亲戚或余悲

親戚或餘悲

qīnqīhuòyúbēi

phrase

Meanings

1 relatives may still feel some sorrow
2 (fig.) after death, even close family grieve only briefly; life goes on without us
3 (lit.) relatives perhaps have leftover grief

Characters

relative (亲戚 = relatives)

Examples

他读到亲戚或余悲这一句，忽然对生死有了新的体悟。

Tā dú dào qīnqī huò yú bēi zhè yī jù, hūrán duì shēngsǐ yǒule xīn de tǐwù.

Reading the line 'relatives may still feel some sorrow,' he suddenly gained a new understanding of life and death.

陶渊明说亲戚或余悲，他人亦已歌，真是看透了人情。

Táo Yuānmíng shuō qīnqī huò yú bēi, tārén yì yǐ gē, zhēn shì kàn tòu le rénqíng.

Tao Yuanming's 'relatives may still feel sorrow, others have already moved on singing' sees human feelings through to the bone.

Tips

history

From 陶渊明《拟挽歌辞》其三 (Tao Yuanming, 'Imitation Funeral Songs,' no. 3, Eastern Jin, c. 427 CE): 亲戚或余悲，他人亦已歌。死去何所道，托体同山阿 (Relatives may still feel some sorrow; others have already moved on and sung. Once dead, what is there to say? The body is entrusted to the hills). Tao wrote these songs imagining his own funeral shortly before his death — a calm, almost wry meditation on death.

usage

Almost always paired with the next line 他人亦已歌 — the contrast between lingering family grief and the world's quick forgetting is the point. A standard reference in Chinese writing on mortality and memory.

Stroke Order

亲 qīn

戚 qī

或 huò

余 yú

悲 bēi