Thirty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on beauty and its uses, the danger it attracts, adornment, and the gap between how a person looks and what a person is, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Ẹwà is beauty, and the Yorùbá proverb corpus has a settled and slightly cold position on it: beauty is real, it is worth having, it is not evidence of anything else, and it attracts trouble in proportion to how much of it a person has. The best-known proverb on the subject, Ìwà lẹwà, character is beauty, is treated at entry 1 of owe-iwa-character and is not repeated here. What this file collects is the surrounding argument, which is less quoted and considerably less comfortable.
Thirty-eight proverbs are given here in four groups: beauty measured against usefulness, beauty as a magnet for danger, adornment and the work of looking good, and the general problem that appearance is not testimony. Several of these proverbs are about women specifically and are harsher about women than about men, which is a fact about the recorded corpus and is reported rather than balanced away.
The proverbs are given in Owomoyela's texts and translations . Owomoyela's parenthetical usage notes are the basis of the Used when lines; where the wording of a note is his, it is quoted. Anything marked as the compiler's is this corpus's own and carries lower confidence.
Owomoyela prints full standard orthography with tone marks and subdots, and his texts are reproduced here as printed . He attaches no informant to any proverb, holding that proverbs are communal property , so the texts are attested but not localised or dated.
Literal: Ẹṣín dára the-horse is-fine ó ku aré there-remains running; èèyán dára the-person is-fine ó ku ìwà there-remains character; ajá òyìnbó dára the-European dog is-fine ó ku àtidẹ there-remains hunting.
Idiomatic: "The horse looks great but lacks speed; the man is handsome but lacks character; the European dog is good-looking but cannot hunt."
Meaning: In each case the thing has the appearance proper to its kind and lacks the function.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Looks are nothing compared to substance or utility"
Notes: This proverb is also given at entry 12 of owe-iwa-character, where it is read for what it says about character. It is repeated here because its subject is equally the insufficiency of good looks, and the two files use it differently. Ajá òyìnbó, the European dog, dates the text to the colonial period or after, since imported breeds were kept as pets and were useless for hunting beside local dogs.
Literal: Ajá òyìnbó dára the-European dog is-fine, ó ku àti ṣọdẹ there-remains the-hunting.
Idiomatic: "The white man's dog is beautiful, but it lacks [the ability to hunt]."
Meaning: As entry 1, reduced to its single sharpest case.
Used when: The compiler's reading: said of an ornamental acquisition, or an ornamental person, brought in to do work it cannot do. Confidence on the usage: medium.
Notes: Owomoyela prints this short form at 3662 and the three-clause form at 3784, and the pair shows how a Yorùbá proverb circulates in both a full and a compressed recension. The short form is the more usable in speech because it needs no setup.
Literal: Ọmọ ẹní dára one's child is-beautiful, bí-i ká fi ṣaya kọ́ not that-we-should make-her a-wife.
Idiomatic: "One's child may be beautiful, but one cannot make her one's wife."
Meaning: Admiration does not create entitlement, and some things are barred absolutely.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Not all attractive propositions can be pursued"
Notes: Owomoyela prints a fuller variant at 1446: Bí ọmọ ẹní bá dára, ká sọ pé ó dára; bí-i ká fi ṣaya ẹni kọ́, "If one's daughter is beautiful, one may acknowledge that she is beautiful but may not marry her," glossed "However much one is attracted to a forbidden thing, one must avoid it" The longer form is the more interesting because it explicitly licenses the admiration before forbidding the act, which is the Yorùbá pattern seen also at entry 2 of owe-iwa-character.
Literal: Ẹni tó gbajúmọ̀ the-well-known-one tí kò mọ èèyàn-án kí who does-not know how-to-greet people, òun ò búrẹ́wà ẹgbẹ́ ara he and the-ugly-one are-of-one-company.
Idiomatic: "The dandy who does not know how to extend greetings to people is no different from a boor."
Meaning: Good looks without the manners that make them usable count for nothing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Good looks without the social graces amount to nothing"
Notes: Greeting is the central Yorùbá social obligation and is elaborately graded by relative age and status, so failing at it is not a minor lapse but a demonstration of incompetence in the one skill everyone is judged on. The proverb equalises the handsome boor and the ugly man by putting them in the same ẹgbẹ́, age-set or company, which is a precise social insult.
Literal: Adára má ṣu a-beautiful-one-who-does-not-defecate ò sí does-not exist.
