Òwe on Oorun and Àlá: Sleep, Dreams and Rest
Thirty-six Yorùbá proverbs on sleep, waking, dreaming and bodily rest, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Oorun is sleep, sùn is the verb to sleep, jí is to wake, and àlá is a dream. The Yorùbá proverb record treats sleep less as rest than as a set of conditions: it is what has to wait until the day's danger is dealt with, it is the state in which a person stops being a competent witness, it is the thing shared sleepers transmit to one another, and it is the standing measure against which death is compared and found preferable. Dreaming is barely present at all, and where it appears the point is always that a dream stays inside the dreamer.
Thirty-six proverbs are given here in four groups: sleep as something the day has to earn, sleep as a lapse in vigilance, what a sleeper can and cannot be held to, and the mat, the bed and the night as places rather than states. The dream material is thin and that thinness is reported rather than padded past.
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.
A note on sources
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. The working text used here is a plain-text extraction of the book in which the printed diacritics survive intact but word spacing inside each Yorùbá line does not, so every Yorùbá line below has been respaced by the compiler using ordinary Yorùbá grammar and vocabulary. No diacritic has been added, removed or altered. Where an extracted usage note breaks off mid-sentence, that is stated at the entry and the usage line is marked as the compiler's.
Sleep as something the day has to earn
1. A kì í fi ejò sórí òrùlé sùn.
Literal: A kì í fi ejò one does-not with a-snake sórí òrùlé on-top-of the-roof sùn sleep.
Idiomatic: "One does not go to bed while a snake is on the roof."
Meaning: Rest is not to be taken while a known danger is still overhead.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never let down your guard while danger still lurks," with a cross-reference to entry 2 .
Notes: The roof is the one part of a Yorùbá compound directly above a sleeper, so a snake there is already inside the perimeter of safety rather than merely nearby, and the proverb is exact about where a danger has to be before it is worth losing sleep over. Compare entry 16, where sleeping in one's own house is precisely what keeps a person out of harm.
2. A kì í fi iná sórí òrùlé sùn.
Literal: A kì í fi iná one does-not with fire sórí òrùlé on-top-of the-roof sùn sleep.
Idiomatic: "One does not go to bed while there is a fire on one's roof."
Meaning: An unresolved hazard forecloses rest until it is dealt with.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Better take care of problems before relaxing," with a cross-reference back to entry 1 .
Notes: Owomoyela prints the two as a matched pair with fire substituted for snake, and a thatched-roof fire is the more urgent of the two because it takes the whole house at once rather than one sleeper, so the pair runs from the slower danger to the faster. The substitution frame, one proverb with an interchangeable middle term, is the same device seen at entries 1 and 2 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance.
3. Kí a re odò ká sùn; kí ni ará ilé yó mu?
Literal: Kí a re odò that we go-to the-river ká sùn and sleep; kí ni ará ilé yó mu what is-it the-household will drink?
Idiomatic: "If we go to the river and sleep there, what will the people left at home drink?"
Meaning: Whoever fetches what others depend on does not get to rest at the source and leave the errand undone.
Used when: Owomoyela: "We must not fail those who depend on us"
Notes: Falling asleep at the river rather than carrying the water back is an errand abandoned at the exact point of completion, and the proverb's force comes from naming the people left waiting rather than criticising the sleeper. Water-carrying was the daily work of women and children, so the proverb has a specific household in mind.
4. Nítorí-i ká lè simi la ṣe ń ṣe àì-simi.
Literal: Nítorí-i ká lè simi because-that we-may be-able-to rest la ṣe ń ṣe àì-simi is-why we do not-resting.
Idiomatic: "It is to be able to rest that one forgoes rest."
Meaning: Present labour is undertaken for the sake of a later rest that it makes possible.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One labors in the present to provide for one's future"
Notes: Àì-simi is formed with the negative prefix àì- on simi, to rest, naming the forgone rest as a single noun rather than describing it, which is the productive clause-to-noun pattern noted at entry 42 of yoruba-owe-proverbs. The proverb treats rest as a resource spent now to be earned later, which is a different account from the one at entry 5, where rest is what a person is owed at the end of a road.
5. Akẹ̀sán ló pin Ọ̀yọ́; ilé ọkọ ni ibùsinmi obìnrin.
Literal: Akẹ̀sán ló pin Ọ̀yọ́ Akẹ̀sán is-what bounds Ọ̀yọ́; ilé ọkọ the-husband's house ni ibùsinmi obìnrin is the-resting-place of-a-woman.
