善かれ悪しかれ yokare ashikare For Better Or For Worse
善かれ悪しかれ (yokare ashikare), whichever way it falls, is an adverb of resignation made of two old imperatives, let it be good, let it be bad, and it is as old as a letter of Hōnen. It shares its words with the English wedding vow's for better, for worse but not its act: the vow promises to stay through both, and the Japanese only declines to care which comes.
Abstract
善かれ悪しかれ, yokare ashikare, is a Japanese adverb of resignation: whichever way it falls, for good or for ill. Its oldest attested uses are medieval, a letter of Hōnen carried in collections from the 1250s on and a Muromachi tale of the 御伽草子, both telling a listener to let an outcome go; Edo popular fiction from 1836 uses it the same way, for a result surrendered to fate or to a Buddha. The phrase and the English wedding vow's words share their vocabulary but not their act: the vow promises to stay through both outcomes, and the Japanese adverb only declines to care which one comes.
Overview
The sense. Whatever the outcome, whichever way it falls; an adverb of resignation, not a promise. デジタル大辞泉: よいにしろ、悪いにしろ。善悪にかかわらず。どっちにしても, whether good or bad; regardless of good and bad; either way, with the example 善かれ悪しかれ結果を待つしかない, good or bad, all one can do is wait for the result, and a list of synonyms that are the adverbs of resignation and summation: どの道, 結局, 所詮, 何れにしても, 要するに [1]. It is the only dictionary that carries the word; 精選版日本国語大辞典 has no headword for it there.
The words. Two old imperatives joined into one adverb: よかれ is the classical adjective 良し in the form that means let it be good; あしかれ is 悪し, let it be bad; together they say be it good or be it bad. Every witness before 1900 writes the word in kana; the modern dictionary writes it with the characters 善 and 悪, and デジタル大辞泉 marks 悪 with the sign for a reading outside the standard list, since あし is not among that character's approved readings [1]. One word, no variants, and its meaning has not moved in seven hundred years.
The text in English. For better or worse; right or wrong; for good or ill is EDRDG's gloss, the plain English equivalent of an adverb that resigns to an outcome rather than promising to stay through it.
The historical record
Before 1257. Hōnen's reply to Ōgo Tarō Sanehide, in the 1906 『法然上人全集』, letter 48. Hōnen writes to a lay follower about exclusive nembutsu, and near the end warns him against looking down on those who practice otherwise: よく〳〵御つゝしみ候て。雜行の人なればとて。あなづる御心候まじく候也。よかれあしかれ。人のうへのよしあしをば。おもひいれぬがよき事にて候也。, be very careful; even if someone is a person of mixed practices, you must not have a heart that scorns him. Good or bad, either way, it is best not to take to heart the good and bad of what other people do [2]. The word means whichever way it is, and the sentence is about leaving other people's conduct alone. The letter is signed 源空, Hōnen's monastic name, and dated only 三月十四日, the fourteenth of the third month. The 1906 editor notes that the letter is carried in the 和語燈錄, the nine-fascicle biography, and the 西方指南鈔 — the last of these Shinran's autograph collection of Hōnen's words, with a colophon of 1257, a national treasure at the Senjuji temple [3] — so the letter is carried in collections of the 1250s and after.
Muromachi period. 『唐糸草子』, a tale of the 御伽草子, in the 1891 typeset edited by 今泉定介 and 畠山健. The tale of Karaito, a lady of Kiso Yoshinaka's side sent to Kamakura to kill Yoritomo, caught and imprisoned, and of her daughter Manju, who comes to Kamakura to find her. Manju has listened twenty days for anyone to speak her mother's name, and says to her nurse: 生きてうきよにあるならば。人をば。よかれあしかれさたするならひなり。名をだに申す人もなし。, if she were alive and in this world, people would be talking of her, for good or for ill; that is the way of it. Yet no one so much as says her name [4]. Here the word means well or ill, said of how people are spoken of, and the sentence turns on it: to be talked about either way is the proof of being alive. The dictionaries date the tale to the Muromachi period and name it as one of the twenty-three tales of the 渋川版 御伽文庫, the Edo printed set; the 1891 typeset is drawn from that set with the kanji filled in.