Idiomatic: "There is no one so beautiful or handsome that she or he never has to empty her or his bowels."
Meaning: No degree of beauty exempts a body from being a body.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Even the most illustrious person is still human"
Notes: The compressed nominal adára-má-ṣu names a category and then denies that it has any members, which is a compact Yorùbá way of refuting an idea. The proverb is coarse deliberately: it selects the least dignified bodily fact available in order to make the deflation complete.
Literal: Kò tó iṣẹ́ ikú it-is-not beyond death's work; arẹwà ló ń pa it-is the-beautiful it kills.
Idiomatic: "One cannot put it [anything] past death; it kills beautiful people."
Meaning: Death is not deterred by beauty and takes the beautiful as readily as anyone.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Even beautiful people are not beyond the notice of death" Said at the death of a young or admired person.
Notes: Arẹwà is the beautiful person, formed on ẹwà with the agent prefix. The proverb is consolatory in the specific Yorùbá manner of refusing to make an exception: the loss is not an outrage against a rule, because there was no rule. Compare entry 14, which claims the opposite, that beauty is precisely what death comes for.
Literal: Ẹni tó bí arẹwà whoever gives-birth-to a-beautiful-one á bí ìyọnu has-given-birth-to trouble.
Idiomatic: "Whoever gives birth to a beautiful girl gives birth to trouble."
Meaning: A beautiful daughter is a source of difficulty for the household that raises her.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A beautiful girl will eventually cause her parents a great deal of unease or disturbance"
Notes: Ìyọnu, trouble or vexation, is placed in direct grammatical parallel with the child, so the sentence says the parent bore two things. Owomoyela notes this is a variant of entry 8 . The proverb locates the difficulty in the daughter rather than in the men it goes on to describe, which is worth stating plainly rather than smoothing.
Literal: Ẹni tó fẹ́ arẹwà whoever marries a-beautiful-one á fẹ́ ìyọnu has-married trouble; gbogbo ayé the-whole world ní ḿbá wọn tan claims-kinship with-them.
Idiomatic: "Whoever marries a beautiful woman marries trouble; the whole wide world [of men] claims kinship with him."
Meaning: Men who want access to her will discover relationships with her husband.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever marries a beautiful woman will have the whole world of scheming men to fend off"
Notes: Bá ... tan, to be related to, is the verb of actual kinship, and the joke is that kinship is being manufactured as a pretext for entry to the household. Yorùbá kinship claims carry real obligations of hospitality, which is what makes the tactic effective and the proverb funny.
Literal: Ikú ẹwà the-death of-beauty ní ń pọ̀kín is-what kills the-egret; ikú ara-ríré the-death of-showing-oneself ní ń pa odídẹ is-what kills the-parrot.
Idiomatic: "It is the death of beauty that kills the egret; it is the death of swaggering that kills the parrot."
Meaning: Each bird is killed for exactly the quality it is admired for.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Calling attention to one's enviable assets invites trouble and ultimately disaster"
Notes: Both birds are hunted for their feathers, the egret for white plumes and the parrot for red tail feathers used in ritual and regalia, so the proverb is literal before it is figurative. Ikú ẹwà, the death of beauty, means the death that beauty brings, a genitive Yorùbá uses freely and English has to unpack.
Literal: Ikú ogun the-death of-war ní ń pa akíkanjú kills the-brave; ikú odò the-death of-the-river ní ń pa òmùwẹ̀ kills the-swimmer; ikú ara-ríré the-death of-display ní ń pa arẹwà kills the-beautiful.
Idiomatic: "It is death related to warfare that kills the warrior; it is the death associated with the river that kills the swimmer; it is the death of swaggering that kills the beautiful person."
Meaning: Each person is destroyed by the element they are distinguished in.
Used when: The compiler's reading, since Owomoyela's note is truncated in the source consulted: cited when someone's downfall arrives through their own speciality. Confidence on the usage: medium.
Notes: The proverb generalises entry 9 from birds to people and adds the warrior and the swimmer, which is why it appears again in the war files. Owomoyela's fuller text continues with further clauses naming the shy person and a trader; the three clauses quoted here are the ones that circulate together.
Literal: Ọ̀pẹ̀ òyìnbó the-pineapple fi dídùn ṣẹwà makes sweetness its-beauty, ó fẹ̀gún bora it covers-itself with-thorns, oró inú ẹ̀ egbèje the-venoms inside-it number one-thousand-four-hundred.