Idiomatic: "Akẹ̀sán is Ọ̀yọ́'s city limit; a spouse's home is a woman's place of rest."
Meaning: As a named landmark marks where a town ends, marriage marks where a woman's journey is held to end.
Used when: Owomoyela's note reads that just as Akẹsan is Ọ̀yọ́'s city limit, so a spouse's home is a woman's final destination .
Notes: Akẹ̀sán is a real market and boundary point of old Ọ̀yọ́, so the first clause is local geography before it is a figure, and the proverb's method is to borrow the certainty of a place name for a social claim. Ibùsinmi, resting place, is built on simi as at entry 4, and the argument is about a woman's destination rather than her comfort. This is evidence of a particular social arrangement rather than a neutral observation, and it has no male counterpart in the collection.
6. Àtètè sùn làtètè jí; ẹní tètè kú ló mú lẹ̀ lọ́run.
Literal: Àtètè sùn going-to-sleep-early làtètè jí is rising-early; ẹní tètè kú whoever dies first ló mú lẹ̀ lọ́run is-who took the-ground in-heaven.
Idiomatic: "Going-to-sleep-early is rising early; the first to die is the homesteader in heaven."
Meaning: Whoever gets there first has the pick of what is there.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The first arrival has the richest choice"
Notes: The second clause applies the sleeping logic to dying, and mú lẹ̀, to take ground, is the language of claiming land in a new settlement, so the first person into the afterlife is treated as a pioneer staking a plot. This is one of the very few places in the collection where dying early is given an advantage, and the joke depends on the reader hearing the ordinary early-to-bed advice first. Compare owe-death-ancestors-beyond.
7. Bí a bá yó tán orun ní ń kun ni.
Literal: Bí a bá yó tán when we have-become-full, orun ní ń kun ni sleep is-what fills one.
Idiomatic: "When one is satiated, sleep claims one." Translator: Owomoyela, rendering the second half of a two-clause proverb .
Meaning: Sleep follows a full stomach as a matter of course.
Used when: Owomoyela: "When a matter has been taken care of, one turns one's attention in the appropriate direction"
Notes: Owomoyela prints this clause twice as the second half of two proverbs whose first halves differ, at 825 Bí a bá jẹ̀wọ́ tán ẹ̀rín làá ń rín, after a joke one laughs, and at 833 Bí a bá sọ̀rọ̀ tán, ẹrín làá ń rín, when one has finished discussing a matter one laughs . The verb kun, to fill, is the same one used of a house filling with smoke, so sleep is described as flooding a person rather than arriving. Compare entry 24 of owe-eyes-seeing-blindness, where a burning house is said not to fill the eyes with sleep.
8. Àjí mú kì í tì.
Literal: Àjí mú what-one-wakes-and-takes-hold-of kì í tì does-not fail.
Idiomatic: "The task one takes on upon waking in the morning does not flounder."
Meaning: What a person turns to first on waking is what they are serious about, and seriousness is what makes it succeed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The task to which one gives the highest priority does not suffer"
Notes: Àjí mú is a compressed nominal built on jí, wake, plus mú, take hold of, naming the whole first act of a day in two syllables, and Owomoyela's English needs eleven words for it. The proverb makes the order of a morning into evidence about a person's real priorities, which is the same inferential move as at entry 26, where what a person does in trivial circumstances predicts what they will do in serious ones.
9. Bí ojú bá mọ́, olówò a gbówò; ọ̀ràn wú a gbé kẹ́kẹ́; ajagun a gbé apata; àgbẹ̀ a jí tòun tọ̀rúkọ́.
Literal: Bí ojú bá mọ́ when the-eye brightens [day breaks], olówò a gbówò the-trader takes-up his-trade; ọ̀ràn wú a gbé kẹ́kẹ́ the-cotton-spinner takes-up the-spindle; ajagun a gbé apata the-warrior takes-up the-shield; àgbẹ̀ a jí tòun tọ̀rúkọ́ the-farmer wakes together-with his-hoe.
Idiomatic: "When day breaks, the trader takes up his trade; the cotton spinner picks up the spindle; the warrior grabs his shield; the farmer gets up with his hoe."
Meaning: Waking is not a state but the start of a specific job, and each person's is named by their tool.
