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Home › Library › Philology › Grow Old Together, Share One Grave — the vow of a couple to the end of life and past it

偕老同穴 kairō dōketsu Grow Old Together, Share One Grave — the vow of a couple to the end of life and past it

This is a philological study of 偕老同穴 (kairō dōketsu), the wedding speech's phrase for a marriage that lasts to old age and past it, from the two sad poems of the Book of Songs it joins to the Japanese wedding table and the deep-sea sponge that took its name.

Abstract

偕老同穴, kairō dōketsu, is the Japanese phrase for a marriage that lasts to old age and past it: to grow old together while living and to lie in one grave when dead. Its two halves come from two poems of the Book of Songs, and both poems are sad, one a soldier's memory of a promise he will not live to keep and the other read either as the proper rite of husband and wife or as the oath of lovers who could not marry. In Japan the four characters stand together by the 1190s, and for six centuries most of their uses in the chronicles, the noh and the tales are a vow remembered at a parting or a death; from the Meiji letter manuals onward it is the congratulation itself, and it is also the name of a deep-sea sponge in which a pair of shrimp live out their lives. The phrase is a wedding wish whose own history is a history of mourning, and it is none the worse for it.

Overview

The sense. One sense, held for eight centuries: husband and wife bound for life and beyond it, 夫婦が、最後まで連れそいとげること in the national dictionary's words [1]. The modern dictionaries agree that the phrase is not itself in the Book of Songs but joins 偕老 from the poem 擊鼓 to 同穴 from the poem 大車 [1]. Two further senses stand beside it. It is the name of a glass sponge of the deep sea, Euplectella, in English the Venus's flower basket, called so because a male and female shrimp live shut inside it; the name belonged first to the shrimp and passed to the sponge [1]. And one dissenting view, which the encyclopedia Nipponica reports, holds that 同穴 comes from a poem of elopement and is unfit to be joined to 偕老 at all [1].

The words. 偕 is together, 老 to grow old, 同 the same, 穴 a hole, and here a grave pit: the commentator Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 glosses it 冢壙中也, within the tomb [2]. The older Japanese reading is kairō tōketsu, unvoiced, as the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century phrase books write it [3][4]; the modern reading voices the second half. The phrase is usually followed by の契り, the vow of, and spoken as a vow rather than as a description.

The text in English. The earliest known English gloss is Hepburn's of 1867: a union lasting down to old age and unbroken in the grave [5]. Brinkley in 1896 gives the literal sense and the vow beside it [6], Saitō Hidesaburō 斎藤秀三郎 in 1915 equates the phrase with the marriage service's for better or for worse [7], and the Kenkyūsha dictionary of 1942 does the same, adding the sponge [8]. The two source poems have their own English lineage through Legge, Waley and Watson, set out below.

The historical record

The Book of Songs. 擊鼓, a soldier's song. The phrase's first half is a soldier's memory of an oath, in the poem 擊鼓 of the odes of 邶:

死生契闊，與子成說，執子之手，與子偕老。于嗟闊兮，不我活兮，于嗟洵兮，不我信兮。

In death or life, however far apart, I made a promise with you; I held your hand: with you I would grow old. Alas, so far apart, you will not let me live; alas, so far away, you will not let me keep my word. The Mao preface reads the poem as a complaint against a warlike ruler [9]. The Han and Tang commentary takes the oath to be one between comrades of one squad, swearing to come through alive together, and Kong Yingda 孔穎達 names the reading of Wang Su 王肅, that the soldier remembers his wife, in order to reject it: 此為軍伍相約，非室家之謂也, this is a pact within the ranks, not words about a wife [10]. Zhu Xi 朱熹 in the twelfth century takes the other side: the soldier remembers his marriage vow, 期以偕老, and expects to die without keeping it [11]. Either way, the line that gave the phrase its first half is spoken by a man who believes he will not grow old.

The Book of Songs. 大車, a vow to share a grave. The second half is the last stanza of the poem 大車 of the odes of the Royal Domain:

穀則異室，死則同穴。謂予不信，有如皦日。

Alive, we live in separate houses; dead, we share one grave. If you say I am not true, I swear it by the bright sun. The Mao preface makes the poem a satire on the officials of Zhou in an age when 禮義陵遲，男女淫奔, ritual had decayed and men and women ran off together, told by describing a stricter past [12]. The Mao commentary accordingly reads the stanza as the rite of husband and wife, who live apart and are buried together: 生則異室而居，死則同穴而葬, in life they live in separate rooms, in death they are buried in one grave [12]. Zhu Xi reads it as the words of lovers who are afraid to run away together and can hope only to share a grave when they are dead: 庶幾死得合葬以同穴而已 [13]. This is the elopement reading the Nipponica entry reports.

