- English translation
You make the agreement in private, then drop it as soon as you step out.
- Literal wording
You tie it in the bathing room and let it go in the first room.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying rebukes a person who makes an agreement and then abandons it almost immediately. Its force lies in placing the commitment and its rejection only a moment apart, in adjoining parts of the same bathhouse setting.
It applies to a swift reversal of an undertaking just made, not to every later failure to keep a promise. The bathhouse spaces in the image are culturally specific and may not correspond exactly to English architectural terms.
- When it is used
Use it to reproach someone who agrees to a matter and then promptly withdraws or acts against that agreement. It suits disputes involving a clearly made commitment that is repudiated with little or no interval, rather than a promise broken much later.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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