It takes a really long time to realize this, but if you’re lucky you eventually see that you’ve got this life on this planet and you’re responsible for really loving yourself. And I mean really, really, really loving yourself. Love is never a corruption. I’m talking about loving yourself with a true love, a love that’s incorruptible and everlasting.

Meaning: The rhyme presents a spring ague as medicine fit for a king. It gives a feverish illness a surprising positive value rather than simply treating it as misfortune.

Meaning: Caring for children brings responsibilities, while the comfort a parent hopes to receive from them cannot be guaranteed. The saying contrasts present duties with uncertain future expectations, rather than defining children as a debt owed to adults.

Meaning: The saying contrasts idealised expectations during courtship with everyday experience in marriage. It invites attention to ordinary responsibilities before a commitment, but its gendered and absolute framing should not imply that marriage inevitably disappoints or that affection is merely illusion.

Meaning: The saying places execution and marriage under destiny. It joins a severe event and a relationship decision through the belief that both are predetermined.