The happy line. 女曰雞鳴. One poem in the Book of Songs uses 偕老 for a contented marriage, the dialogue of a wife and husband at dawn in the odes of 鄭: 宜言飲酒，與子偕老。琴瑟在御，莫不靜好, we will drink wine and grow old together; the zither and the lute at hand, everything at peace and good [14]. Zhu Xi calls it the words of a good couple encouraging each other [14]. It is not the line the phrase was built from.

223. Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 on a joint burial. In China the half from 大車 became the scriptural ground for burying husband and wife together. Zhuge Liang, petitioning that the first ruler of Shu be buried with his empress, quotes it: 《詩》曰：『谷則異室，死則同穴。』 [15]. Tang ritual debate uses it the same way, 生則齊體，死則同穴, in life one body, in death one grave, and draws from it that a widow does not remarry: 故死則同穴，無再醮之義 [16].

The 1190s. A husband's memorial for his wife, in the 言泉集. The national dictionary's first citation for the four characters together is Japanese, from a collection of Buddhist memorial addresses compiled in the 1190s, in the address headed 右少辨定長爲亡室, for the late wife of Sadanaga, Junior Controller of the Right [17][18]:

伏惟亡室結髮後多年共居又幾曰　偕老同穴之契无變　合歡同心之交尤厚　然間有時懷妊　偸期弄璋之慶　无何方亡

Since she bound up her hair they lived together many years; their vow to grow old together and share one grave never changed, their union of one heart was deep. Then she conceived, and they secretly hoped for the joy of a son; and before long she died. The vow is named at the moment it is broken.

The Kamakura chronicles. 保元物語 and 平治物語. In the 保元物語, as the retired emperor Toba 鳥羽 falls ill in 1156, his consort Bifukumon'in 美福門院 takes the tonsure: 近衞院も先だち給ひ、又偕老同穴の御契淺からざりし法皇も、御惱重らせ給ふ, the emperor Konoe had died before, and now the cloistered emperor, with whom her vow to grow old together and share one grave was deep, lay gravely ill [19]. In the 平治物語 the wife of the courtier Shinzei 信西 is left behind at his death in the disturbance of 1159: 偕老同穴の契深かりし入道には後れ給ひぬ, she was left behind by the lay priest with whom her vow had been deep [20].

The Kamakura tales. 宝物集 and 撰集抄. In the 宝物集, a collection of Buddhist tales whose recensions date from about 1179 to 1183, a rich man's wife speaks of the years 偕老同穴の契りあさからすして過しに, passed in a vow that was not shallow [21]. In the 撰集抄 of the thirteenth century the phrase is said of a wife who has left the world as a nun: 年比偕老同穴の契りあさからさりし女のさまをかへにけるなり [22].

The 源平盛衰記. The longest of the Heike chronicles uses it twice: for the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa 後白河 mourning his consort, 偕老同穴の玉の臺 among the images of his loss [23], and for Kenreimon'in 建礼門院 recalling the emperor her husband, 偕老同穴の睦びをなして千秋萬歳と祝ひし龍顏に別れ奉りて, parted from the face of the sovereign with whom she had lived in that vow, and wished him a thousand autumns [24].

The fourteenth century. The 太平記. In book 11, the wife of the steward of 牛原 in 越前, whose husband has killed himself, resolves to drown with her children rather than outlive him: 同じくは思ふ人と共にはかなく成りて、埋れん苔の下までも、同穴の契を忘れじと, if it must be, let me pass away with the one I love, and not forget our vow of one grave even beneath the moss [25]. In the same book, after the fall of Kamakura, the widows who will not take a second husband are 偕老ノ契空クシテ夫ニ別タル妻室, wives parted from their husbands, their vow to grow old together left empty [26].

The Muromachi stage and the tale. 楊貴妃 and 浦島太郎. In the noh 楊貴妃 the ghost of Yang Guifei 楊貴妃 remembers 偕老同穴のかたらひ with the emperor, ended when their bond ran out, and now alone on her island [27]. The tale of 浦島太郎 uses it at the marriage itself, of Urashima and his turtle-bride, 偕老同穴のかたらひも淺からず, in the same breath with the wing-paired bird and the joined branch of 比翼連理 [28].