Idiomatic: "The pineapple derives its beauty from sweetness; the wickednesses [dangerous spines on the leaves] it harbors number 1,400."
Meaning: The attractive thing is armed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "What is beautiful may be deadly also"
Notes: Egbèje, 1,400, is a conventional large round number in Yorùbá rather than a count, as at entry 35 of owe-stomach-appetite-inner-person. Owomoyela's bracketed explanation of oró as the spines is his; the word means venom or sting, and leaving it unglossed keeps the proverb applicable to people.
Literal: Ọjọ́ tí ata bá bọ́ sójú the-day pepper falls into-the-eye ni ḿba ẹwà ojú jẹ́ is-when it-spoils the-beauty of-the-eye; ọjọ́ tí iná bá fojú ba ẹ̀tù the-day fire sets-eyes-on gunpowder ni ẹ̀tù ń gbà is-when the-gunpowder submits.
Idiomatic: "The day pepper enters the eye is the day it ruins the beauty of the eye; the day fire catches a glimpse of gunpowder is the day the gunpowder does its bidding."
Meaning: Certain encounters have no interval between contact and consequence.
Used when: Owomoyela's note begins "'No' is not an option ..." and is truncated in the source consulted . In use the proverb says a thing will happen the moment the conditions meet.
Notes: The two clauses are chosen for immediacy rather than for similarity of subject, and fojú ba, to set eyes on, gives the fire an eye, which links the proverb to the seeing file. The reference to ẹ̀tù, gunpowder, dates the text to after firearms reached Yorùbá country.
Literal: "Mo dára, mo dára" "I am-beautiful, I am-beautiful," àìdára not-being-beautiful ni ń pẹ̀kun ẹ̀ is-what ends it.
Idiomatic: "'I am beautiful, I am beautiful' has ugliness as its conclusion."
Meaning: Announcing your own beauty is the process by which it stops counting.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever is infatuated with his or her attractiveness will end up being despised by all"
Notes: Àìdára is the negative nominal formed with àì- on dára, the productive pattern noted at entry 42 of yoruba-owe-proverbs. The proverb is about the social career of a boast rather than about physical change: what ends is not the beauty but its reception.
Literal: À ń ṣa kẹ́kẹ́ we cut kẹ́kẹ́ marks, a á jò ẹwà ni it-is beauty we-seek; à ḿbà àbàjà we make àbàjà marks, a á jò ẹwà ni it-is beauty we-seek.
Idiomatic: "Marking one's face with kẹ́kẹ́ is a quest for beauty; marking one's face with àbàjà is a quest for beauty."
Meaning: The pain of the operation is undertaken for a good end.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The pains one takes to adorn oneself are for a good end"
Notes: Kẹ́kẹ́ and àbàjà are named patterns of Yorùbá facial scarification, cut in childhood and identifying lineage and town as well as beautifying. The proverb treats them as beautification, which is one of their functions and not the only one, and it is used to justify any process whose immediate cost is obvious and whose benefit is later.
Literal: Ọ̀ṣọ́ ọlọ́ṣọ̀ọ́ another-person's finery ò yẹ ni does-not suit one; ṣòkòtò àgbàbọ̀ borrowed trousers ò yẹ ọmọ èèyàn do-not suit a-person.
Idiomatic: "One never looks good in other people's finery; borrowed trousers do not fit the borrower."
Meaning: What was made for someone else will not sit right on you.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not be a habitual borrower"
Notes: Yorùbá dress is cut generously and would often physically fit a borrower, so the misfit the proverb asserts is social rather than dimensional: it will be recognised as someone else's. This belongs with the clothing file and is placed here for its argument about appearance as property.
Literal: Ẹni tó máa yán ni lẹ́wù one-who-would lend one a-gown, ti ọrùn-un rẹ̀ là ń wò it-is what-is-on his-neck we look-at.
Idiomatic: "If a person offers to lend one a dress, consider what he or she has on."
Meaning: Judge an offer by the condition of the person making it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be discriminating about those from whom to accept favors"
Notes: The test is exact and immediate: whatever he is wearing while offering you a gown is his own standard. The proverb generalises to any offer of help, and it is the practical companion to entry 15.
Literal: Aṣọ à-fọ̀-fún clothes washed-white ò jẹ́ ká mọ olówó do-not let us know the-rich.
Idiomatic: "Clothes washed clean make identifying the rich person impossible."
