What would be the best idiom to express this in Chinese?
古人說得好。
What does this phrase mean?
Title of Kipling poem espousing traditional values
It’s kind of silly to look for the title of a poem in a foreign language… I mean wouldn’t that be like me asking: “What’s a good phrase to describe 紅樓夢” in English?
But then we’d never have “Dream of the Red Chamber.” Only “Red Building Dream.”
err, what I mean is OP is asking for an idiot to describe a poem title. That doesn’t really make sense to me. If you asked “how would you translate this poem title,” that’s fine. But the question is like, “What Chinese chengyu would you use to describe King Lear?” “文不加點”
It’s very strange to me.
Not traditional values per se. That’s not precisely the point of the poem. In fact, I’d use the phrase against some values that are considered traditional in many places.
What I’m looking for is a snappy idiom to express the idea that reality eventually intrudes on all comforting cultural delusions, with the additional connotation that there were wise men of old who knew better, because some facts of life are constant through the ages.
Yeah, I get it. I was just giving Hok the Cliffnotes version. Still can’t think of anything better than 古人說得好. Kind of like the opposite of 食古不化.