1472. Ichijō Kaneyoshi 一条兼良 on a wedding night. The one medieval use tied to a wedding is a commentary. Explaining the rice cakes of the third night of marriage in the Tale of Genji, Kaneyoshi writes: 女の男のもとへよめ入しては二たひ父母の家にかへるましきなれは偕老同穴の契をなつけて とつくといふもしも帰の字を用たる, once a woman has gone as a bride to her husband she must not go back to her parents' house, so it is named the vow of growing old together and sharing one grave, and the word for a woman marrying is written with the character 帰, to return home [29].

1496 and 1597. The phrase books. The 節用集, the household dictionary of the age, glosses the phrase in a manuscript of 1496 as 偕老同穴 カイラウトウケツ 毛詩云夫婦堅約之儀也, the Book of Songs: the firm vow of husband and wife [3], and in a print of 1597 in nearly the same words [4].

About 1595. The 謡抄 on the noh 籠太鼓. A commentary on the noh, glossing the phrase under the play 籠太鼓, defines it: 偕老同穴トハ夫婦共ニ老テ同時ニ死シテ同シアナニウツマレン事ヲ契リタル義也, a vow by husband and wife to grow old together, die at one time and be buried in one grave [30].

1656. A proverb. The proverb collection 世話尽 records 偕老同穴のかたらひも緣次第, even a vow to grow old together and share a grave is as fate allows; it is cited from there by the later dictionaries of proverbs [31][32].

1717. Chikamatsu Monzaemon 近松門左衛門, 鑓の権三重帷子. On the puppet stage the phrase becomes a joke about a coffin. A barrel is sung as the vessel to the land of the dead: 是ぞ冥途に通ひ樽。契りは偕老同穴と一つ棺に一つ穴, this is the barrel that goes to the land of the dead; our vow is to grow old together and share one grave, one coffin and one hole [33].

The mid-eighteenth century. A cook's book, 料理無言抄. The manuscript cookbook 料理無言抄 records that women in service refuse shrimp at celebrations, because かいらう is a word for a shrimp and the phrase sounds like it, and calls their scruple an error: 但女中方忌事あり 海老をかいらうと云 かいらうとうけつのかたらひと云て … 祝儀にたゝすと云 是甚誤也 偕老同穴ト書 … 偕老同穴とはちきりの深き事也 海老の事にてはなし, the women in service avoid it: shrimp is called kairō, and since it sounds like the vow of kairō tōketsu … they say it should not be served at a celebration. This is quite wrong. It is written 偕老同穴 … and means the depth of a vow; it has nothing to do with shrimp [34]. The pun was real: the dictionaries of 1857, 1889 and 1896 give かいらう, 海老, as a name for the lobster, the first with the genus Palinurus, the second referring it to the spiny lobster [35][36][6].

From 1807. Kyokutei Bakin 曲亭馬琴, 椿説弓張月. In the novel's sequel a retainer speaks to his wife, who has just died: 凡いきとし活る物、夫あればかならず妻あり。一世の安危を等くし、百年の苦樂を共にする、偕老同穴の契、孰かは他に思ふべき, of all living things, where there is a husband there is a wife; who would take lightly the vow to share the dangers of one life and the joys and griefs of a hundred years, to grow old together and share one grave? [37]. In the illustrated popular fiction of the 1820s to the 1860s the phrase recurs for married couples, its characters carrying the kana reading beside them, かいらうどうけつ or かいろうどうけつ [38].

1876–1879. The Meiji letter manuals. The phrase becomes the congratulation. The model-letter books for every occasion give it among the phrases for a wedding letter, glossed for the learner: in 作文捷径 of 1876 and a run of manuals through 1879 it is the stock wish for a marriage [39]. A Japanese abridgement of Western etiquette in 1878 says it of a Western bridegroom, 偕老同穴ノ契ヲ結ヒシ新郞 [40].

1883 and 1889. The sponge. By 1883 a zoology textbook names a genus of glass sponge 偕老同穴属 Euplectella [41]. A fisheries report of 1889 gives the reason and the custom: 偕老同穴は組織網狀を成し中には必雌雄の蝦を容る故に其稱を得 地方に依りては婚姻禮席の飾具となすあり, its tissue is a net and inside it always holds a male and female shrimp, which is how it got the name; in some regions it is an ornament at weddings [42]. Ichishima Shunjō 市島春城 heard in 1933 that around Fukuoka it had long been an indispensable wedding decoration [43].

