Òwe on Courage, Cowardice and Endurance
Forty-six Yorùbá proverbs on facing danger, the coward's self-betrayal, toughness and invulnerability, and endurance under hardship, each given with the original, a literal gloss, and a named translation.
This file collects forty-six Yorùbá proverbs on ìgboyà, courage or boldness, and its opposite, ìbẹ̀rù or cowardice, together with the closely related cluster of proverbs on toughness, invulnerability, and the capacity to endure suffering without breaking. Read together they treat courage less as a feeling than as a visible, testable performance: a person is brave the way an army faces another army, squarely, and a coward is caught not by an accusation but by a tell, a hesitation, an excuse produced on the spot. The set is equally interested in a harder, quieter kind of bravery, the endurance of hardship that cannot be fought off, only outlasted.
How this file is sourced
The proverbs below are drawn from Oyekan Owomoyela's digitised The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yorùbá Proverb Treasury, hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries Electronic Text Center, Part 4, "On perseverance, industry, resilience, self-confidence, self-reliance, resourcefulness, daring, fortitude, and invulnerability" That page prints each proverb in standard orthography with full tone marking, followed by Owomoyela's own English translation and a parenthetical usage note. Where an entry below is marked , the Yorùbá text and the quoted idiomatic English are Owomoyela's, reproduced as printed. The literal glosses and the Used when framing are the compiler's own, built from the Yorùbá, except where Owomoyela's usage note is quoted directly. That collection draws from the same fieldwork as his Yoruba Proverbs (Nebraska, 2005) .
Owomoyela's Part 4 is broad, and most of its roughly 470 entries concern perseverance, industriousness, and resourcefulness in ordinary work and trade rather than courage as such: proverbs about diligent farming, careful trading, and the shiftlessness of the lazy person, none of which are about fear or bravery, are left out of this file entirely. The forty-six proverbs collected here are the ones where fear, boldness, toughness, or endurance under adversity is the actual point being made, not merely the setting. None of them duplicate the proverbs already given in yoruba-owe-proverbs or in owe-iwa-character, including the latter's Ìwà ọ̀lẹ ḿba ọ̀lẹ lẹ́rù (the coward's own character fills him with fear), Dídán lẹyẹlé ńdán kú, and Ọwọ́ ẹni la fi ńtú ìwà ara ẹni ṣe, which are cross-referenced rather than repeated.
Facing danger without flinching
1. Ẹ̀rù kì í ba igbó, bẹ́ẹ̀ni kì í ba odò; ẹ̀rù kì í ba ọlọ lójú ata.
Literal: Ẹ̀rù kì í ba igbó fear does-not afflict the-forest, bẹ́ẹ̀ni kì í ba odò nor does-it afflict the-river; ẹ̀rù kì í ba ọlọ lójú ata fear does-not afflict the-grindstone in-the-face-of pepper.
Idiomatic: "The forest knows no fear, and neither does the river know fear; the grind-stone never shows fear in the face of pepper."
Meaning: A worthy person meets what confronts them the way these three things do, without any visible flinch.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A worthy person should not give way to fear"
Notes: The three examples escalate in aptness: a forest and a river are simply too large to register fear, but the grindstone actively works against the pepper that would sting a person's eyes, so the third image turns passive imperturbability into active engagement with the very thing that should hurt. That progression from indifference to confrontation is the proverb's real argument.
2. Ẹ̀rù kì í ba orí kó sá wọnú.
Literal: Ẹ̀rù kì í ba orí fear does-not afflict the-head kó sá wọnú such-that it-flees into-the-inside.
Idiomatic: "The head is never so frightened that it disappears into the shoulder."
Meaning: However great the fear, the exposed part of a person does not physically retreat from its post.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be brave enough to meet one's fate"
Notes: Orí is doing double work here, the literal head that cannot retract into the neck and the inner head or destiny discussed throughout the corpus's proverbs on orí; a reading alert to both senses hears the proverb counselling composure before both physical danger and fated outcome. See owe-head-face-ori on the wider range of orí as both organ and destiny.
3. Ẹ̀rù ogun kì í ba jagun-jagun.
Literal: Ẹ̀rù ogun fear of-war kì í ba does-not afflict jagun-jagun a-warrior.
Idiomatic: "Fear of battle never afflicts a warrior."
Meaning: A person's trade defines what they cannot be seen to fear.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be bold in pursuing one's goals"
Notes: Jagun-jagun is a reduplicated agent noun built on jà ogun, to wage war, so the proverb states something close to a tautology, a warrior is precisely the person for whom battle-fear is definitionally absent, and uses that near-tautology as the standard against which any other pursuit's proper fearlessness is measured.
4. Ogun kì í rí ẹ̀hìn ogun.
Literal: Ogun an-army kì í rí does-not see ẹ̀hìn ogun the-back of-an(other)-army.
Idiomatic: "An army does not see the rear of an(other) army."
Meaning: Two opposing forces meet face to face; retreat is not a position from which a confrontation is properly conducted.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should face one's adversary squarely"
Notes: The compression is total, four words each in the Yorùbá and the English, and the image works purely by negation: the proverb never states what an army does do, only what it structurally cannot see, which is the enemy's back turned toward it.
5. Labẹ́-labẹ́ ò bẹ̀rù ìjà.
Literal: Labẹ́-labẹ́ the-labẹ́labẹ́-plant ò bẹ̀rù does-not fear ìjà a-fight.
