Having just sniggered at Westerners who gravely drop Oriental wisdom, I will now take the opportunity to discuss (briefly, at least for me) one of my favorite Japanese proverbs. Hypocritical, perhaps, but then, I own the place.



What brought it to mind was a Proverbs-quoting comment on this post at Dean’s. The post links to an article called “How to Seem Smarter,” and though the basic tone is tongue-in-cheek, there is a good deal of truth to it.



Anyway, the Japanese proverb I’m thinking of is this:

能ある鷹は爪を隠す。



nou aru taka ha tsume wo kakusu



“The astute hawk keeps its talons hidden.”

Now, of course, there are other Japanese proverbs that more explicitly admonish you to keep your trap shut to avoid making a fool of yourself. This one, however, has always been one of my favorites because, for one thing, it covers varieties of show-offiness besides just babbling. It’s like the German saying, “Always be more than you appear” (which, as Miss Manners once pointed out, “predates the invention of the Mercedes-Benz paid for on installments”).



Another thing about it is the sensuality of the language. Except for the first word, which has a long-vowelled pronunciation borrowed from Chinese, the entire sentence is composed of native Japanese words. They flow along rapidly because of the alternating consonant-vowel structure and because most of the consonants themselves are unvoiced: k, t, ts, s. The sentence is sibilant and slightly menacing when you say it–pronounced conversationally, it comes out like noh’arutakawatsumewokox. You can imagine a hawk sitting in a tree, very still and observant, with the only sound the rustling of the leaves while he decides what to do next.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 3rd, 2005 at 21:17 and is filed under misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.