Used when: Owomoyela: "When morning comes, everybody should embark on something useful"
Notes: Owomoyela's full text continues with the hunter's son rising with his quiver and bow, and with ajíwẹṣẹ, he-who-wakes-and-washes-with-soap, making his way to the river . Bí ojú bá mọ́, literally when the eye brightens, is the ordinary Yorùbá phrase for daybreak, so the day begins with an opening eye and the whole proverb is the list of what that eye then sees. The catalogue form, one clause per trade, is the same as at entry 9 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance.
Sleep as a lapse in vigilance
10. Bí ẹja bá sùn, ẹja á fi ẹja jẹ.
Literal: Bí ẹja bá sùn if fish sleep, ẹja á fi ẹja jẹ fish will use fish to-eat.
Idiomatic: "If fish sleep, fish will devour fish."
Meaning: In a company where everyone is a predator, the one who stops watching becomes the meal.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one does not wish to be taken advantage of, one must be ever watchful"
Notes: The proverb uses one noun three times and lets the syntax do all the work, so the Yorùbá reads almost as a formula and gives no party a name. That anonymity is the point: it does not identify a predator and a victim, it says the roles are assigned by who sleeps.
11. Ẹni tí Orò-ó máa mú ḿ ba wọn ṣe àìsùn Orò.
Literal: Ẹni tí Orò-ó máa mú the-one whom Orò will take ḿ ba wọn ṣe àìsùn Orò is-joining them in the-sleeplessness of-Orò.
Idiomatic: "The person who will be the sacrificial victim of Orò is joining in the revelry on the eve of the sacrifice."
Meaning: The person destined for an outcome takes an unwitting part in bringing it about.
Used when: Owomoyela's note reads that the intended victim innocently helps in making preparations for his or her own demise, and that if there is the slightest possibility of peril one should not act carelessly .
Notes: Orò is a male cult whose observances include a night without sleep, so àìsùn, the not-sleeping, is a named ritual occasion here rather than a figure of speech, and the same negative nominal appears at entry 4 in the ordinary sense of forgone rest. The chill of the proverb is that the victim is awake, present and willing throughout the preparation. Compare entry 22 of owe-age-youth-passage-of-life on who may invoke Orò, and owe-taboo-pollution-forbidden.
12. Ẹni tó ránṣẹ́ sí Orò-ó bẹ̀wẹ̀ fún àìsùn.
Literal: Ẹni tó ránṣẹ́ sí Orò whoever sends a-message to Orò ó bẹ̀wẹ̀ fún àìsùn has-contracted for sleeplessness.
Idiomatic: "Whoever sends for Orò is contracting for sleeplessness."
Meaning: Summoning a power obliges you to whatever attends it, and in Orò's case that is a night awake.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever deliberately provokes trouble should be prepared for a difficult time"
Notes: Bẹ̀wẹ̀ is to contract or engage for a service, an ordinary commercial verb, and applying it to a cult summons makes the arrangement sound like hiring labour, which is the proverb's dryness. Set beside entry 11, the pair covers the two ways a person ends up awake for Orò: because he summoned it, and because he is what it came for.
13. Àdàbà ń pògèdè, ó rò pé ẹyẹlé ò gbọ́; ẹyẹlé gbọ́, títiiri ló tiiri.
Literal: Àdàbà ń pògèdè the-dove recites incantations, ó rò pé ẹyẹlé ò gbọ́ it thinks the-pigeon does-not hear; ẹyẹlé gbọ́ the-pigeon heard, títiiri ló tiiri it-was-merely-keeping-still that it kept-still.
Idiomatic: "The dove recites incantations, thinking that the pigeon cannot hear; the pigeon hears, only pretending to sleep."
Meaning: Stillness is not the same as absence, and the quiet party may be the one taking notes.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never mistake a person's easygoing demeanor for cowardice or folly"
Notes: Owomoyela's translation supplies "pretending to sleep" where the Yorùbá has títiiri, the reduplicated form of tiiri, to be still, demure or self-effacing, the same word used at entries 27 and 28 of owe-age-youth-passage-of-life for the deference a youth shows an elder. So the pigeon is not feigning sleep in the Yorùbá, it is performing modesty, and Owomoyela's English collapses a social posture into a physical one. Ògèdè is spoken incantation, treated in owe-aje-medicine-hidden-power.
14. Olóògbé ò jẹ́ wọ́; a tan ni jẹ bí orun.
Literal: Olóògbé ò jẹ́ wọ́ the-dozing-one does-not answer; a tan ni jẹ bí orun nothing deceives one like sleep.
Idiomatic: "The dozing person does not confess; nothing deceives like sleep."
