Mortality

What passage could take us onward if not death?

Framed as a rhetorical question, the line leaves room for only one answer: no other exit exists. Dying is cast as the doorway itself, so hoping to avoid it means hoping for a route that simply is not there.

If death does not come today, it will come tomorrow.

The saying presents death as inescapable: it may come sooner or later, but all people are subject to it. It compresses the fact of human mortality into a stark contrast between today and tomorrow.

Before the unlucky man's fortune ever turns, his days have run out.

The saying observes that by the time a person dogged by bad luck finally becomes well-off, his life has already been spent. The good fortune hoped for is chiefly material prosperity, and it comes so slowly that death arrives before the wealth does.

Children grow up and cut hair grows back; it is the one lying in the grave I mourn.

When someone dies and leaves young children behind, the saying redirects sorrow. The children will mature over time, just as cut hair grows back, so their hardship is treated as real but temporary. Grief belongs to the person who has died and now lies in the grave, meaning the tomb rather than mere soil or earth.

Don't weep for your broken crockery; it had its years to live, just as you have yours.

The saying discourages grief over a lost or broken possession by pointing out that objects, like people, have a natural span. An ordinary earthenware pot or jar was always going to crack one day, so its breaking is simply the expected end of its time rather than a real misfortune.

You may die tomorrow, you proud man in fine clothes—and then I will put a grand dome over your tomb.

This saying derides a vain, self-important person who takes pride in outward display. It invokes death as the great equalizer, making finery and social pretension seem fleeting and absurd. Its robe imagery mocks conspicuous dress, not any particular occupation or social group.

Whether someone strives hard or not, nobody takes anything from this world at death.

The saying sets energetic striving beside the absence of striving, then places both before the same end: neither person departs with worldly possessions. It frames material gain as something that remains behind when life ends.

Every life leads, in the end, to death.

The saying presents death as the inevitable endpoint of life. It can prompt a sober reflection on mortality and the limits of human life.