Meaning: Cleanliness is available to everyone, so it tells you nothing about means.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A poor person who looks to his or her appearance appears rich"
Notes: The proverb is not cynical about the poor man; it observes that a signal anyone can produce carries no information. It is the sharpest statement in the file of the general position that appearance is not evidence, and it belongs beside entry 26.
Literal: Aláṣọ àlà one-in-white-cloth kì í jókòó sí sọ̀ elépo does-not sit at the-stall of-the-palm-oil-seller.
Idiomatic: "A person dressed in white does not sit at the stall of a palm-oil seller."
Meaning: Do not put what you are protecting next to what will ruin it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not expose oneself to abuse or danger"
Notes: Palm oil is deep red and stains permanently, so the advice is literal market sense before it is a figure. Àlà, white cloth, also carries ritual associations, particularly with Ọbàtálá, whose devotees wear white, which gives the proverb a second register it does not need to state.
Literal: Amùrín ò sunwọ̀n the-lizard is-not good-looking, ó yí sáró it rolled into indigo-dye.
Idiomatic: "The lizard is not good-looking to start with, and it slips into indigo dye."
Meaning: Someone already disadvantaged has added an avoidable disfigurement.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person who has enough flaws should not seek ways to add to them"
Notes: Indigo stains heavily and does not wash out, so the lizard's accident is permanent. The humour is in the sheer bad luck of it, and the proverb is used with more sympathy than the gloss suggests, often of someone whose troubles have compounded through no great fault.
Literal: Ọ̀ṣọ́ oníbùjé the-adornment of-the-bùjé-user ò pé isán does-not reach nine-days; ọ̀ṣọ́ onínàbì the-adornment of-the-prostitute ò ju ọdún lọ does-not exceed a-year.
Idiomatic: "The beauty bestowed by tattooing with the juice of the bùjé plant does not last nine days; a prostitute's beauty does not last more than a year."
Meaning: Both kinds of beauty are on a short clock.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Fast living plays havoc with people's looks"
Notes: Bùjé is a plant whose juice makes a temporary dark body decoration, and the proverb's method is to set a known duration beside a claimed one. The second clause is a judgement on a class of women that the corpus does not make about men in any comparable proverb, and the asymmetry is noted here rather than smoothed.
Literal: Ọ̀ṣọ́ ilé adornment at-home ò jọ obìnrin lójú does-not please a-woman in-the-eye.
Idiomatic: "Preening that is confined to the home does not appeal to a woman."
Meaning: Adornment is for being seen, so it requires an audience outside the house.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Women always wish to go outside the home in order to advertise their beauty"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss generalises about women in a way the Yorùbá sentence supports but does not require: the proverb observes that decoration implies a public, which is true of anyone. The observation is sound and its attribution to women specifically is the collection's, not the grammar's. Confidence on the gloss: medium.
Literal: Kíni fìlà yó ṣe lórí ògógó what would a-cap do on-the-head-of an-ògógó-mushroom? Ata ni yó ṣì pepper is-what will-remove-it.
Idiomatic: "What would a cap be doing atop the ògógó mushroom? Pepper will remove it."
Meaning: An ornament on a thing about to be consumed is pointless.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Superfluous adornments make no sense when one goes to battle or engages in strenuous work"
Notes: The mushroom is destined for the cooking pot, where pepper will meet it, so its cap is comic in the way a hat on a chicken is comic. Owomoyela's application to battle and hard work is the standard use, which makes this the file's link to the war and craft files: decoration is for occasions that are not about to become violent.
Literal: Bèbè ìdí the-waist beads ni yó lo kíjìpá gbó are-what will wear the-thick-cloth out.
Idiomatic: "The large beads adorning the waist will wear out the durable home-woven cloth in the end."
Meaning: The ornament abrades the thing it is worn with, and eventually destroys it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One always pays somehow for one's pleasures and vanities"
Notes: Kíjìpá is a heavy hand-woven cloth, the durable everyday textile, so the proverb pits the decorative against the practical and gives the win to neither: the beads survive, the cloth does not, and the wearer has lost the useful item. The mechanism is friction, and the proverb is patient about the timescale.
Literal: Àkókó kun osùn the-woodpecker applies camwood ó kun orí it-applies-it-to the-head; arèré kun osùn the-arèré applies camwood ó kun àyà to-the-breast; olóbùró kun osùn olóbùró applies camwood ó kun ọ̀fun to-the-throat.