Idiomatic: "The labẹ́labẹ́ plant is not afraid of a fight."
Meaning: A readiness to meet trouble, not a search for it, is the disposition being praised.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One is prepared for whatever trouble might come one's way"
Notes: Owomoyela prints this as a shortened restatement of the fuller proverb given next; the two circulate as a pair, and pairing a compressed form with its longer source is common throughout this collection.
6. Labẹ́-labẹ́ ò bá tìjà wá odò; kanna-kánná ò bá ti ẹ̀kọ wá oko.
Literal: Labẹ́-labẹ́ ò bá tìjà wá odò the-labẹ́labẹ́-plant did-not come with-a-fight to-the-river; kanna-kánná ò bá ti ẹ̀kọ wá oko the-crow did-not come with corn-gruel to-the-farm.
Idiomatic: "The labẹ́labẹ́ plant did not come to the river looking for a fight; the crow did not come to the farm in search of corn gruel."
Meaning: Trouble can find a person who was minding an unrelated errand, and readiness to respond does not require having gone looking for it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One may be minding one's business when one is provoked; one should nevertheless be prepared to respond"
Notes: Both images share a structure: a creature or plant present for one ordinary purpose (growing by water, foraging at a farm) that is nonetheless not caught unprepared when a different kind of trouble arrives. The proverb distinguishes provocation from a hunt for trouble, a distinction entry 5 compresses away.
7. "Bí mo lè kú ma kú" lọmọkùrín fi ńlágbárá; "Ng ò lè wáá kú" lọmọkùnrín fi ńlẹ.
Literal: "Bí mo lè kú ma kú" if I can die let-me die lọmọkùrín fi ńlágbárá is-what a-man uses to-become-strong; "Ng ò lè wáá kú" I cannot go-and die lọmọkùnrín fi ńlẹ is-what a-man uses to-become-lazy(-or-cowardly).
Idiomatic: "'If I must die let me die' is what makes a man strong; 'I simply will not court death' is what makes a man lazy or cowardly."
Meaning: Willingness to risk death is the thing that produces strength of character; refusal to risk anything produces its opposite.
Used when: Said to argue that daring makes the man and caution unmakes him .
Notes: Ọ̀lẹ, here rendered "lazy or cowardly," is the same word this corpus elsewhere translates simply as lazy or shiftless (see the laziness cluster in owe-iwa-character and the wider corpus), and Owomoyela's double gloss "lazy or cowardly" makes explicit that Yorùbá treats the coward and the idler as functionally the same moral type: both withhold the effort a situation demands. This proverb is the clearest statement in the set of that identification.
8. "Ó kù díẹ̀ kí nwí": ojo ní ńsọni da.
Literal: "Ó kù díẹ̀ kí nwí" a-little remained before I-would-speak: ojo ní ńsọni da cowardice is-what turns-one into-a-turncoat.
Idiomatic: "'I was just on the verge of speaking my mind': it only makes one into a coward."
Meaning: The claim to have almost acted is not a partial credit toward courage; it is simply what cowardice sounds like when it excuses itself.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should either engage or refrain from making excuses"
Notes: Ojo, coward or cowardice, is placed directly after the quoted excuse with no connecting explanation, so the sentence's structure enacts its own judgement: the excuse is spoken, and the verdict follows immediately, the same device used elsewhere in this corpus for a lie caught in the act (see the quoted-boast proverbs in owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity).
The coward's tell and the coward's excuse
9. Ọ̀lẹ́ mọ èèwọ̀ ìjà: ó ní bàbá òún ní kóun má jà lọ́nà oko.
Literal: Ọ̀lẹ́ mọ èèwọ̀ ìjà the-coward knows the-taboo-remedy for-fighting: ó ní bàbá òún ní kóun má jà he says his-father said he-should-not fight lọ́nà oko on-the-road to-the-farm.
Idiomatic: "The coward knows the preventive for fighting: he says his father has ordered him not to fight on the way to the farm."
Meaning: A coward keeps a ready-made, unfalsifiable reason to avoid any particular fight.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The coward will use every excuse to get out of a fight"
Notes: Ọ̀lẹ́ again carries both "lazy person" and "coward," as in entry 7. Èèwọ̀ is a taboo or a prohibition, ordinarily a serious religious or family restriction, and the joke is that the coward invokes the register of sacred prohibition for what is transparently a convenient excuse invented on the spot.
10. Ọ̀lẹ́ ní ọjọ́ tí òún bá kú òun ó yọ̀; ohun tí ojú ọ̀lẹ́ máa rí kó tó kú ńkọ́?
Literal: Ọ̀lẹ́ ní the-coward says ọjọ́ tí òún bá kú the-day he dies òun ó yọ̀ he will-rejoice; ohun tí ojú ọ̀lẹ́ máa rí the-thing that the-coward's-eyes will see kó tó kú ńkọ́ before he dies, what-of-it?
Idiomatic: "The coward says he will rejoice on the day he dies; but what about the woes he will experience before he dies?"
Meaning: Death offers the coward no escape from the suffering that his own cowardice earns him beforehand.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Death may offer the coward a respite, but he will suffer before death comes"
Notes: Owomoyela records this as a variant of an identically structured proverb about the lazy person (Ọ̀lẹ́ ní ọjọ́ tí ikú bá pa òun, inú òhun á dùn), reinforcing again that laziness and cowardice occupy the same slot in this proverb tradition, differing mainly in whether the failure is to work or to fight.
