笑う門には福来る warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru Fortune Comes To Those Who Smile
This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 笑う門には福来る (warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru). It spans a kyōgen line of the late Muromachi, the seventeenth-century proverb collections that said the place and the house before the gate, a nativist's 1829 account of the smiling mask in the doorway, and an English career that begins in Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 and the Yokohama press of 1875, long before the American paperbacks.
Abstract
笑う門には福来る, fortune comes to the gate that laughs, is a native Japanese proverb with no Chinese source, first heard as a line of comedy in the kyōgen 筑紫奥, where two farmers use it as leverage to make a sour official laugh. The seventeenth-century proverb collections call it the place or the house that laughs before 門, the gate, becomes the standard literary noun; by 1829 the nativist scholar Hirata Atsutane 平田篤胤 uses it to explain why a smiling お多福 mask hangs in a doorway, and the Kamigata karuta puts it on a card with 大黒, the god of fortune, grinning. English met it early and plainly: Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 renders it wealth comes to the house of laughter, a Yokohama newspaper of 1875 quotes it as a true saying, and the dictionaries after them keep the house or the gate until the twentieth century swaps in the English laugh and grow fat, which is about health, not fortune.
Overview
The sense. The sense has not moved in four hundred years; what has moved is the noun. The seventeenth century said the place and the house; the gate is the literary word that stood for both, and it won because it makes a picture: a gate, a god of fortune arriving at it. The proverb has always been a wish for a household rather than advice to a person, and its uses show it: farmers on a stage promising an official a promotion if he will laugh, a scholar explaining why a laughing mask hangs in a doorway, a card that shows the god himself grinning, a novelist's character opening the shutters at New Year. The modern dictionary makes one thing explicit that the old books assumed, that the laugh is the innocent kind, from the belly, and not a sneer.
The words. 笑う, warau, in the older spelling 笑ふ, is the one Japanese verb for both laugh and smile; English has to choose. The modern proverb dictionary says which laugh is meant: この笑いは、弱い者や劣った者をばかにする嘲笑ではなく、無邪気で、腹の底から楽しく笑えるもの, not the sneer at the weak or the lesser, but an innocent laugh from the bottom of the belly. 門, kado, is a gate, and by the oldest Japanese figure the house and the family behind it: 「門」は家の出入り口ですが、同時に家そのものや家族、一門を象徴しています. The seventeenth-century books said it plainly, the place that laughs, the house that laughs; 門 is the literary word that won. 福, fuku, is good fortune, and in the Edo imagination a visitor, 福の神, the god of fortune who comes to the door; that is why the proverb says comes. 来る is read kitaru, the classical form of the verb, not the modern kuru; the proverb keeps the old form. には is the topic particle with a locative before it, as for the gate that laughs, to it fortune comes; the particle is in the kyōgen text and in every witness after 1829, and only the 1910 dictionary's headword compresses it away.
The proverb in English. The proverb entered English with the first bilingual dictionaries and stayed there. Hepburn's second edition of 1872 gives it under warau as wealth comes to the house of laughter [1], and The Japan Weekly Mail of 1875 quotes it as Luck comes to the laughing house [2]; Brinkley in 1896 keeps the door [3], and the language textbooks of 1907 and 1928 use it as a reading sentence [4] [5]. The twentieth-century dictionaries replace the picture with an English proverb about health: Saitō in 1915 [6], Kenkyūsha in 1942 [7] and Corwin in 1968 [8] all give Laugh and grow fat, and only Okada in 1958 keeps a gate [9]. It is not in Daniel Crump Buchanan's Japanese Proverbs and Sayings (University of Oklahoma Press, 1965) [10], nor in David Galef's Even Monkeys Fall from Trees (Tuttle, 1987), Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk (Tuttle, 2000) or Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom (Tuttle, 2012) [11]. The two paperback renderings that carry it, Zona's and Trimnell's, come after the house title [12] [13].