Idiomatic: "The woodpecker takes camwood and stains its head; the custard-apple tree takes camwood and stains its breast; olóbùró takes camwood and stains its throat."
Meaning: Given the same material, each creature decorates a different part.
Used when: Owomoyela's note begins "Each has a different ..." and is truncated in the source consulted . In use the proverb asserts that people apply a common resource according to their own nature.
Notes: Osùn is camwood, ground to a red cosmetic paste used on the body in Yorùbá practice, particularly on infants and in ritual. The proverb explains the red markings of three creatures as three decisions, which is a characteristic Yorùbá way of reading natural markings as choices, and it argues for variation without ranking the options.
Literal: Ọ̀kín the-egret ọba ẹyẹ king of-birds; ọ̀kín the-egret ẹlẹ́wà àlà owner-of-the-beauty-of-whiteness.
Idiomatic: "Egret, king of birds; egret whose beauty is in whiteness."
Meaning: The bird's rank and its beauty are the same fact, and the fact is its colour.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Praise for people of exemplary qualities"
Notes: The lines are in oríkì form, the praise-poetry register discussed at entry 45 of owe-iwa-character, and function as citation rather than argument. Set against entry 9, where the egret's whiteness is precisely what gets it killed, the pair shows the corpus praising and warning about the same quality in the same bird.
Literal: Bọ̀rọ̀kìnní ìletò the-dandy of-a-small-settlement ni akéde ìlú ńlá is a-town-crier in-a-big-town.
Idiomatic: "The celebrated dandy in the village is a street crier in a large town."
Meaning: Standing is relative to the size of the place that grants it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "When people are few, anybody may be important"
Notes: The town crier is a real office and a modest one, so the proverb does not say the dandy becomes nothing, it says he becomes ordinary. Owomoyela cross-references 4184 . This is the same deflation performed geographically at entry 27.
Literal: Bí o bá fẹ́ bọ̀rọ̀kìnní-í tẹ́ if you wish the-dandy to-be-disgraced, jí re lé-e rẹ̀ láfẹ̀ẹ̀mọ́júmọ́ go to his house at-first-light; wo ẹní tó tẹ́ sùn look-at the-mat he-spread to-sleep; wo aṣọ tó fi ḿbora look-at the-cloth he covers-himself-with.
Idiomatic: "If you wish to deflate a dandy, go to his home in the early dawn; look at the mat he sleeps on, and look at the sheet he covers himself with."
Meaning: The public figure is contradicted by his private bedding.
Used when: Owomoyela's note begins "The dandy abroad is ..." and is truncated in the source consulted . In use it recommends checking a display against the circumstances that produced it.
Notes: The proverb gives a procedure with a time of day attached, which is unusually operational, and dawn is chosen because it is before the display is assembled. It belongs with entry 17: cleanliness and finery are both available to people who cannot actually afford them.
Literal: Ẹni tí à ń wò láwò-sunkún the-one we look-at with-a-weeping-look ń wo ara-a rẹ̀ láwò-rẹ́rìnín looks-at himself with-a-laughing-look.
Idiomatic: "A person whose appearance moves one to tears is moved to laughter by his own appearance."
Meaning: How wretched a person looks to others is not how they seem to themselves.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The miserable person has no notion of his own miserableness"
Notes: The two compound nominals àwò-sunkún and àwò-rẹ́rìnín, the weeping-look and the laughing-look, are built on the same frame and differ only in the verb, so the Yorùbá states the asymmetry as a minimal pair. This is the same epistemic point made about character at entry 18 of owe-iwa-character: self-assessment is not available from inside.
Literal: Bí ẹlẹ́rẹ̀kẹ́ régéregé when the-one-with-smooth-cheeks bá ro ẹjọ́-ọ tirẹ̀ tán has-finished stating his case, kó rántí pé let-him remember that ẹlẹ́rẹ̀kẹ́ mẹ́ kí á rí rò the-one-with-marked-cheeks has-a-case-to-state.
Idiomatic: "After the person with smooth cheeks has stated his or her case, he or she should remember that the person with blemished cheeks will have something to say."
Meaning: The good-looking party has spoken first, and the other party still has the floor.
Used when: Owomoyela's note begins "The person who looks good owing to ..." and is truncated in the source consulted . In use it is a warning against assuming a hearing is over.