Meaning: Sleep is the one condition that excuses a person from answering, so it is the most useful thing to pretend.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One can always feign sleep to avoid engaging in discussions"
Notes: The proverb is unusual in the corpus for recommending a deception rather than warning against one, and the second clause names sleep itself as the deceiver rather than the sleeper, which quietly removes the pretender from the sentence. Read beside entry 20, where the collection insists that only a genuine sleeper can be woken, the two make a matched pair on the same problem seen from opposite sides.
15. Ìjà ḿ ba ṣolè, onílé tají.
Literal: Ìjà ḿ ba ṣolè trouble befalls the-burglar, onílé tají the-householder has-woken.
Idiomatic: "A great disaster befalls the burglar: the homeowner wakes up unexpectedly."
Meaning: The moment a sleeper wakes is the moment someone else's plan ends.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said of an evildoer who is beset with his or her comeuppance"
Notes: Tají, from tì plus jí, is waking with a start rather than waking gradually, and the whole event of the proverb is compressed into that one verb: nothing else happens in the sentence. The householder's sleep, elsewhere in this file a vulnerability, is here the burglar's entire operating condition, which is the file's neatest reversal.
16. A kì í sùn sílé ẹni ká fọrùn ṣẹ́.
Literal: A kì í sùn sílé ẹni one does-not sleep in-one's-own house ká fọrùn ṣẹ́ and break-one's-neck.
Idiomatic: "One does not sleep in one's own home and break one's neck."
Meaning: A person attending to their own business at home does not meet the harm that has to be sought out elsewhere.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person does not get into trouble while minding his or her own business"
Notes: Sleep here stands for blameless ordinary conduct rather than for vulnerability, which is the opposite of its role at entries 1, 10 and 15, and the two readings sit side by side in the collection without comment. A broken neck is chosen because it is the least plausible domestic accident, so the claim is close to absolute.
17. Ẹni tó bá obìnrin kó lọ sílé-e rẹ̀ yó sùn nínú ẹ̀rù.
Literal: Ẹni tó bá obìnrin kó lọ sílé-e rẹ̀ whoever goes-with a-woman to her house yó sùn nínú ẹ̀rù will sleep inside fear.
Idiomatic: "A man who goes with a woman to her house will sleep in fear."
Meaning: An illicit arrangement carried out in the other party's territory costs the sleep it was meant to obtain.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Illicit acts carried on indiscreetly are attended by great anxiety"
Notes: Sùn nínú ẹ̀rù, to sleep inside fear, treats fear as the container the sleep happens in rather than as something felt, which is the standard Yorùbá construction for a state one is enclosed by. The proverb's practical content is about place: the danger comes from being in a house whose owner may return, and the same locational reasoning drives entry 16 in the opposite direction.
18. Sán ọ̀bẹ sùn, fi apó rọrí; ìwà ọmọ ní ḿmú ọmọ jẹ òkígbẹ́.
Literal: Sán ọ̀bẹ sùn tie-on a-knife and-sleep, fi apó rọrí use a-quiver as-a-pillow; ìwà ọmọ ní ḿmú ọmọ jẹ òkígbẹ́ it-is a-person's character that makes-a-person take blade-proofing-medicine.
Idiomatic: "Tie a knife on you before you sleep; use a quiver as your pillow: your character forces you to resort to charms for rendering cutlasses harmless against your flesh."
Meaning: A person who has to arm himself to sleep has been told something about his own conduct.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People whose characters are evil have good reason to fear attack from others"
Notes: The first two clauses are addressed as instructions and the third supplies the diagnosis, so the proverb is built as advice that turns into an accusation halfway through. Òkígbẹ́ is prepared medicine for turning blades, treated in owe-aje-medicine-hidden-power, and its mention places the text in a period when such protection was ordinary to buy. The connection made between ìwà, character, and how safely a person can sleep is the file's link to owe-iwa-character.
19. Bí ará ilé ẹní bá ń jẹ kòkòrò tí kò sunwọ̀n, tí a kò sọ fún un, hùrùhẹ̀rẹ̀-ẹ rẹ̀ ò níí jẹ́ ká sùn lóru.
Literal: Bí ará ilé ẹní bá ń jẹ kòkòrò tí kò sunwọ̀n if a-member of-one's household eats bad insects, tí a kò sọ fún un and one does-not tell him, hùrùhẹ̀rẹ̀-ẹ rẹ̀ ò níí jẹ́ ká sùn lóru his coughing will-not let one sleep at-night.