The historical record
Late Muromachi to early Edo. The kyōgen 筑紫奥, in the Ōkura school text copied by Ōkura Torahiro 大蔵虎寛 in 1792. Two farmers from the far end of Tsukushi have paid their tax, been excused their levies, and been told to laugh once for every tan of field; guessing that the order was the sour official's own idea, they turn back to make him laugh too. The official: 汝らこそ御年貢は納る、萬雜公事は御免被成るゝ。笑ふ機嫌も有うが、此の御そうしやは今朝よりひえいたをあたゝめ、わらふ機嫌は無いやい, you have paid your tax and been let off your levies, so you may be in a mood to laugh; this official has been warming a chilled belly since morning and is in no mood for it. The shite: 左樣では御ざれども、笑らふ門には福來ると申に依て、追付御加增を取らせられ、御立身を被成れうは疑も御ざらぬ。是非共、and both farmers together, 笑らはせられて被下い, and the official, イヤ、どう有てもわらふ事は成らぬ. Be that as it may, since they say fortune comes to the gate that laughs, there is no doubt you will soon be given a raise and rise in the world. So please, laugh for us. No. Whatever you say, I will not laugh. The proverb is already a proverb, と申に依て, because they say, and it is used as leverage: laughter is owed because fortune is promised. This is the line the 精選版日本国語大辞典 takes as the first attestation, dated to the play, 室町末‐近世初 [14].
1638, printed 1645. 毛吹草, the first Japanese proverb collection, by Matsue Shigeyori 松江重頼. 笑フ所へ福來ル, fortune comes to the place that laughs: the house, not yet the gate [15].
1649. 吾吟我集, Ishida Mitoku 石田未得's collection of comic verse. A verse that turns the proverb on a bird-catcher's owl decoy: みゝづくでたほくとりぬる小鳥こそ笑ふ所へ福きたるなれ, the small birds caught by the horned-owl decoy are fortune coming to the laughing place; the form inside it is the place [16].
1656. 世話尽, the second proverb collection. 笑の家に福來, fortune comes to the house that laughs: the house, not yet the gate [16].
Edo, undated. 和漢古諺 and 野語述説. The 俚言集覧 credits these two books with 笑の所に福來, the place again; its headword above them, 笑ふ門にハ福來る, the gate, with the particle, is the compilers' own form, and the entry sets each source before what it quotes, as it does throughout the leaf [16].
1829. Hirata Atsutane 平田篤胤, 宮比神御伝記. The nativist scholar uses the proverb to explain a household custom: 世の諺に笑ふ門には福きたると云ひて、人相のよきを褒め、おかめの面といふ物を、またお多福ともいひて、諸人の愛敬をのぞむ家々に祝ふことは、或説に足利の末頃とか、ある神社の巫子に亀女とて, as the proverb of the world says, fortune comes to the gate that laughs, so people praise a good face, and the mask called おかめ, also called お多福, is hung in celebration in houses that hope to be liked by everyone; by one account this began around the end of the Ashikaga years, with a shrine maiden named 亀女. The furigana read わらふかど and ふく. The legend of the shrine maiden is told as 或説に, by one account, and is a legend [17].
Edo. The Kamigata いろはかるた. The card for わ is this proverb, and its picture is 大黒, the god of fortune, grinning: 上方のいろはかるたにも収録され、絵札には満面の笑みを浮かべた大黒さまが描かれていました. Behind the card the dictionary sets the medieval door-to-door blessing arts, the 大黒舞, performers dressed as 大黒 and 恵比須 who came to the gate scattering laughter [18].
1872 to 1896. The bilingual dictionaries. Hepburn's second edition, 1872, under WARAU: Warau kado ni fuku kitaru (prov.), wealth comes to the house of laughter; the fourth edition of 1888 adds the particle, warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru [1] [19]. Brinkley's 和英大辞典 of 1896, under Warau, marks it a proverb and a literal rendering: wealth comes to the door of the …, the line cut in the text layer [3].
1900 to 1905. Meiji school grammars. 笑ふ門には福が來る in a grammar of 1900, 笑う門には福來る in textbooks of 1902 and 1903: by then a stock example sentence for schoolchildren [20].