11. A-lèjà-má-lè-jà-pẹ́, ẹlẹgbẹ́ ojo.
Literal: A-lèjà-má-lè-jà-pẹ́ one-who-can-fight-but-cannot-fight-for-long, ẹlẹgbẹ́ ojo the-equal of-a-coward.
Idiomatic: "He who can fight but cannot fight for long, the equal of a coward."
Meaning: The capacity to start a fight is worthless without the capacity to see it through, and a person who has only the first counts as a coward regardless.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Ability to start a fight is nothing like the ability to see it through"
Notes: The compressed epithet a-lèjà-má-lè-jà-pẹ́, built on the a- agentive prefix seen throughout this corpus's character proverbs, packs an entire concession and its reversal into one word: yes, he can fight, but not for long, and that qualification is what demotes him to the coward's rank. The proverb measures courage by endurance in a contest rather than by the willingness to enter one.
Toughness and invulnerability
12. Kìnìún ò níí ṣàgbákò ẹkùn.
Literal: Kìnìún a-lion ò níí ṣàgbákò will-not face-peril-from ẹkùn a-leopard.
Idiomatic: "A lion does not face peril from a leopard."
Meaning: A sufficiently formidable creature simply has nothing to fear from one merely strong.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The stronger person has nothing to fear from the weaker"
Notes: Both animals are genuinely dangerous predators, which is what makes the comparison work: the proverb is not opposing strength to weakness in the abstract but ranking two real threats and declaring the gap between them still decisive.
13. Kò ka ikú: àdàbà sùú-sùú tí ńjẹ̀ láàrin àṣá.
Literal: Kò ka ikú it does-not count death: àdàbà sùú-sùú the-pigeon flitting-about tí ńjẹ̀ láàrin àṣá that feeds among hawks.
Idiomatic: "It fears not death: the pigeon that forages among hawks."
Meaning: Some creatures, and by extension some people, go on with ordinary business inside a danger that would paralyse anyone else.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said of people who habitually court danger"
Notes: Unlike entry 12, this is not a claim of invulnerability by superior force. The pigeon is not stronger than the hawk; it is simply, and precariously, indifferent to the risk, which is why Owomoyela's usage note reads as mildly critical rather than admiring, closer to reckless than brave.
14. Àkèekèé ní òún kúrò ní kòkòrò-o kí nìyí?
Literal: Àkèekèé ní the-scorpion says òún kúrò ní kòkòrò-o kí nìyí it is-apart-from the-question of-what-kind-of-insect-is-this.
Idiomatic: "Scorpion says that its status transcends what-type-of-insect-is-this?"
Meaning: A creature that can genuinely hurt anyone underestimating it refuses to be filed under an ordinary, harmless category.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Stature and importance are not always commensurate; some people should not be under-estimated"
Notes: The rhetorical question format, "what kind of insect is this," is the very question a person might ask while dismissing the scorpion as trivial, and the proverb puts that dismissal in the scorpion's own mouth only to have it refused. Compare the companion entry below.
15. Àkèekèé rìn tapó-tapó.
Literal: Àkèekèé the-scorpion rìn travels tapó-tapó accompanied-by-its-quiver-of-venom.
Idiomatic: "The scorpion travels accompanied by venom."
Meaning: A formidable person or creature carries its means of defence at all times, not only when trouble is expected.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The stalwart is never unprepared to answer a call"
Notes: Tapó, quiver, likens the scorpion's sting to a warrior's carried weapon, extending the martial vocabulary used elsewhere in this file (entries 3 and 4) to an insect, which is part of the humour and part of the point: readiness, not size, is what the proverb is actually praising.
16. Kò sí alápatà tí ńpa igún.
Literal: Kò sí alápatà there-is-no butcher tí ńpa igún that slaughters the-vulture (for-sale).
Idiomatic: "There is no butcher who slaughters the vulture for sale."
Meaning: A person can be protected from a whole category of harm not by strength but by a standing prohibition that makes them off-limits.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Certain actions are forbidden: one is beyond the powers of one's enemies"
Notes: The vulture is protected by taboo in Yorùbá practice rather than by any capacity to fight off a butcher, so this proverb states a different mechanism of invulnerability from the scorpion's venom or the lion's strength in entries 12 and 14: safety here comes from a rule that binds everyone else, not from the vulture's own power.
17. Eégún tí ńjẹ orí ẹṣin, orí àgbò ò lè kò ó láyà.
Literal: Eégún tí ńjẹ orí ẹṣin the-masquerader who eats horse heads, orí àgbò the-head of-a-ram ò lè kò ó láyà cannot daunt him in-the-chest.
Idiomatic: "The masquerader who is accustomed to eating horse heads will not be daunted by ram heads."
Meaning: Having already faced and absorbed the harder version of a challenge, a person is no longer troubled by the easier one.
Used when: Owomoyela's note directs the reader to compare entry 19 .
Notes: Kò láyà, literally to strike the chest, is the idiom for daunting or intimidating someone, so the proverb states physically that the smaller challenge cannot even land a blow on a person hardened by the larger one. See entry 19 for the paired image with the sea and the lagoon, which Owomoyela cross-references directly to this proverb.