Idiomatic: "If a member of one's household is eating bad insects and is not cautioned, his or her hacking cough will not permit one any sleep during the night."
Meaning: A fault left uncorrected in someone you live with becomes a cost you pay yourself, at night, in lost sleep.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one does not counsel one's brother, one will share in his misfortune"
Notes: Hùrùhẹ̀rẹ̀ is an ideophone for a rasping, repeated cough and carries the sound of the thing, which English can only describe. The proverb chooses the most literal possible transmission of another person's error, an audible one through a shared wall, and it belongs with entries 20 and 21 in treating a sleeping space as a place where other people's conditions arrive.
What a sleeper can be held to
20. Ẹní bá sùn là ń jí, a kì í jí a-pi-rọ́rọ́.
Literal: Ẹní bá sùn whoever is-sleeping là ń jí is-whom one wakes, a kì í jí a-pi-rọ́rọ́ one does-not wake one-who-feigns-limpness.
Idiomatic: "One wakes only those that sleep, not those pretending to sleep."
Meaning: Effort spent rousing someone is wasted on a person who is only pretending to need it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Deal with people who are in earnest, not with gamesters"
Notes: A-pi-rọ́rọ́, one-who-feigns-limpness, is a compressed agent-noun naming the pretender exactly, and the proverb's difficulty is that genuine and performed sleep look identical from outside. The test is retrospective: a person who was actually roused was actually asleep. Set against entry 14, which recommends the pretence, the collection supplies both the tactic and its countermeasure.
21. A kì í sùn jẹ́rìí ìdí.
Literal: A kì í sùn one does-not sleep jẹ́rìí ìdí and-bear-witness-to the-buttocks.
Idiomatic: "One cannot be asleep and also be able to vouch for one's anus."
Meaning: A sleeping witness cannot certify what happened during the sleep, however close to home it happened.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Assert only those things you know for certain"
Notes: The crudeness is the argument: the proverb selects the most intimate thing a person owns and shows that sleep still disqualifies them from testifying about it, which makes the epistemic claim as strong as it can be made. Jẹ́rìí is the legal verb, to bear witness, so the sentence is framed as a rule of evidence and belongs with the hearing procedure at entries 3 to 5 of owe-ears-hearing-mouth.
22. Àjàpá ní òun tí ì bá só ló sùn yí, bẹ́ẹ̀ ni ẹní bá sùn kì í só.
Literal: Àjàpá ní òun tí ì bá só the-tortoise says it that might-have farted ló sùn yí was-asleep at-the-time, bẹ́ẹ̀ ni ẹní bá sùn kì í só and-besides whoever is-asleep does-not fart.
Idiomatic: "Tortoise argues that it that might have farted but was sound asleep, and, surely, those that sleep do not fart!"
Meaning: A defence that both admits and denies the act, and rests on a false general rule, defeats itself.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Some defenses are so transparent as to be frivolous"
Notes: The tortoise is the trickster of Yorùbá tale, treated in owe-tortoise-ijapa-trickster, and his argument here is a caricature of legal pleading in the alternative: he was asleep, and sleepers do not do this. The proverb is also a joke at the expense of entry 21, since it uses sleep as an alibi where entry 21 rules sleep out as testimony, and the collection is aware of both.
23. Ó ti ojú orun wá ó ń fọ ẹnà; ó ní, "Ẹ jẹ́ ká máa jí ní mẹ́mu-mẹ́mu."
Literal: Ó ti ojú orun wá he came from the-face of-sleep, ó ń fọ ẹnà he was-speaking scrambled-language; ó ní he said, "Ẹ jẹ́ ká máa jí ní mẹ́mu-mẹ́mu" "let-us keep-waking in moos."
Idiomatic: "He woke up from sleep and spoke in scrambled language; he said, 'Let us wake it in moos.'"
Meaning: A person freshly out of sleep talks nonsense and is not to be relied on for a serious proposal.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An ignorant person will always make stupid suggestions," with a cross-reference to entry 24 .
Notes: Ojú orun, the face of sleep, is the ordinary Yorùbá name for the state just after waking, and ẹnà is a real Yorùbá secret language formed by inserting syllables, so the man is not merely mumbling, he is attempting a code and failing at it. That is what makes the proverb about pretension rather than about grogginess.
24. Ọmọdé jí ti ojú orun wá, ó ní "Àkàrà kéjì-kéjì"; wọ́n ti ḿmú u kẹ́ẹ̀kó tójí, ìkáká ní kẹ̀?