1910. 藤井乙男 Fujii Otoo, 諺語大辞典, the standard proverb dictionary. 【笑フ門ニ福來ル】笑フ所へとも、祝フ門へともいふ。〔漢書〕劉向傳、和氣致祥、乖氣致異。〔左傳〕桓公六年、民和而神降之福。〔毛吹草〕笑フ所へ福來ル。 The headword drops the particle, as his headwords do; he records the two older forms, the place that laughs and the gate that celebrates, which is the New Year's form; and he gives two Chinese classical lines on harmony drawing blessing. Two cross-references point here, from 和氣、財ヲ生ズ and from 祝フ門ヘ福來ル [15].
What is not a source. The two Chinese lines 藤井 prints, 和氣致祥、乖氣致異 from the 漢書 and 民和而神降之福 from the 左傳, say that harmony draws blessing and discord draws disaster; they are the classical company he gave a Japanese saying, in his dictionary's habit, not its source. The proverb is native, and no witness gives it a Chinese origin. 祝う門には福来る, fortune comes to the gate that celebrates, is the New Year's variant, not a different proverb. In English, laugh and the world laughs with you is about company, not fortune, and a merry heart doeth good like a medicine is scripture about health; laugh and grow fat, which three dictionaries give for it, is about health too. None is an equivalent, and the Japanese has none.
The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 笑いの絶えない人の家には、自然と幸福が訪れる. 精選版日本国語大辞典: いつも笑い声が満ち、和気あいあいとした家には、自然と幸福が訪れる, with the kyōgen line as its first citation [14]. ことわざを知る辞典: なごやかで笑いのたえない家には福の神が訪れ、繁盛する, with two uses, Dazai Osamu 太宰治 in 1945, 笑う門には福が来る … のんきに福の神の御入来を待つがよい, laugh and fortune comes; open the shutters, sweep out the year's dust, and wait at ease for the god of fortune to call, and a street-hawker's patter recorded in 1984 [18].
The proverb in English
1872. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, second edition, American Presbyterian Mission Press, under WARAU. Warau kado ni fuku kitaru (prov.), wealth comes to the house of laughter. The first English rendering, and the house is the noun, as in the seventeenth-century collections; the particle は is not yet in the romaji [1].
1875. The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 4 December. A sketch of a provincial theater: and here come his wife and children, all smiling and happy. "Luck comes to the laughing house"—indeed a true saying. The proverb in an English sentence, used as English uses a proverb, three years after Hepburn printed it [2].
1888. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, Z. P. Maruya, page 725, under WARAU. warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru (prov.), wealth comes to the house of laughter, the particle now in place [19].
1896. Brinkley, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, page 1595, under Warau. Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru, 笑フ門ニハ福來ル, marked as a proverb and rendered literally, wealth comes to the door of the …; the door for the gate, and the rest of the line lost in the text layer [3].
1907. Rudolf Lange, A Text-book of Colloquial Japanese, translated by Christopher Noss, Methodist Publishing House, the exercise on warau. Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru, set as a sentence for the student to translate, between Mago wo kawaigaru yori inu wo kae and a line on laughing at another's mistake [4].
1915. Saitō, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, SEG Publishing Department, page 390, under Fat. Laugh and grow fat. 笑ふ門に福來る. The first to give the English proverb about health for the Japanese one about fortune, in a dictionary that runs from English to Japanese [6].
1928. Arthur Rose-Innes, Japanese Reading for Beginners, K. Yoshikawa, Yokohama, lesson 47, 笑ひ. A graded reading that opens on the proverb, "Warō kado ni wa fuku kitaru" to ieri, and builds a lesson from it: parents and children, husband and wife, brothers and sisters in harmony, each enjoying his trade, and the family's fortune opening of itself; yue ni warō beshi, so laugh [5].
1942. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Harvard University Press, page 299, under fuku. Fortune comes in by a merry gate. Laugh and grow fat. The gate kept, and the English proverb set beside it [7].