18. Kí ní ḿbẹ nínú isà tí yó ba òkú lẹ́rù?
Literal: Kí ní ḿbẹ nínú isà what is there inside the-grave tí yó ba òkú lẹ́rù that would frighten a-corpse?
Idiomatic: "What is there in the grave to frighten a corpse?"
Meaning: A person who has already reached the worst possible state has nothing further left to fear from it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is nothing in the offing that one cannot cope with"
Notes: The rhetorical question form, unanswerable by design, is the same device used in entry 14; here it delivers the flattest possible statement of fearlessness, since a corpse is by definition beyond the reach of any further harm the grave could hold.
19. Ojú tó ti rókun ò ní rọ́sà kó bẹ̀rù.
Literal: Ojú tó ti rókun the-eyes that have seen-the-ocean ò ní rọ́sà will-not see-the-lagoon kó bẹ̀rù and be-afraid.
Idiomatic: "The eyes that have seen the ocean will not tremble at the sight of the lagoon."
Meaning: A person who has survived the largest version of a danger will not be troubled by a smaller one.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Once one has survived a grave peril, small inconveniences will not unduly impress one"
Notes: Owomoyela cross-references this to entry 17 (the masquerader's horse heads and ram heads) and to a companion proverb using the gbẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́ masquerade in the same role as the ultimate sight; all three build the same argument from different registers, seafaring, warfare, and ritual performance, which suggests the underlying claim, that scale of past ordeal calibrates present fear, was one Yorùbá speakers reached for often enough to need several idioms for it.
20. Ìgbín kọ mímì ejò.
Literal: Ìgbín the-snail kọ rejects mímì ejò being-swallowed by-a-snake.
Idiomatic: "The snail rejects the fate of being swallowed by a snake."
Meaning: A creature that seems entirely defenceless is in fact immune to the one predator that would ordinarily be expected to take it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There are some perils to which one is immune"
Notes: The snail's shell defeats the snake's swallowing method specifically, so the immunity is structural and particular rather than a claim of general toughness, a distinction this proverb shares with entry 21 below.
21. Ìkọ́ kì í kọ́ ejò lẹ́sẹ̀.
Literal: Ìkọ́ a-snare kì í kọ́ ejò lẹ́sẹ̀ does-not catch a-snake by-the-leg.
Idiomatic: "A snare never catches a snake in the leg."
Meaning: A trap built for creatures with legs simply cannot function against one that has none.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One will remain invulnerable to any danger"
Notes: As with entry 20, the invulnerability is mechanical rather than a matter of strength or courage: the snake is safe because the entire category of leg-trap has no purchase on it, which is a different kind of safety from the lion's or the warrior's in the entries above.
22. Ìríkúrìí kì í fọ́ ojú.
Literal: Ìríkúrìí the-seeing-of-horrible-things kì í fọ́ ojú does-not blind the-eyes.
Idiomatic: "Evil sights do not make the eyes go blind."
Meaning: Witnessing something terrible, however disturbing, does not itself disable the person who witnesses it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is nothing in the offing that one cannot withstand"
Notes: This proverb is about endurance of shock rather than physical toughness: the eyes stay functional, which stands in for the claim that a person's capacity to keep going is not actually destroyed by the worst thing they might see. Compare entry 33 below, which makes an almost identical claim using the same organ.
23. Oríta mẹ́ta ò kọnnú ẹbọ.
Literal: Oríta mẹ́ta a-crossroads of-three-roads ò kọnnú ẹbọ does-not fear the-inside-of a-sacrificial-offering.
Idiomatic: "A crossroads where three roads meet is not afraid of sacrificial offerings."
Meaning: A place, or a person, accustomed to receiving something that would unsettle others treats it as ordinary business rather than as a threat.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One does not fear any eventuality"
Notes: The crossroads is the customary site for depositing sacrificial offerings and for propitiating Èṣù, so what could read as ominous, offerings piling up at a junction, is instead the crossroads' routine condition, and the proverb's fearlessness is really a claim about over-familiarity with a specific ritual danger.
24. Ìrókò o-nígun-mẹ́rìn-dín-lógún ò tó erin-ín gbémì, áḿbọ̀ǹtorí ìtóò a-lara-boro-boro.
Literal: Ìrókò o-nígun-mẹ́rìn-dín-lógún an-ìrókò-log with-sixteen-edges ò tó erin-ín gbémì is-not-enough for-an-elephant to-swallow, áḿbọ̀ǹtorí ìtóò a-lara-boro-boro much-less something-of-a-smooth-slippery-body.
Idiomatic: "An ìrókò stick with sixteen edges is nothing for an elephant to swallow, much less the melon fruit with a smooth body."
Meaning: A creature not defeated by the harder, more jagged obstacle will certainly not be stopped by an easier, smoother one.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person not defeated by a formidable obstacle will certainly not be stopped by a minor irritant"
Notes: The reasoning is explicitly a fortiori, moving from the harder case (a sixteen-edged log) to the easier one (a smooth melon), the same logical shape as entries 17 and 19, but stated here as physical fact about swallowing rather than as remembered experience.
25. Àràbà ńlá fojú di àáké.
Literal: Àràbà ńlá a-huge silk-cotton-tree fojú di àáké looks-with-eyes belittling the-axe.
Idiomatic: "The huge sik-cotton tree belittles the axe."