Notes: The proverb is procedural and belongs with the hearing rule at entries 3 to 5 of owe-ears-hearing-mouth: attractiveness is being treated as an advantage in advocacy that does not settle the matter. Ẹlẹ́rẹ̀kẹ́ means simply the owner of cheeks, and the contrast is carried by régéregé, smooth, against the marked cheeks of the second party.
Literal: Ẹni tó bá fi ojù aná wò kú whoever looks-at the-dead with-yesterday's eyes, ẹbọra a bọ́ ọ láṣọ the-spirits will strip him of-clothing.
Idiomatic: "Whoever looks at the dead with yesterday's eyes will be stripped naked by the spirits."
Meaning: Regarding someone by what they used to be brings retribution from what they have become.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One behaves toward people according to the heights they have attained, not according to the way they used to be"
Notes: The dead here are the ancestral dead, who have been transformed by death into powers, so treating them by their former standing is a category error with consequences. Being stripped of cloth is the standard Yorùbá image of total disgrace, which links this proverb to the clothing file and to entry 32 of owe-head-face-ori.
Literal: Àgùntàn ń wò sùn-ùn the-sheep stares blankly; ọgbọ́n inú pé egbèje the-wisdom inside amounts-to one-thousand-four-hundred.
Idiomatic: "The sheep stares blankly, but its cunning stratagems number 1,400."
Meaning: A vacant exterior says nothing about the interior.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Looks are deceptive"
Notes: This proverb also appears at entry 35 of owe-stomach-appetite-inner-person, read there for what it says about inú. It is given here because Owomoyela's own gloss, "looks are deceptive," makes it a proverb about appearance, and the two files need it for different arguments.
Literal: Dídán shining lẹyẹlé ń dán kú is-what the-pigeon shines until-death.
Idiomatic: "A perpetually shining appearance is what characterizes the pigeon even until death."
Meaning: Some appearances hold good to the end.
Used when: Owomoyela records two readings: "Either an observation that a person's reputation cannot be tarnished or a wish that it never become tarnished"
Notes: This proverb also appears at entry 46 of owe-iwa-character. Owomoyela's double gloss is preserved rather than resolved, since the proverb can be compliment or blessing depending on delivery, and a collection that picks one destroys half its utility.
Literal: Èèyàn ìbáà kúrú a-person though short, ìbáà búrẹ́wà though ugly, gbèsè ò sí debt not-existing, ìtìjú ò sí disgrace does-not exist.
Idiomatic: "Whether a person be short or ugly, if there is no debt, there can be no disgrace."
Meaning: Physical shortcomings are not shameful; owing money is.
Used when: Owomoyela: "As long as one is debt-free, other details of one's personal circumstances are of little consequence"
Notes: This is the most generous proverb in the file and the clearest about where the corpus actually locates disgrace. Ìtìjú is shame, the faculty discussed at entry 40 of owe-iwa-character, and the proverb denies that appearance can trigger it. It belongs equally with the trade and debt file.
Literal: Ojú kì í rí arẹwà the-eyes do-not see a-beautiful-person kó má kì í without greeting them.
Idiomatic: "The eyes never see a beautiful person without acknowledging him or her."
Meaning: Beauty compels recognition, and withholding it is not possible.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Things that deserve one's attention should receive it"
Notes: Kí is to greet, the same obligation whose neglect condemns the dandy at entry 4, so the proverb makes acknowledgement of beauty an instance of the general Yorùbá duty to greet. It states the compulsion as a fact about eyes rather than as a rule for people, which is the corpus's usual method for claims it regards as beyond dispute.
Literal: A ní kí ohun tó wu ni wá we asked that what-pleases us come, ohun tó dára-á bọ́ sílẹ̀ what-is-beautiful presented-itself; bó dára tí kò wu ni ń kọ́ what-if it-is-beautiful but does-not-please us?
Idiomatic: "We call for something to which we are attracted, and something beautiful presents itself; what if we are not attracted to it despite its beauty?"
Meaning: Being beautiful and being wanted are two different properties and do not always arrive together.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder"
Notes: The proverb turns on the distinction between dára, to be good or beautiful, an objective predicate, and wù, to please someone, which takes an experiencer. Yorùbá marks the difference grammatically and the proverb exploits it, which is why the English needs two clauses to say what the Yorùbá says with two verbs.
Literal: Ọmọ tí ò lẹ́wà a-girl who has-no beauty, ọ̀dẹ̀dẹ̀ ìyá ẹ̀ her mother's porch ni ń pẹ́ sí is-where she stays-long.