1889–1907. The dictionaries, and an error. Ōtsuki Fumihiko 大槻文彦's 言海 of 1889 gives the two senses, the couple and the sponge with its two small shrimp [36]. Yamada Bimyō 山田美妙's 日本大辞書 of 1893 traces the phrase to a poem of Bai Juyi 白居易, モト白樂天ノ詩カラ來タ語 [44], and a dictionary of 1896 copies the attribution [45]. It is an error: neither half is Bai Juyi's. The 辞林 of 1907 restores the source, 詩經より出づ [46].

1897. Fukuzawa Yukichi 福沢諭吉 makes it an ethic. In 福翁百話, Fukuzawa titles an essay 一夫一婦偕老同穴 and writes: 開闢以來今日に至るまでの進步に於ては一夫一婦偕老同穴を最上の倫理と認め苟も之に背くものは人外の動物として擯斥す可きものなり, in all the progress since the world began, one husband and one wife growing old together and sharing one grave is to be held the highest ethic, and whoever goes against it should be shunned as a beast outside humanity [47].

1905–1906. Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石. In 吾輩は猫である a character mocks the ideal: それだから偕老同穴とか号して、死んでも一つ穴の狸に化ける。野蛮なものさ, so they call it growing old together and sharing one grave, and even dead they turn into two badgers in one hole; barbaric [48].

1961. The Supreme Court. A judgment on a broken engagement sets marriage apart from commerce because it is 利害を離れ愛情によつて結ばれ偕老同穴の契りを結ぶといふ神聖なるべき点にある, bound by love apart from interest, in a vow to grow old together and share one grave, which ought to be sacred [49].

Today. A wedding guide of 2024 calls it a word しばしば used in wedding speeches, and advises the speaker to explain the characters first and to avoid 老いる and 墓穴, grow old and grave, in explaining them, since those are words to avoid at a wedding [50]. The four-character dictionary at kotobank calls it 披露宴で使われる文句の極めつけ, the phrase of phrases at a wedding reception, and notes that in an age of scattered ashes the speech is coming to sound old-fashioned [1].

What is not a source. The pine trees of 高砂, which grow old together in the noh and at Japanese weddings, are the native Japanese picture of the same wish and a parallel, not a source. 比翼連理, wing to wing, branch to branch, from Bai Juyi's 長恨歌, is said in the same breath from the 浦島 tale onward and is a companion phrase. The poem 女曰雞鳴 is the happy 偕老 of the Book of Songs, but the phrase was not built from it.

The text in English

1867. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary. Under the entry for 偕老: Growing old together, (of husband and wife) … a union lasting down to old age and unbroken in the grave [5].

1871. James Legge, The She King. 擊鼓: For life or for death, however separated, / To our wives we pledged our word. / We held their hands; — / We were to grow old together with them. 大車: While living, we may have to occupy different apartments; / But when dead, we shall share the same grave [51]. Legge follows the marriage reading in the first poem and the rite in the second.

1896. F. Brinkley, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary. Becoming old together and being buried in the same spot; a very intimate attachment between man and woman … to swear to be faithful even to the grave (said of a married couple) [6].

1897. Paul Ehmann, Die Sprichwörter und bildlichen Ausdrücke der japanischen Sprache. Kairo döketsu no chigiri … Der Bund des zusammen Altwerdens und gemeinschaftlichen Grabes. Ein treuer Ehebund, the bond of growing old together and a common grave; a faithful marriage [52].

1915. Saitō Hidesaburō, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary. Under better: They have taken each other for better or for worse, 偕老同穴の契を結んだ; under cast and lot: To cast in one's lot with a partner for life, 偕老同穴の契を結ぶ [7]. Saitō makes the phrase the Japanese of the English marriage vow.

1937. Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs. Waley puts 擊鼓 among the songs of warriors and battles: 'For good or ill, in death as in life; / This is the oath I swear with you. / I take your hand / As token that I will grow old along with you.' / Alas for our bond! / It has not lasted even for our lifetime. 大車, as a song of elopement: Alive, they never shared a house, / But in death they had the same grave [53]. Waley's 擊鼓 keeps the poem's grief; his 大車 follows Zhu Xi's lovers.