Meaning: A sufficiently massive obstacle can regard the instrument meant to bring it down with something like contempt.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It takes a mighty person to defy a powerful force"
Notes: Fojú di, to belittle with the eyes, personifies the tree as an active party in the confrontation, not a passive object waiting to be felled, which shifts the proverb from a statement about size to a statement about attitude under threat.
26. Ṣàngó ò lè pa igi ńlá.
Literal: Ṣàngó Ṣàngó ò lè pa cannot kill igi ńlá a-huge tree.
Idiomatic: "Ṣàngó cannot destroy a huge tree."
Meaning: Even the òrìṣà of lightning and thunder, who routinely splits ordinary trees, cannot bring down the largest ones.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The substantial and well-established person is better able to withstand adversity than weaklings"
Notes: Ṣàngó's lightning is the standard, expected cause of a tree's destruction in Yorùbá belief, which is what makes naming him specifically, rather than a generic storm, sharpen the claim: this is not immunity from an unlikely danger but immunity from the one danger everyone would assume was decisive. See owe-orisa-tradition-speech for further proverbs naming Ṣàngó.
Enduring hardship and suffering
27. Ìkòkò tí yó jẹ ata, ìdí ẹ̀ á gbóná.
Literal: Ìkòkò tí yó jẹ ata the-pot that will eat pepper(-stew) ìdí ẹ̀ á gbóná its-bottom will become-hot.
Idiomatic: "The pot that wishes to eat pepper (stew) will first endure a scalded bottom."
Meaning: The desirable outcome is inseparable from the discomfort of the process that produces it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Good things come only after great labor or suffering"
Notes: The pot does not choose to eat pepper stew; it is the vessel the stew is cooked in, so the proverb's image quietly makes the point that the suffering is not incidental to the good result but the very mechanism that produces it, fire under the pot being what cooks the stew at all.
28. O ní kí o gbó ogbó Olúàṣo; o lè jìyà bí Olúàṣo?
Literal: O ní kí o gbó ogbó Olúàṣo you pray that you live-to-the-old-age of-Olúàṣo; o lè jìyà bí Olúàṣo can-you suffer like Olúàṣo?
Idiomatic: "You pray to live as long as Olúàṣo, but can you endure the trials of Olúàṣo?"
Meaning: Wishing for the outward result of a life is not the same as being willing to endure what that life actually cost.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever wishes for the sort of glory another person enjoys must also be willing to endure whatever tribulations the person has endured"
Notes: Olúàṣo appears to be a named figure known for both longevity and hardship, though the underlying story is not recoverable from Owomoyela's page alone; the proverb's force does not depend on knowing the specifics, only on the shape of the bargain it describes.
29. Bí ẹrú yó bàá jẹ ìfun, ibi ẹ̀dọ̀ ní-í tí ḿbẹ̀rẹ̀.
Literal: Bí ẹrú yó bàá jẹ ìfun if a-slave would eat intestines, ibi ẹ̀dọ̀ ní-í tí ḿbẹ̀rẹ̀ it-is at the-liver that-they begin.
Idiomatic: "A slave that would eat intestines must begin with the liver."
Meaning: Reaching the more tolerable part of an unpleasant task requires first getting through the least pleasant part.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must endure unpleasantness before achieving one's ends"
Notes: This proverb belongs to the historical vocabulary of Yorùbá domestic slavery, and its image, an enslaved person given only the least valued cuts of meat and required to eat them in a particular order, records that institution's ordinary detail rather than inventing a hypothetical; the proverb generalises from a real hierarchy of food to a general claim about sequencing hardship.
30. Bí ìṣẹ́ bá ńṣẹ́ ọ̀dọ́ láṣẹ̀ẹ́jù, kó lọ sígbó erin; bó bá pa erin ìṣẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ a tán; bí erín bá pá a, ìṣẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ a tán.
Literal: Bí ìṣẹ́ bá ńṣẹ́ ọ̀dọ́ láṣẹ̀ẹ́jù if destitution afflicts a-youth excessively, kó lọ sígbó erin let-him go to-the-forest of-elephants; bó bá pa erin if-he kills an-elephant ìṣẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ a tán his destitution will-end; bí erín bá pá a if the-elephant kills him, ìṣẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ a tán his destitution will-end.
Idiomatic: "If a youth is in the grips of excessive privations, he should go after an elephant; if he kills an elephant his privations will be over; if an elephant kills him, his privations will be over."
Meaning: When suffering has become severe enough, a desperate, dangerous gamble becomes rational because both of its outcomes end the suffering.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People in desperate straights should resort to desperate remedies; whatever the outcome, they will be no worse off than before"
Notes: The proverb's logic is genuinely bleak rather than inspirational: it does not promise the youth success, only that death is itself an acceptable resolution to sufficiently extreme poverty, which is a harder statement than the more common Yorùbá proverbs praising perseverance for its eventual reward.
31. Ìpọ́njú àgbẹ̀ ò ju ọdún kan.
Literal: Ìpọ́njú àgbẹ̀ a-farmer's affliction ò ju ọdún kan does-not exceed one year.
Idiomatic: "A farmer's suffering will not last longer than a year."
Meaning: Hardship tied to a natural cycle has a built-in limit, because the cycle itself will turn.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Every reversal has its end"
Notes: The farming year gives the proverb a concrete, checkable boundary rather than a vague promise of eventual relief, which distinguishes it from more open-ended endurance proverbs like entry 32.