1958. Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, page 178. Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru. Fortune comes to the merry gate. Here is another proverb which has become all the more popular because of its inclusion in the so-called iroha-garuta, the "alphabet" cards played by children. There is a saying that fortune favors the brave, but we know of no such English proverb as "fortune favors the cheerful." The Japanese proverb is an encouragement to a family which is merry, harmonious and peaceful. "Laugh and grow fat." "Laughter makes good blood." The one English commentary to say outright that the proverb has no English equivalent, and to name the karuta [9].
1968. Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, page 244. Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru 笑うかどには福きたる Laugh and grow fat, both marked as proverbs [8].
1996. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, page 53. Fortune will call at the smiling gate. The gate is kept, and the laugh is softened to a smile. Zona names no source for any proverb in the book [12].
2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools, Beechmont Crest, page 154. Fortune comes to the home where there is laughter. Then: People who have an affable and pleasant disposition tend to draw good fortune to them. An optimistic outlook is an asset that can help one succeed. The home, not the gate, and the laughter kept; the commentary turns a wish for a house into advice for a person, which is what English does with it [13].
Today. The house title, Fortune Comes To Those Who Smile, moves the subject from the household to the person and the laugh to a smile. Both moves are inside the range of 笑う, and the page's own gloss, good fortune comes to the home that laughs, is exact. What a rendering must keep: the house, because the proverb is a wish spoken over a door and not a rule of temperament; the arrival, because 福 comes as a visitor; and a laugh that is a laugh.
A reading
This is a native Japanese proverb, first heard as a line of comedy: no owner, no sect, no legend that has to be believed, and a picture — a gate with a laughing house behind it and a god arriving — that the seven characters carry whole. The story is short and sourced: two farmers trying to make an official laugh because fortune is promised to the gate that laughs; a scholar in 1829 explaining the smiling mask in the doorway from the same proverb; a playing card with the god of fortune grinning. English had the picture first, in Hepburn's house of laughter of 1872 and a Yokohama reporter's laughing house of 1875, and lost it to laugh and grow fat; the paperbacks that came back to the gate and the home were recovering what the first dictionary already had.
References
- James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, 2nd ed., American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1872, s.v. WARAU. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepb_0
- The Japan Weekly Mail, Yokohama, 4 December 1875. https://archive.org/details/jwm-bound-1875
- Brinkley, 『和英大辞典』 An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, with Copious Illustrations, Sanseidō, 1896, s.v. Warau, p. 1595.
- Rudolf Lange, A Text-book of Colloquial Japanese, tr. Christopher Noss, Methodist Publishing House, Tokyo, 1907, the exercise on warau. https://archive.org/details/textbookofcolloq00langrich
- Arthur Rose-Innes, Japanese Reading for Beginners, K. Yoshikawa, Yokohama, 1928, lesson 47, 笑ひ. https://archive.org/details/japanesereadingf04rose
- Saitō, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, SEG Publishing Department, 1915, s.v. Fat, p. 390.
- Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Harvard University Press, 1942, s.v. fuku, p. 299.
- Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, p. 244.
- Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, 1958, p. 178.
- Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965.
- David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, 1987; Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, Tuttle, 2000; Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, 2012.
- Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain: And Other Proverbs of Japan, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996, p. 53.
- Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004, p. 154.
- 能狂言 大蔵虎寛本, ed. 笹野堅 Sasano Ken, 1945, 筑紫奥, pp. 184–185. National Diet Library pid 1129307, scan 94. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1129307/1/94 · 「笑門には福来たる」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/笑門には福来たる-2094384
- 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, 【笑フ門ニ福來ル】. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 566. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/566
- 村田了阿編・井上頼圀増補『俚言集覧』, 1900 printing, 笑ふ門にハ福來る. National Diet Library pid 991571, scan 366. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991571/1/366
- 平田篤胤『宮比神御伝記』, 1829, p. 十九. National Diet Library pid 2539085, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2539085/1/22
- 「笑う門には福来る」, デジタル大辞泉・ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/笑う門には福来る-665616
- James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, Z. P. Maruya, Tokyo, 1888, s.v. WARAU, p. 725. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft
- 『国語法階梯』, 1900, National Diet Library pid 863783. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/863783 · 『国文典教科書』巻2, 1902, pid 863793. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/863793 · 『新撰国文典』, 1903, pid 863938. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/863938