Edo period, undated. 『俗語之種』, a miscellany by 粟生菴清陰, part 4. Among remarks on writing: 物書事はよかれあしかれの出入や, writing things down is a matter of coming out well or badly [5]. The catalogue gives no date.
1836. 墨川亭雪麿's illustrated novel 『也字結恋之弶天』. A character in the dense kana of the genre: こんやもふしゆびよかれあしかれもういちをわしかいつてやかたのやうすとつくり見てからに, tonight too, whatever comes of it, I'll go once more and have a good look at how things stand at the mansion [6]. The word means whatever the outcome.
1852. 笠亭仙果's illustrated novel 『春服対佳賀紋』, part 3. A speaker entrusts herself to Amida: いつかういつしんおによらいさまにおたのみまうしよかれあしかれおまかせまうじて, with all my heart I ask it of the Buddha and leave it to him, come what may [7]. This is the nearest the Japanese comes to the spirit of a vow, and the other party is a Buddha, and the act is surrender rather than promise.
1891. A dodoitsu in 『新選歌曲集』. A popular song uses it as a shrug: よかれあしかれ入らざるお世話, good or bad, it's none of your business [8].
1900. 金沢庄三郎, 『日本文法講義』. A grammar takes the word apart to show the seam: くとありとが結びついて、善かれ惡しかれ」などゝなるのは、假初の結びつきであるから、これを引き離して善くあれ」惡しくあれ」としても意味を傷けない, when -ku and ari have fused, as in yokare ashikare, the fusion is a light one, so pulling them apart into yoku are, ashiku are does no harm to the sense [9]. This is the first witness that writes the word in kanji, and it writes 惡, the older form of the modern 悪.
The dictionary today. デジタル大辞泉 is the only dictionary that carries the word, with the sense and the example given in Overview above [1]. In the National Diet Library's full-text index the word is in several hundred books to 1946, in the kanji spelling and in kana.
What is not a source. The English wedding vow is not a source and not a parallel. For better for worse in the Book of Common Prayer is a promise to stay through both outcomes; 善かれ悪しかれ is a statement that the outcome is not the point. The two share their words and not their act; whether a Japanese rendering of the vow ever borrowed the phrase is not established.
The word in English
Today. EDRDG. For better or worse; right or wrong; for good or ill [10], all three adverbs. As an English adverb for better or worse means what the Japanese means: the plan went ahead, for better or worse. The vow's for better for worse is the same words in a different act. The house title, For Better Or For Worse, is EDRDG's first gloss, and the product page's own description calls the phrase the one spoken in the traditional wedding vow; the words are the same, the act is not, and a rendering must keep the adverb and let a buyer bring the vow themselves.
A reading
A word, not a saying: Hōnen uses it to tell a warrior to leave other people's failings alone, and a Muromachi tale uses it for the talk of the world that proves a woman is still alive. Seven centuries later it still means either way. This is not a mistranslation, since the English adverb says exactly what the Japanese says; it is a pairing presented as an identity, not two names for one thing. The 1852 sentence, entrusting an outcome to a Buddha rather than promising anything, is the nearest the Japanese comes to a vow: a fine thing to say of a marriage, and still not a promise.
References
- 「善かれ悪しかれ」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/善かれ悪しかれ-653615
- 法然, 大胡太郎實秀へつかはす御返事, in 『法然上人全集』, item 48, 1906 typeset, p. 486, scan 253. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991644/1/253
- 「西方指南抄」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/西方指南抄-68228
- 『唐糸草子』, in 今泉定介・畠山健 校定, 『御伽草子』前, 吉川半七, 1891, p. 16, scan 78. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992891/1/78
- 粟生菴清陰, 『俗語之種』, part 4, scan 3. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2578789/1/3
- 墨川亭雪麿, 『也字結恋之弶天』, 天保七年 (1836), scan 16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10301655/1/16
- 笠亭仙果, 『春服対佳賀紋』, 三編, 嘉永五年 (1852), scan 6. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10303763/1/6
- 『新選歌曲集』, 1891, scan 184. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876518/1/184
- 金沢庄三郎, 『日本文法講義』, 1900, scan 74. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993662/1/74
- EDRDG, 「善かれ悪しかれ」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/search/善かれ悪しかれ