मृत्युः सर्वहरश्चाहमुद्भवश्च भविष्यताम्।कीर्तिः श्रीर्वाक्च नारीणां स्मृतिर्मेधा धृतिः क्षमा॥
mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham udbhavaś ca bhaviṣyatāmkīrtiḥ śrīr vāk ca nārīṇāṃ smṛtir medhā dhṛtiḥ kṣamā
Word by word
The verse says
I am the ending that carries all away, and the origin of what is yet to come. Among the qualities called feminine I am fame, prosperity, fine speech, memory, intelligence, firmness and patience.
In plain words
Both ends again, in one line, as in Chapter 9.
What carries everything off, and what brings the next thing in.
Then seven qualities, named as a group, and six of the seven are ordinary human capacities anybody can recognise in somebody they know.
Where you've felt this · in growing older
Your grandmother can still recite a list of names from a village she left sixty years ago, in order, with who married whom. She cannot always find her reading glasses. The memory is not a trick she practises. It is simply one of the things she has, the way some people have a good sense of direction.
Going deeper
Seven qualities are named here, and the interesting thing is how undramatic most of them are.
Fame and prosperity are large. Memory, intelligence, firmness and patience are not — they are the capacities that get people through a week, and nobody writes hymns about them. Putting them in a list of divine glories alongside the end of all things is characteristic of this chapter, which keeps setting the cosmic and the domestic in the same sentence without apology.
The pairing at the start is the one to sit with. The thing that takes away and the thing that brings in are named as one.
That was said in Chapter 9 too, and it is worth hearing twice. If both ends belong to the same source, then an ending is not a failure of the arrangement, and the next thing is not compensation for it. They are the same movement, described from two sides.