32. Ìṣẹ́ tó ṣẹ́ ọmọ lógún ọdún, ìyà tó jẹ ọmọ lọ́gbọ̀n oṣù, bí kò pa ọmọ, a sì lẹ́hìn ọmọ.
Literal: Ìṣẹ́ tó ṣẹ́ ọmọ lógún ọdún the-destitution that has-afflicted a-child for-twenty years, ìyà tó jẹ ọmọ lọ́gbọ̀n oṣù the-suffering that has-fed-on a-child for-thirty months, bí kò pa ọmọ if it-does-not kill the-child, a sì lẹ́hìn ọmọ it-should then leave-the-back-of the-child.
Idiomatic: "The poverty that has plagued a child for twenty years, the suffering that has been the fate of a child for thirty months, if it does not kill the child it should leave the child in peace."
Meaning: Prolonged suffering that has failed to destroy a person has, by its own failure, used up its claim on them.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Perseverance puts an eventual end to all suffering"
Notes: The two time spans, twenty years and thirty months, are not reconciled into a single figure, which reads less like careless composition than like two separate sayings fused into one, each contributing its own measure of a very long ordeal. The proverb's logic (survival disqualifies further suffering) is asserted as a moral claim, not a guarantee, and real Yorùbá lives plainly did not always bear it out; it functions as consolation rather than prediction.
33. Ojú rẹ́gbin kò fọ́: a-jọ̀pọ̀-ìyà-má-rù.
Literal: Ojú rẹ́gbin kò fọ́ the-eye looks-on-filth and-does-not go-blind: a-jọ̀pọ̀-ìyà-má-rù one-who-bears-a-heap-of-suffering-without-wasting-away.
Idiomatic: "The eye looks on a filthy sight and does not go blind: 'like' one who sustains a succession of sufferings without wasting away."
Meaning: A person can absorb a great accumulation of misfortune and remain intact, in the way an eye remains sighted after looking on something foul.
Used when: Owomoyela: "With resilience one will overcome all problems"
Notes: The compressed epithet a-jọ̀pọ̀-ìyà-má-rù, built the same way as entry 11's a-lèjà-má-lè-jà-pẹ́, names the resilient person by describing their entire situation in one word, a heap of suffering carried without wasting away, which is the same rhetorical move this corpus's character proverbs make elsewhere (see the à- and a- agentive constructions discussed in owe-iwa-character).
34. Ojú ti kókó, ojú ti eéwo; ojú ti aáràgbá ìdí pẹ̀lú.
Literal: Ojú ti kókó the-face has-shamed the-lump, ojú ti eéwo the-face has-shamed the-boil; ojú ti aáràgbá ìdí pẹ̀lú the-face has-shamed the-hardened-tissue of-the-buttocks also.
Idiomatic: "The lump that attacks the head is shamed, the boil is shamed, and the hardened tissue on the buttocks is shamed also."
Meaning: The afflictions that attack a person are the ones put to shame, not the person who bears them and carries on regardless.
Used when: Owomoyela's note reads this as "assertion of defiance in the face of adversity"
Notes: The proverb reverses the expected direction of shame: ordinarily a visible affliction shames its bearer, but here the affliction itself is shamed, presumably by its failure to break the person carrying it. All three named ailments, a head lump, a boil, and callused tissue from sitting or labour, are chronic, low-grade, everyday hardships rather than dramatic ones, which fits the proverb's real subject, ordinary endurance rather than heroic crisis.
35. Ẹni tí eégún ńlé kó máa rọ́jú; bó ti ńrẹ ará ayé, bẹ́ẹ̀ ní ńrẹ ará ọ̀run.
Literal: Ẹni tí eégún ńlé the-one whom a-masquerader is-chasing kó máa rọ́jú should keep-enduring; bó ti ńrẹ ará ayé just-as it-tires the-person-of-the-world, bẹ́ẹ̀ ní ńrẹ ará ọ̀run so-too it-tires the-being-of-heaven.
Idiomatic: "The person being chased by a masquerader should persevere; just as an earthling tires, so does the being from heaven."
Meaning: Even a pursuer with supernatural standing is subject to ordinary physical fatigue, so the pursued party's endurance is not a hopeless contest.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Perseverance solves all problems"
Notes: Eégún masquerades are understood in performance to be ancestral spirits temporarily present among the living, so ará ọ̀run, the being of heaven, names the masquerader's claimed supernatural status directly; the proverb's reassurance depends on treating that status as real and then noting that even it does not exempt the wearer from tiring, a mildly irreverent piece of practical reasoning about a figure otherwise treated with considerable ritual seriousness.
36. Ìrọ́jú ni ohun gbogbo; ojoojúmọ́ ní ńrẹni.
Literal: Ìrọ́jú ni ohun gbogbo perseverance is everything; ojoojúmọ́ ní ńrẹni every-single-day is-when one-grows-tired.
Idiomatic: "Perseverance is everything; one gets tired daily."
Meaning: Persistence is what matters, and the proverb concedes in the same breath that persistence is daily work against daily fatigue, not a one-time act of will.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not fold up in the face of the first trial"
Notes: The second clause keeps the first from becoming empty encouragement: perseverance is not framed as effortless once adopted, and the proverb is honest that the tiredness recurs every day rather than being defeated once and for all. Compare entry 37's companion form, cross-referenced by Owomoyela to this one.