Idiomatic: "A woman without beauty lasts long on her mother's porch."
Meaning: She is not married quickly and remains in her mother's house.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Plain women are not soon married"
Notes: The proverb is a flat statement of a marriage market and makes no attempt to soften it. It has the same structure as entry 51 of owe-iwa-character, where the woman without character is left with her mother as co-wife, and the two together show the corpus assigning a woman's marital outcome to her looks in one proverb and her character in the other. Neither has a male counterpart in the collection.
Literal: Orí tó máa dádé the-head that will wear-a-crown, nínú agoro odẹ from-inside the-hunter's quiver ni ń ti í yọ ọ́ wá is-where it is-brought-out-from.
Idiomatic: "The head that will wear a crown is so destined from before birth."
Meaning: The standing a person will hold is settled in advance, not achieved by presentation.
Used when: The compiler's reading: cited against the assumption that display produces rank. Confidence on the usage: medium.
Notes: Owomoyela's full text at 3583 continues with parallel clauses on the neck that will wear the èjìgbà ìlẹ̀kẹ̀ beads and the waist that will wear fine cloth, each traced to the same origin . Only the first clause is given here because the file's interest is in its claim about adornment: the regalia follow the destiny rather than creating it. Compare entry 29 of owe-head-face-ori, where caps are a ladder of ambition.
Literal: Orí Olúkànḿbí kì í gẹṣin Olúkànḿbí's destiny does-not ride a-horse; ìpín àjàpá kì í ṣọ̀ṣọ́ the-tortoise's portion is-never splendour; a sòlẹ̀kẹ̀ má hun lọ́rùn though-one strings beads on-its-neck, ahun-ún wọ gbó the-tortoise enters the-bush.
Idiomatic: "Olúkànḿbí's destiny does not include riding a horse; the tortoise's fate is never to know splendor; people adorn the tortoise's neck with beads, and it heads for the bush."
Meaning: Ornament placed on a creature whose lot excludes splendour is carried straight back into the bush.
Used when: The compiler's reading, since Owomoyela's note is truncated in the source consulted: said when finery is wasted on someone whose circumstances or temperament will not sustain it. Confidence on the usage: medium.
Notes: Ìpín is the portion allotted, the same concept as orí in its destiny sense, so the proverb attributes the failure to fate rather than to taste. The tortoise is the trickster of Yorùbá tale, noted at entry 19 of owe-head-face-ori, and the image of it walking into the undergrowth wearing beads is the file's last and driest word on adornment.
Three things stand out across these thirty-eight proverbs.
Beauty is granted and then immediately qualified. Entry 34 says the eye cannot see a beautiful person without greeting them, and entry 25 gives the egret a king's praise for its whiteness. Neither is grudging. But entries 1 to 6 all measure beauty against a function it fails to perform, and entries 7 to 12 treat it as an attractant for danger, up to and including the hunter who wants the egret's plumes. The corpus does not deny that beauty is good; it denies that being good is the same as being safe or being sufficient.
The proverbs about appearance are mostly proverbs about evidence. Entry 17 points out that a signal anyone can produce carries no information, entry 27 supplies a procedure for auditing a display, entry 28 shows self-assessment failing, and entry 31 warns against reading an interior from an exterior. Read together these amount to a consistent scepticism about inference from surfaces, and it is the same scepticism the corpus applies to speech in owe-speech-silence-tongue and to standing in owe-head-face-ori.
The gendered proverbs run in one direction. Entries 7, 8, 20, 21 and 36 are about women, and each treats a woman's appearance as a problem to be managed by someone else: her parents, her husband, the men around her, or the marriage market. There is no proverb in this set in which a handsome man is trouble for his household. Whether that reflects Yorùbá thought generally or the collecting practice of the mostly male scholars who assembled these collections is a question this file cannot settle, and the same caution is entered at entry 51 of owe-iwa-character.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Forty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the head as body part and as destiny, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sixty Yorùbá proverbs on cloth as the marker of standing, on clothing worn, patched and outgrown, and on nakedness as the condition beneath every covering, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Forty-nine Yorùbá proverbs on the hand and the foot, the body's two instruments of labor, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Thirty Yorùbá proverbs on the eye as the organ of witness and judgment, and on blindness as both a literal condition and a figure for folly, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Thirty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the ear as the organ of instruction and intelligence, deafness as a figure for obstinacy, and the mouth as the organ that eats, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.