Ẹni tí ìbá hùwà ipá ò hùwà ipá; ẹni tí ìbá hùwà ẹ̀lẹ̀ ò hu ẹ̀lẹ̀; ọ̀kùn tó nígba ọwọ́, tó nígba ẹsẹ̀ ńhùwà pẹ̀lẹ́.
Original
Ẹni tí ìbá hùwà ipá ò hùwà ipá; ẹni tí ìbá hùwà ẹ̀lẹ̀ ò hu ẹ̀lẹ̀; ọ̀kùn tó nígba ọwọ́, tó nígba ẹsẹ̀ ńhùwà pẹ̀lẹ́.
Literal gloss
- Ẹni tí ìbá hùwà ipá one-who would grow character-of-force ò hùwà ipá does-not; ẹni tí ìbá hùwà ẹ̀lẹ̀ one-who would grow character-of-gentleness ò hu ẹ̀lẹ̀ does-not; ọ̀kùn tó nígba ọwọ́ the-millipede that has two-hundred arms, tó nígba ẹsẹ̀ that has two-hundred legs ńhùwà pẹ̀lẹ́ grows gentle character.
Idiomatic English
"The person one would expect to be reckless is not reckless; the person one would expect to be cautious is not cautious; the millipede with two hundred arms and two hundred legs behaves very gently."
No translator is named in the source.
What it means
Character does not follow from capacity. The creature best equipped for force is the mildest.
Used when
Owomoyela's note is truncated in the source used here, beginning "Even though one..." In use the proverb praises restraint in someone who could have acted otherwise.
Notes on the translation
Ìgba, two hundred, is a round large number in Yorùbá counting rather than a census of the millipede's legs. The choice of the millipede is exact: an animal with more limbs than anything else and no aggression whatever, which is the argument in a single image.