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亦使后人而复哀后人也

亦使後人而復哀後人也
yìshǐhòurénérfùāihòurényě
phrase

Meanings

  1. 1 would cause later people once more to lament later people
  2. 2 the cycle repeats: those who come after will lament those who come after them
  3. 3 (lit.) also make later people again lament later people

Examples

若不吸取历史教训，亦使后人而复哀后人也。
Ruò bù xīqǔ lìshǐ jiàoxùn, yì shǐ hòurén ér fù āi hòurén yě.
If we don't learn from history's lessons, we'll make later generations mourn later generations all over again.
杜牧的警句"亦使后人而复哀后人也"，今天读来依然振聋发聩。
Dù Mù de jǐngjù "yì shǐ hòurén ér fù āi hòurén yě", jīntiān dú lái yīrán zhènlóng fākuì.
Du Mu's warning — 'we'll make later generations lament later generations' — still rings out today.

Tips

history
From Du Mu's (杜牧) Tang-dynasty fu 《阿房宫赋》 (Rhapsody on the Epang Palace). The closing warning: 『秦人不暇自哀，而后人哀之；后人哀之而不鉴之，亦使后人而复哀后人也』— 'the Qin had no time to lament themselves, and later people lamented them; if later people lament without taking the lesson, they too will make later people lament later people.' Written in 825 as a veiled warning to the Tang court against the extravagance that felled the Qin.
usage
The whole point turns on the repeated 后人 — each generation, failing to learn, becomes the mourned ancestors of the next. 也 is a classical sentence-final assertive particle. Quoted in policy and historiography whenever an old disaster is about to be repeated.

Stroke Order

亦 yì
使 shǐ
后 hòu
人 rén
而 ér
复 fù
哀 āi
也 yě