37. Ìyànjú là ńgbà; bí a ò gbìyànjú bí ọ̀lẹ là ńrí; ojoojúmọ́ ní ńrẹni.
Literal: Ìyànjú là ńgbà effort is-what one-takes-up; bí a ò gbìyànjú if one does-not make-an-effort bí ọ̀lẹ là ńrí like a-lazy-or-cowardly-person one appears; ojoojúmọ́ ní ńrẹni every-single-day one-grows-tired.
Idiomatic: "One simply makes an effort; if one does not make an effort one seems like a shiftless person; one copes with weariness daily."
Meaning: The visible difference between the resilient person and the coward or idler is not the absence of tiredness but the decision to act through it anyway.
Used when: Owomoyela: "In spite of weariness, one must still make a decent effort at one's calling"
Notes: Ọ̀lẹ again carries the double sense noted at entries 7 and 9, and here the proverb makes explicit what those entries implied: the alternative to enduring effort is not neutral rest but a visible category, the shirker or coward, that a person falls into by default the moment they stop.
38. Dùndún fọ̀ràn gbogbo ṣàpamọ́ra.
Literal: Dùndún the-talking-drum fọ̀ràn gbogbo with-every matter ṣàpamọ́ra keeps-composed-and-restrained.
Idiomatic: "The talking drum endures all matters without complaint."
Meaning: Whatever is done to the drum, however hard it is struck, its response is disciplined performance rather than protest.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is best to be stoically resilient"
Notes: The talking drum's entire function is to be struck, repeatedly and with real force, in order to produce its tonal speech, so the proverb's image is exact: the drum's endurance is not incidental to its purpose but constitutive of it, an instrument that could not perform its role at all without absorbing every blow.
39. Bí ó pẹ́ títí, akólòlò á pe baba.
Literal: Bí ó pẹ́ títí however-long it-takes, akólòlò á pe baba the-stammerer will call father.
Idiomatic: "However long it may take, the stammerer will eventually say, 'Father.'"
Meaning: A struggle against a real impediment, sustained long enough, reaches its goal.
Used when: Owomoyela: "With perseverance, the most difficult task will eventually be accomplished"
Notes: Bàbá, father, is chosen as the target word for its difficulty to a stammerer specifically because it is among the first and simplest words a child is expected to manage, so the proverb measures the stammerer's endurance against the ordinary, unremarkable achievement of every other child, which sharpens rather than softens the difficulty being described.
Daring, and what distinguishes it from recklessness
40. Ẹní bá ńjẹ òbúkọ tó gbójú, yó jẹ àgùtàn tó yọ̀wo.
Literal: Ẹní bá ńjẹ òbúkọ tó gbójú whoever eats a-he-goat that has-grown-bold, yó jẹ àgùtàn tó yọ̀wo will eat a-sheep that has-sprouted-horns.
Idiomatic: "Whoever is used to eating full-grown he-goats will eat lambs that have sprouted horns."
Meaning: A person accustomed to defying an ordinary restriction can be expected to defy an unusual variant of it too.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person known for daring deeds can always be expected to defy custom; one cannot cure people of ingrained habits"
Notes: A horned sheep and a bold he-goat are each in some sense an anomaly worth remarking on, and Owomoyela's usage note treats the pattern neutrally rather than as praise, closer to entry 13's ambivalence about the pigeon among hawks than to the outright approval given the warrior or the scorpion earlier in this file: daring here shades toward a fixed, undiscriminating habit rather than a considered response to danger.
41. Ìjà ò mọ ẹ̀gbọ́n, ó sọ àbúrò dakin.
Literal: Ìjà ò mọ ẹ̀gbọ́n a-fight does-not know the-elder-sibling, ó sọ àbúrò dakin it makes the-younger-sibling into-a-hero.
Idiomatic: "Fighting knows not who is the elder; it makes a hero of the younger."
Meaning: In a physical contest, seniority by birth order carries no weight; skill and nerve decide the outcome regardless of who is older.
Used when: Owomoyela: "In certain situations, prowess is more important than age"
Notes: Owomoyela cross-references this to the near-identical Owó ò mọ ẹ̀gbọ́n, ó sọ àbúrò dàgbà, wealth does not know the elder and elevates the younger, which pairs money and fighting as the two forces in Yorùbá social life understood to override the otherwise powerful claims of birth order. That pairing is a real piece of evidence about where the proverb tradition locates exceptions to seniority.
42. Obìnrin tí yó fẹ̀ẹ́ alágbára, ọkàn kan ní ḿmú.
Literal: Obìnrin tí yó fẹ̀ẹ́ alágbára a-woman who would marry a-formidable-man, ọkàn kan ní ḿmú one heart is-what-she-holds.
Idiomatic: "A woman who would marry a formidable man must have an unwavering mind."
Meaning: Attaching oneself to a person of real power or danger requires a corresponding steadiness of one's own, not a fleeting decision.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Once one has made one's decision on an important matter one should remain resolute"
Notes: Ọkàn kan, one heart, is the standard Yorùbá idiom for singleness of purpose or resolve; the proverb extends the courage vocabulary of this file, elsewhere used of warriors and formidable creatures, to the domestic decision of marriage, treating resolve as a trait a person brings to a marriage rather than one a marriage confers.
43. Àro-ó pẹ́ lóko, kò tún mọ ìlù-ú lù.
Literal: Àro-ó pẹ́ lóko Àro stayed-long on-the-farm, kò tún mọ ìlù-ú lù he-no-longer knows how-to-beat the-drum.
