Good grief, wofa, how do you know these things??
'Tain't so much how I know them, Jackie, but when I come across them I am intrigued, and so they stick.
This one came from the title of a lecture (the speaker was clearly trying to be provocative) and really had little to do with the subject. Said speaker related that the three monkeys are depicted carved, actually on the elaborate tomb of a renowned Shogun (he showed a picture). They are the guardians, and their function is to protect the kingdom. The meaning - "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" - has changed over time, having starting as "permit no evil." If they saw or heard anything out of line they were to charge out and extirpate same, a far cry indeed from our present "pretend you don't notice" interpretation.
He also indicated that the names were actually a play on words (really ideograms) all based on the ideogram we would call "-zaru" which means monkey. The attributes (see no, hear no, etc.) actually have slightly different -zaru names, which unfortunately I didn't record.
BTW - are there many words like 'tain't, with two apostrophes ?
