Dawn and Sunset of Life
The patriarch of Kyrgyz linguistics, Hussein Karasaev, wrote in his diary:
Fifteen years - a spring awakened at the cliff.
Twenty-five years - a bubbling spring.
Thirty-five years - an unbroken horse.
Forty-five years - a quiet, slow spring (a time of restraint and accumulation of property).
Fifty-five years - the pass of life (a person realizes - has life been wasted or are there results).
Sixty-five years - people returning from the jailoo (winter and gloom are ahead).
Seventy-five years - a grave that has sunk inward (health fades, vision weakens).
Eighty-five years - helpless prattling (on the lists there, but in calculations absent, an absent presence).
Ninety-five years - a mound over the grave.
These are words preserved since the times of our ancestors.
When death comes.
The light of the man dims - both eyes.
The wings of the man stretch out - his hands.
The body decays and returns to what it came from - dust.
When coming into the world, live in such a way as to leave a good mark in society.
Life
Since ancient times, Kyrgyz elders have said that a person lives through four periods in their life.
The first - life in the body of the father.
The second - life in the body of the mother.
The third - life on earth.
The fourth - life underground.
Friendship
A famous akyn wanted to share his newly written poem with his friend and, in the deep of night, wakes him up. The friend, annoyed at being awakened so early, asks:
- What time is it?
He replies:
- It’s three o'clock in the morning.
- So what do you need at this hour?
- To which the akyn responded:
- I thought our friendship was meant to last 24 hours a day.