.
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
References
- 「水になる」, kotobank (デジタル大辞泉; 精選版 日本国語大辞典). https://kotobank.jp/word/水になる-637743
- "Longstreet (TV series)", English Wikipedia, season 1 episode list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longstreet_(TV_series)
- "The Lost Interview: Bruce Lee on Philosophy, Fame, and Being like Water", transcript of The Pierre Berton Show, 9 December 1971, filler words trimmed, Powerplace. https://powerplace.org/blog/the-lost-interview-bruce-lee-on-philosophy-fame-and-being-like-water
- Bruce Thomas, Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit (Berkeley: Frog, 1994), seen in the Internet Archive's full-text window only, the page not seen. https://archive.org/details/bruceleefighting0000thom
- Linda Tagliaferro, Bruce Lee (Minneapolis: Lerner, 1999), seen in the Internet Archive's full-text window only, the page not seen. https://archive.org/details/brucelee0000tagl
- Bruce Lee, The Tao of Gung Fu: A Study in the Way of Chinese Martial Art (Boston: Tuttle, 1997), seen in the Internet Archive's full-text window only, the page not seen. https://archive.org/details/taoofgungfustudy0000leeb
- "Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview", English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee:_The_Lost_Interview
- John Little, The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1996), seen in the Internet Archive's full-text window only, the page not seen. https://archive.org/details/warriorwithinphi00litt
- "Bruce Lee", English Wikiquote, citing Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000). https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee
- ブルース・リー, ジョン・リトル 著、中村頼永 監修『ブルース・リーノーツ：内なる戦士をめぐる哲学断章』(1997), snippet view, NDL premises only, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14180908
- ブルース・トーマス 著、横山文子 訳『覇者の遺産』(1998), snippet view, NDL premises only, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14158465
- 森重一成『阿弥陀経と出あう：生きる道しるべ』(1998), snippet view, NDL premises only, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14111480
- 石黒誠璽「友よ、水のようになれ」(JETの広場), 『自治体国際化フォーラム』 Vol. 245 (自治体国際化協会, 2010年3月), pp. 48–51, p. 49, National Diet Library Digital Collections (a PDF, from the National Diet Library's web archive, WARP). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8667519
- シャノン・リー 著、棚橋志行 訳『友よ、水になれ：父ブルース・リーの哲学』(亜紀書房, 2021), National Diet Library catalogue. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I031555100
- 『消防研修』 第114号, 消防庁消防大学校 (2024年9月), p. 149, National Diet Library Digital Collections (a PDF; source https://fdmc.fdma.go.jp/investigation/docs/9-24.pdf). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14983629
- 「ブルース・リー」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ブルース・リー
- 「ブルース・リー」, kotobank (日本大百科全書 and six other works). https://kotobank.jp/word/ぶるーすりー-3168133