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此情可待成追忆

此情可待成追憶
cǐ qíng kě dài chéng zhuīyì
quotation

Meanings

  1. 1 could this feeling have waited to become a memory?
  2. 2 a love or moment that was already fading even as it happened
  3. 3 (lit.) this feeling, could it be waited, to become a recollection?

Examples

多年后翻看老照片，此情可待成追忆，只是当时已惘然。
Duōnián hòu fān kàn lǎo zhàopiàn, cǐqíngkědàichéngzhuīyì, zhǐshìdāngshíyǐwǎngrán.
Years later, flipping through old photos — could this feeling have waited to become a memory? At the time, it was already bewildered.
青春易逝，此情可待成追忆。
Qīngchūn yì shì, cǐqíngkědàichéngzhuīyì.
Youth passes quickly — could this feeling have waited to be a memory?

Tips

history
Closing couplet of Li Shangyin's (李商隐, Late Tang) 《锦瑟》: 此情可待成追忆，只是当时已惘然。(Could this feeling have waited to become a memory? — at the time it was already lost in haze.) The poem, famous for its obscure imagery of a zither, butterflies, and pearls weeping under moonlight, is widely read as a lament for vanished love or lost ideals.
usage
可待 is a rhetorical 'could it have waited?' — meaning 'no, the feeling was already passing into memory even as it was happening.' Deeply melancholic; don't use for trivial nostalgia.

Stroke Order

此 cǐ
情 qíng
可 kě
待 dài
成 chéng
追 zhuī
忆 yì