Literal: Ọmọdé jí ti ojú orun wá a-child woke out-of the-face of-sleep, ó ní "Àkàrà kéjì-kéjì" it said "bean-fritters two-by-two"; wọ́n ti ḿmú u kẹ́ẹ̀kó tójí they had-been taking-them one-by-one before-it-woke, ìkáká ní kẹ̀ would-a-single-one have-been-left?
Idiomatic: "A child wakes from sleep and says in code, 'Bean fritters two-by-two.' Had the others been taking them thus before he woke, would any have been left?"
Meaning: A demand made after the fact, once a fairer arrangement has already run, corrects nothing and would have destroyed the thing it now claims.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never misuse what those before you made available to you by their wise husbandry," with a cross-reference to entry 23 .
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss is about husbandry rather than about lateness, which is a reading the Yorùbá supports without requiring: what the child proposes would have exhausted the fritters had it been the rule all along, and the proverb answers its own question. The child speaks "in code," ẹnà again as at entry 23, which is why Owomoyela prints the two as a pair: both are people who wake up and immediately speak a language above their competence.
25. Ẹni tí ó sùn tó ní òún kú, tó bá jí, tani yó wìí fún?
Literal: Ẹni tí ó sùn the-one who is-asleep tó ní òún kú who claims he-has-died, tó bá jí when he wakes, tani yó wìí fún whom will-he tell?
Idiomatic: "The person who is asleep but spreads the word that he or she is dead, when he or she awakens, whom will he or she tell?"
Meaning: A claim that removes you from the company of the living leaves you nobody to correct it to.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one paints oneself into a corner, one is truly stuck"
Notes: The proverb turns on a fact about audience rather than about death: the man is alive and awake and has simply forfeited standing to be heard, since anyone he addresses has already been told he is dead. Sleep is the pivot because it is the only state from which a person can plausibly have circulated such a report and then returned.
26. Ẹní fẹ́ẹ́ rí òkú kó sùn; àtúnra rí dojú àlá.
Literal: Ẹní fẹ́ẹ́ rí òkú whoever wants to-see the-dead kó sùn let-him sleep; àtúnra rí dojú àlá seeing-one-another-again has-become a-matter-of dreams.
Idiomatic: "Whoever wants to see the dead should go to sleep; such encounters happen only in the realm of dreams."
Meaning: The dead are available in dreams and nowhere else.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Once people die, they cannot be seen again in this life"
Notes: This is the only proverb in the file that makes dreaming a means of access to anything, and it is careful to make that access exclusive: the dream is where the meeting happens because there is nowhere else. Yorùbá tradition treats dream encounters with the dead as real communication, discussed in owe-death-ancestors-beyond, so the proverb is not dismissing the dream but bounding it.
27. Ẹni tó ó sùn-ún sàn ju ẹni tó kú lọ.
Literal: Ẹni tó ó sùn-ún the-one who is-sleeping sàn ju ẹni tó kú lọ is-better-than the-one who has-died.
Idiomatic: "The sleeping person is better off than the dead person."
Meaning: Two conditions that look alike from outside are not the same, and the difference is everything.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Conditions that superficially seem the same may in fact be very different; sleep is preferable to death"
Notes: The proverb exists because the comparison is so obvious as to seem unnecessary, which is the tell that it is being used about something else: two situations that a careless observer has equated. Set against entry 28, which says sleep gives no warning of death, this file holds that sleep resembles death closely enough to be confused with it and is nonetheless categorically better.
28. Oorun ò mọ ikú.
Literal: Oorun sleep ò mọ ikú does-not know death.
Idiomatic: "Sleep does not know death."
Meaning: A sleeping person has no way of sensing that death is arriving.
Used when: Owomoyela's note reads that a sleeping person does not know when death comes .
Notes: Three words in the Yorùbá, and the whole claim rests on personifying sleep as something that could warn the sleeper and does not. Sleep is the grammatical subject rather than death, which is why the proverb sits in this file rather than in owe-death-ancestors-beyond, and it is the flat statement of what entry 27 argues around.
29. Àlá tí ajá bá lá, inú ajá ni ń gbé.
Literal: Àlá tí ajá bá lá whatever dream a-dog dreams, inú ajá ni ń gbé inside the-dog is-where it lives.
Idiomatic: "Whatever dream the dog dreams remains inside the dog."
