Bí a ó ti tó kì í jẹ́ ká hùwà búburú; bí a ó ti mọ kì í jẹ́ ká hùwà rere.
Original
Bí a ó ti tó kì í jẹ́ ká hùwà búburú; bí a ó ti mọ kì í jẹ́ ká hùwà rere.
Literal gloss
- Bí a ó ti tó how-great we shall become kì í jẹ́ ká hùwà búburú does-not let us grow bad character; bí a ó ti mọ how-limited we shall be kì í jẹ́ ká hùwà rere does-not let us grow good character.
Idiomatic English
"The heights one will reach keep one from evil deeds; the ordained limit to one's greatness keeps one from doing good deeds."
No translator is named in the source.
What it means
A person's destined scope shapes the conduct they turn out to be capable of.
Used when
Owomoyela: "A person's achievements are enhanced or limited by the person's character"
Notes on the translation
Owomoyela's usage note runs the causation the opposite way from his own translation: the translation has destiny governing conduct, the note has character governing achievement. The proverb is genuinely reversible in Yorùbá because neither clause marks which term is prior, and this is one place where the collection's translation and its gloss are in visible tension. Confidence on the meaning: contested.