Idiomatic: "Àro stayed so long on the farm that he forgot how to beat the drum."
Meaning: A skill or a nerve not exercised atrophies, even in a person who once had it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one neglects one's specialty long enough, one becomes incompetent at it"
Notes: Included here because it complicates the file's more triumphant entries: courage and hardened competence in this corpus are not treated as permanent character traits secured once and for all, but as something that must continue to be exercised, consistent with entry 36's insistence that perseverance is a daily and not a one-time achievement.
44. Kí á gbé ọkọ́ so sájà ká pète ìmẹ́lẹ́; ojúgun-ún yó tán ó fikùn sẹ́hìn.
Literal: Kí á gbé ọkọ́ so sájà to hang the-hoe up-in-the-loft ká pète ìmẹ́lẹ́ and plan idleness; ojúgun-ún yó tán the-shin will-eat its-fill ó fikùn sẹ́hìn and grow-a-stomach at-its-back.
Idiomatic: "Hiding the hoe in the loft and contriving to shirk work; the shin ate its fill and developed a stomach at its back."
Meaning: A person who avoids the effort a task requires still expects, absurdly, to share in what only that effort produces.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said of people who shirk work but eagerly partake of the rewards"
Notes: The grotesque image, a shin growing a stomach where no stomach belongs, marks the shirker's expectation as a bodily impossibility, the same rhetorical move seen in the pool's proverbs about idlers elsewhere in this corpus; the proverb belongs here as the negative case against which this file's endurance and daring proverbs define themselves.
45. Ebè kan ṣoṣo àkùrọ́ kúrò ní "Mo fẹ́rẹ̀ẹ́ ṣíwọ́."
Literal: Ebè kan ṣoṣo a-single farm-heap àkùrọ́ excuses one kúrò ní from "Mo fẹ́rẹ̀ẹ́ ṣíwọ́" "I am almost done."
Idiomatic: "A single heap on the farm does not warrant 'I am just about done.'"
Meaning: A single act of effort, however genuine, is not itself the completion of a demanding undertaking, and claiming otherwise is premature.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The first step is not nearly the completion of a long journey"
Notes: Placed at the close of this section because it corrects a possible misreading of the file's more admiring entries: endurance and daring in this tradition are measured across a whole task or a whole life, not credited for a single dramatic gesture, which is the same caution entry 43 makes about skill through a different image.
46. Ojú là ńrọ́; ògó ṣòro-ó ṣe.
Literal: Ojú là ńrọ́ one's-best is-what-one puts-forth; ògó ṣòro-ó ṣe a-heroic-deed is-hard to-do.
Idiomatic: "One only tries one's best; heroic deeds do not come easy."
Meaning: What can reasonably be asked of a person is their genuine best effort, not the guarantee of a heroic outcome.
Used when: Owomoyela cross-references this to entry 37 .
Notes: Ògó, a heroic or extraordinary deed, is named and then explicitly set apart as difficult, which keeps this proverb from collapsing into simple encouragement: it does not promise that trying hard produces heroism, only that trying hard is the whole of what is owed. As a closing note to the file, it deflates rather than crowns the courage and endurance praised in the preceding forty-five entries, and that deflation is itself characteristic of how this proverb tradition treats its own claims.
Reading this set
Two things stand out across these forty-six proverbs that would not be visible from any single one.
Cowardice and laziness are treated as one moral failure, not two. Ọ̀lẹ́, the word this corpus elsewhere translates simply as lazy or shiftless, does double duty throughout this file: Owomoyela's own translations render it "coward" as often as "lazy person" (entries 7, 9, 10, 37), and the coward's excuse in entry 9 and the shirker's excuse in a companion proverb from owe-iwa-character (Ìwà ọ̀lẹ ḿba ọ̀lẹ lẹ́rù) share the identical grammar of self-justification. Yorùbá proverb-speech does not appear to distinguish sharply between the person who will not work and the person who will not fight; both withhold an effort a situation demands, and both are named with the same word. That is a real finding about the moral vocabulary, not a translation artefact, since it recurs across multiple independent proverbs rather than resting on one ambiguous term.
Invulnerability in this corpus is rarely about strength alone. Read together, entries 12 through 26 offer at least four distinct mechanisms for being beyond harm: superior force (the lion over the leopard), a body built wrong for the threat (the snail's shell, the legless snake), an active weapon carried at all times (the scorpion's venom), and a standing taboo that removes a creature from a whole category of danger (the vulture no butcher will kill). The proverbs do not confuse these mechanisms with one another, and a reader assembling them into a single doctrine of "the strong are safe" would flatten a set of proverbs that is actually being quite precise about how differently safety can be secured.
A third pattern is worth naming because it complicates the file rather than confirming it: several of the closing entries, especially 39, 43, 45, and 46, actively resist turning this collection into unqualified praise of grit. Courage in these proverbs is exercised daily and can be lost through disuse; a single effort does not discharge a whole obligation; and even trying one's genuine best is explicitly distinguished from the heroic deed, which the tradition concedes plainly does not come easy. The proverbs praising fearlessness and the proverbs cautioning that fearlessness is hard, intermittent, and never fully secured sit side by side in Owomoyela's source without being reconciled, which is consistent with how this whole corpus treats proverbs generally: as tools selected for an occasion, not clauses in one settled account of what courage is.