1942. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary. kairō-dōketsu … be united as man and wife for weal or woe; take each other for better or for worse … A Venus's flower-basket [8].

1984. Burton Watson, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. The happy poem, 女曰雞鳴: you and I growing old together, / harps and lutes at our mealtime, / nothing not peaceful and good [54].

The sponge in English. An English encyclopedia article on the Venus's flower basket says, from its first version of 2003, that in traditional Asian cultures the sponge was given as a wedding gift, with no source [55]. The Japanese witnesses above carry the shrimp, the name and a regional wedding ornament, not a gift, and the English sentence cites nothing.

Today: JMdict gives happy life partnership; living faithfully together till death, and as a second word the sponge, Venus's flower basket [56]. The phrase is not yet sold as a design. The English this history gives, grow old together, share one grave, is the phrase word for word; a rendering must keep both halves, since the second is what makes it a vow and not a wish.

A reading

The phrase is a wedding wish assembled from two poems that are not about weddings, and for most of its Japanese life it was said when the vow was being lost, not made: over a wife who died soon after she conceived, beside an emperor's sickbed, by a widow about to drown, by a ghost on an island. That is not a reason to keep it off a wedding. It is what the phrase has always meant: a promise that takes the end into account. The guest who says it at a wedding table is promising what the soldier of 擊鼓 could not keep and what the lovers of 大車 could only hope for, and saying it in a happy room is the point. Read beside 比翼連理, which is a lovers' oath, and 琴瑟相和, which is a household in tune, 偕老同穴 is the most sober of the three: it names old age and the grave out loud. The sponge is a pleasing coincidence and has a real place in Japanese weddings in some regions, but the vow came first, and the sponge was named for it through the shrimp.

