溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Does Time Devour All Things?
If time in the end gnaws and swallows all, what endures its teeth?
Time, the devourer of things.
Ovid's image of "time the devourer" was the summit of a long tradition painting time as destroyer. As the Greek Cronus swallowed his own children, time swallows back all it has borne. Against this destroying gaze humanity built two replies — one, fame and art that outlast time, for Ovid himself sang at the close of the same poem that "my work no age shall devour." The other, like Ecclesiastes, accepts that all crumbles and finds joy in the present's portion. What to leave against time's teeth still splits between destruction and permanence.
In an age where everything grows old and forgotten in an instant, Ovid's question — what endures time's teeth — makes us ask again what is worth leaving to last.
At the close of his poem of transformations, Ovid marks the transience of all things.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
At the close of his poem of transformations, Ovid marks the transience of all things. Time is the devourer, the years slowly gnawing all toward death. Hard rock, high walls, famous cities crumble beneath time's teeth. I read this question not as despair but as an honest gaze. If nothing can defeat time, what shall we build and live for before it? Before the paradox of building while knowing it will crumble, I stand too.
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