To Take Your Hand and Grow Old With You

answered by The Book of Songs, "Ji Gu" (Airs of Bei)

기원전 11~7세기(주나라 시가 모음)

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Away from Her (2006)

dir. Sarah Polley · Canada

A wife of a lifetime, through illness, comes to recognize her husband less and less, and even turns her heart to a stranger. Watching the one he loves forget him, the husband must ask whether to hold on or to let go. What does it mean to continue a love that can no longer be returned?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Can I keep the vow to grow old together even after the other no longer recognizes me?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

執子之手與子偕老

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

I take your hand, and with you I will grow old.

💡 TL;DR

This ancient vow of the Book of Songs speaks not of a wedding's romance but of faithfulness to the very end.

📝The Classic Answers

This ancient vow of the Book of Songs speaks not of a wedding's romance but of faithfulness to the very end. To take a hand and grow old together is a promise to stay near not only when the other is young and lovely, but after they are sick and clouded. When a partner no longer recognizes me, love enters its harshest test. To continue a love that can no longer be returned — that is the true weight of growing old together. From this vow I learn that love can remain as the faithfulness of will beyond the repayment of feeling. Not letting go of the hand once held: that alone is love's final face.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Offer someone you have long been with one quiet kindness today, expecting nothing in return.

📖 Classic Source: The Book of Songs, "Ji Gu" (Airs of Bei). Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.