Meaning: A dream belongs entirely to the dreamer and is not available to anyone else as evidence or as property.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Keep your own counsel"
Notes: This proverb is also given at entry 26 of owe-stomach-appetite-inner-person, read there for what it says about inú, the interior. It is repeated here because it is the collection's only proverb built on àlá as such, and because the argument here is about the dream rather than about the container. The cognate accusative àlá ... lá, to dream a dream, is the same intensifying construction seen throughout the corpus.
The mat, the bed and the night as places
30. Ayé kì í di pọ̀lọ̀rú ká fẹsẹ̀ rọ orí sùn.
Literal: Ayé kì í di pọ̀lọ̀rú the-world does-not become so-upended ká fẹsẹ̀ rọ orí sùn that-we rest head on-legs to-sleep.
Idiomatic: "The world is never so disrupted that one rests one's head on one's legs to sleep."
Meaning: However bad things get, a person does not end up sleeping the way a chicken does.
Used when: Owomoyela's note reads that however the world turns, a person does not suffer the same fate as a chicken .
Notes: Owomoyela prints the mirror image at 4828, Ayé kì í di pọ̀lọ̀rú kádìẹ má fẹsẹ̀ rọ orí sùn, "The world is never so disrupted that the chicken does not rest its head on its legs to sleep," glossed as meaning the chicken's lot will not change either . The pair is the collection's tidiest demonstration of one frame producing two proverbs with opposite subjects and the same shape, and each is used as reassurance to a different party.
31. Èèyàn ò rí bi sùn, ajá ń hanrun.
Literal: Èèyàn ò rí bi sùn people have-nowhere to-sleep, ajá ń hanrun a-dog is-snoring.
Idiomatic: "Humans have no place to sleep, and a dog is snoring."
Meaning: Someone of no standing is enjoying what those above them cannot get.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A lowly person lays claim to what his or her betters lack"
Notes: Hanrun is snoring, which supplies the offence: the dog is not merely asleep but audibly and comfortably so, in earshot of the people who are not. The proverb is a complaint about ranking rather than about dogs, and the collection files it under inequality.
32. Ilé tí a tó lọ sùn lọ́sàn-án, a kì í tó òru lọ sùn ún.
Literal: Ilé tí a tó lọ sùn lọ́sàn-án a-house one is-entitled to-go-and-sleep-in by-day, a kì í tó òru lọ sùn ún one does-not wait-for night to-go and-sleep-in-it.
Idiomatic: "A house one has the right to sleep in during the day, one does not wait for the cover of night to go sleep in it."
Meaning: An entitlement exercised secretly looks like a trespass, so exercise it openly or not at all.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not be coy about doing what one has the right to do"
Notes: The proverb turns on the fact that the same act carries different meaning at different hours, which makes the time of day part of the deed rather than its setting. Compare entry 27 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, where dawn is chosen as the hour at which a display can be audited, and owe-doorway-threshold-boundary on who may cross which threshold when.
33. Ojúlùmọ̀ ò níí jẹ́ ká ahun ó sun ìgbẹ́.
Literal: Ojúlùmọ̀ acquaintance [the community of those who know one] ò níí jẹ́ ká ahun ó sun ìgbẹ́ will-not permit that the-miser sleep in-the-bush.
Idiomatic: "The community will not let the miser sleep in the wild."
Meaning: Even a person who has given nothing will be taken in, because the obligation runs from the community rather than from the record of what he has done.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Even the antisocial person will benefit from communal solicitousness"
Notes: Ojúlùmọ̀ is the network of mutual acquaintance rather than a formal body, so the proverb attributes the rescue to no one in particular and makes it a property of being known. This is the file's most generous proverb and the mirror of owe-family-lineage-compound, where the compound's obligations are set out as obligations rather than as charity.
34. Bí a kò bá lówó aládìn-ín, à jẹun lójúmọmọ, à gbálẹ̀ sùn wàrà.
Literal: Bí a kò bá lówó aládìn-ín if one has-no money for lamp-oil, à jẹun lójúmọmọ one eats in-daylight, à gbálẹ̀ sùn wàrà one sweeps-the-floor and-sleeps promptly.
Idiomatic: "If one has no money for lamp oil, one eats in the daytime and sweeps the house and goes to sleep in good time."
Meaning: Adjust the shape of the day to what you can actually afford, without complaint and without borrowing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's plans and actions should fit one's resources"
Notes: Lamp oil is the fixed cost of having an evening at all, so a household without it has a day that ends at dusk, and the proverb's three verbs describe a complete reorganisation of domestic time around a single missing commodity. There is no reproach in it, which distinguishes it from the poverty proverbs in owe-wealth-poverty-money. Compare entry 36 below, where the same lamp oil is what a fool burns into debt keeping a pointless vigil.