Notes

Sources not seen

『言泉集』, the compilation of memorial addresses by the 安居院 preachers, in the 金沢文庫本 as printed in 『安居院唱導集』上 (角川書店, 1972), and the 東大寺北林院本 as printed in 2000; both are in the National Diet Library (pids 12261878 and 14033970) and are served only to readers in Japan. Seeing the page would settle the full text of the 右少辨定長爲亡室 address and its date, and so the date of the earliest known use of the phrase, which this history gives only as the 1190s.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「偕老同穴」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), 四字熟語を知る辞典 and 世界大百科事典 (ドウケツエビ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/偕老同穴-458758
  2. 毛詩正義 卷四, 王風 大車, 鄭箋, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/毛詩正義/卷四
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  4. 節用集, print with a colophon of 慶長2 (1597), National Diet Library pid 2543886, scan 45. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543886/1/45
  5. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary; with an English and Japanese Index, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1867, p. 169. Internet Archive japaneseenglishd00hepb. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb
  6. F. Brinkley, F. Nanjō and Y. Iwasaki, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 1896, p. 537, s.v. Kairō and Kairō-dōketsu. Internet Archive cu31924082117288. https://archive.org/details/cu31924082117288
  7. 斎藤秀三郎『熟語本位英和中辞典』, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, 正則英語学校出版部, Tokyo, 1915, s.v. better, cast and lot; the Harvard copy at HathiTrust, hvd.32044086539269. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044086539269
  8. Takenobu Yoshitarō, ed., Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, American edition, Harvard University Press, 1942, photolithographed from the printing of 1939, s.v. kairō-dōketsu.
  9. 詩經, 邶風 擊鼓, with the Mao preface, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/詩經/擊鼓
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  11. 朱熹, 詩經集傳 卷之二, 擊鼓, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/詩經集傳/卷之二
  12. 詩經, 王風 大車, with the Mao preface and 毛傳, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/詩經/大車
  13. 朱熹, 詩經集傳 卷之二, 大車, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/詩經集傳/卷之二
  14. 詩經, 鄭風 女曰雞鳴, at Wikisource, and 朱熹, 詩經集傳 卷之三 on the poem. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/詩經/女曰雞鳴
  15. 陳壽, 三國志 卷三十四, 先主甘皇后傳, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/三國志/卷34
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  19. 保元物語評釋, 1913, 鳥羽院崩御ノ事, p. 11, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925166/1/24
  20. 平治物語, in 有朋堂文庫, 1913, scan 84. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913627/1/84
  21. 平康頼, 宝物集, print of 1661, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2567385/1/8
  22. 撰集抄, early print, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543927/1/29
  23. 源平盛衰記 卷二十五, in 日本文学大系 16, 1926, scan 34. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018065/1/34
  24. 源平盛衰記 卷四十八, 女院六道, in 日本文学大系 16, 1926, scan 439. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018065/1/439
  25. 太平記 卷十一, 越前牛原地頭自害の事, 大町桂月 校, 1911, pp. 330–331, scan 171. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/877607/1/171
  26. 太平記 卷十一, print of 慶長8 (1603), scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8943158/1/25
  27. 楊貴妃, in 謡曲集, 有朋堂文庫, 1914, scan 67. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913546/1/67
  28. 浦島太郎, in 御伽草子 後, 1891, scan 95. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992892/1/95
  29. 一条兼良, 花鳥余情, on 葵, scan 77. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2551179/1/77
  30. 謡抄 第七冊, 籠太鼓, 慶長 print, scan 3. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544646/1/3
  31. 太田全斎, 俚言集覧, edition of 1900, scan 243, citing 世話尽 (1656). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991569/1/243
  32. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典, 1910, scan 126. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2938227/1/126
  33. 近松門左衛門, 鑓の権三重帷子 (1717), 中之巻, in 近松門左衛門全集 卷七, 1924, pp. 602–603, scan 319. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970017/1/319
  34. 舟木伝内, 料理無言抄, manuscript, scans 85–86. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2557694/1/85
  35. 和魯通言比考, 1857, scan 66. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3464024/1/66
  36. 大槻文彦, 言海, 1889, かいらう and かいらうどうけつ, scan 155. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992954/1/155
  37. 曲亭馬琴, 椿説弓張月 續編卷之五, in 有朋堂文庫, scan 233. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2218940/1/233
  38. 宝寿玉岩井模様, 1821, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9893382 · 江戸紫春乃曙, 1830, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10301016 · 童絵解万国噺, 1861, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2559378
  39. 作文捷径 : 和漢日用, 1876, scan 51. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/864766/1/51
  40. 高橋達郎 抄訳, 泰西礼法, 1878, scan 87. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/759146/1/87
  41. 丹波 and 柴田, 普通動物学, 1883, scan 211. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/832886/1/211
  42. 大日本水産会報告, June 1889, National Diet Library pid 1761439, and 日本之殖産, July 1889, pid 1551812 (full-text snippets; the pages are not served outside Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1761439
  43. 市島春城, 小精廬雑筆, 1933, §104 偕老同穴, pp. 372–374, scan 200. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1234347/1/200
  44. 山田美妙, 日本大辞書, 1893, かいらう·どうけつ, scan 204. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902835/1/204
  45. 帝国大辞典, 1896, かいらう-どうけつ, scan 182. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2387590/1/182
  46. 辞林, 1907, かいらう-どうけつ, scan 110. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/863016/1/110
  47. 福沢諭吉, 福翁百話, 第二十 一夫一婦偕老同穴 (1897), printing of 1907, p. 72, scan 47. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1082748/1/47
  48. 夏目漱石, 吾輩は猫である, chapter 11, at Aozora Bunko. https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000148/files/789_14547.html
  49. 最高裁判所裁判集 民事 49, March 1961, scan 107. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1674003/1/107
  50. 「偕老同穴（かいろうどうけつ）とは夫婦が仲睦まじいこと！意味やスピーチ例をご紹介」, Oggi.jp, 小学館, 3 October 2024. https://oggi.jp/7298184
  51. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. IV, The She King, 1871; reprint Hong Kong University Press, 1960, the odes of Pei, 擊鼓, and of the Royal Domain, 大車.
  52. Paul Ehmann, Die Sprichwörter und bildlichen Ausdrücke der japanischen Sprache, Tokyo, 1897, no. 1123. Internet Archive bub_gb_TbsIAQAAMAAJ. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_TbsIAQAAMAAJ
  53. Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1937, p. 113 (擊鼓) and no. 58 (大車).
  54. Burton Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, Columbia University Press, 1984, p. 29.
  55. Wikipedia, Venus' flower basket, first revision, 21 November 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1782067
  56. JMdict, 「偕老同穴」. https://jisho.org/word/偕老同穴
  57. 金安老, 希樂堂文稿 卷七下, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/希樂堂文稿/卷七下
  58. 盧守愼, 穌齋集 卷九, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/穌齋集/卷九

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

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