35. Ẹní máa rí àti-sùn akàn á pẹ́ létí ìsà.
Literal: Ẹní máa rí whoever will see àti-sùn akàn the going-to-sleep of-a-crab á pẹ́ létí ìsà will be-long at-the-edge of-its-hole.
Idiomatic: "Whoever wishes to see a crab go to sleep will stay long by its hole."
Meaning: Waiting to witness something that cannot be witnessed on demand is committing to an unbounded wait.
Used when: Owomoyela's note begins "Whoever seeks the ..." and is truncated in the source consulted; his gloss on the paired entry 36 reads that whoever awaits the impossible will wait forever . The compiler's reading of the usage follows that pair. Confidence on the usage: medium.
Notes: A crab's retreat into its hole offers no visible moment of falling asleep for an observer to catch, so the vigil described has no natural end, and àti-sùn is the nominalised going-to-sleep, the event rather than the state. The impossible-task pattern is common in the collection and here it is fitted specifically to sleep as the unwitnessable event.
36. Ẹní máa rí àti-sùn-ún pẹ́pẹ́yẹ á jẹ gbèsè àdín.
Literal: Ẹní máa rí whoever will see àti-sùn-ún pẹ́pẹ́yẹ the going-to-sleep of-a-duck á jẹ gbèsè àdín will run-up debt for lamp-oil.
Idiomatic: "Whoever wishes to see ducks go to sleep will go into debt paying for [fuel] oil."
Meaning: Waiting all night for something that will not present itself for observation is a debt a person chooses.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever awaits the impossible will wait forever," with a cross-reference to entry 35 .
Notes: Àdín is the oil burned in a lamp, the same commodity whose absence reorganises a whole household at entry 34, so the two proverbs put the identical shilling to opposite uses: one household cannot afford an evening at all, and this watcher borrows to extend one indefinitely. Paired with entry 35 the collection supplies two animals and two prices, time and money, for the same futile vigil.
Reading this set
Three things stand out across these thirty-six proverbs.
Sleep in this file is a condition with obligations attached, not a neutral pause. Entries 1 through 4 make it something the day has to earn, entry 3 makes it a dereliction, and entries 10 through 19 treat it as the interval in which somebody else acts. Even entry 16, which uses sleeping at home as the image of blameless conduct, is arguing about exposure rather than about rest. The one proverb that treats rest as simply owed, entry 5, spends its argument on where a woman's journey ends rather than on the resting.
The collection uses sleep as its standard boundary case for what a person can be held to. Entry 21 rules a sleeper out as a witness to his own body, entry 22 has the tortoise try to use sleep as an alibi and fail, entries 23 and 24 disqualify the newly woken from making proposals, and entry 25 shows a man who has talked himself out of an audience. Set beside entries 14 and 20, which turn on whether a sleeper is genuine, the group amounts to a consistent position: sleep suspends a person's standing as a competent party, and the difficulty is that it cannot be verified from outside.
Dreaming is almost absent, and the two dream proverbs disagree about what a dream is for. Entry 29 says a dream stays inside the dreamer and proves nothing to anyone. Entry 26 says the dream is the one place the dead can still be met, which is a claim that dreams carry real content from outside the dreamer. Yorùbá practice treats dream encounters with the dead as genuine communication, so the tension is between a proverb about discretion and a proverb about access rather than a contradiction about metaphysics, but the collection does not resolve it and neither does this file. The scarcity itself is worth stating plainly: a corpus of 5,235 proverbs yields two on dreaming, against dozens on sleep, and no amount of searching produces more.
Fontes
- [1]Owomoyela, Oyekan, Yoruba Proverbs (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). 5,235 proverbs with Yorùbá texts in full standard orthography, English translations, and parenthetical usage annotations, arranged thematically; collected over some forty years. Proverbs cited here by Owomoyela's entry number: 157, 285, 583, 589, 641, 741, 825, 833, 864, 974, 1089, 1295, 1333, 1403, 1422, 1526, 1535, 1695, 1768, 1848, 2070, 2071, 2133, 2178, 2501, 2510, 2776, 3171, 3211, 3997, 3999, 4347, 4496, 4784, 4827, 4828, 5049, 5181. Publisher record: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska-paperback/9780803218437/yoruba-proverbs/. Full text consulted at https://aclasites.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/oyekan_owomoyela-yoruba_proverbs-university_of_nebraska_press2005.pdf