As a native english speaker, the english translation of this sentence makes no sense to me, and it seems to be different from the Chinese version. (Maybe you want to say "give up IN your vain pursuit"?)
IMO, "give up your vain pursuit" is okay. Repeating "give up" also seems to be okay. Another way to render this would be "Give up! Give up your vain pursuit!" if the pause is longer, but the comma works if a short pause is meant, which seems to be the case here.
This translation is a modified variant of
http://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-ha...B7%B2%E8%80%8C
I guess, James Legge was competent enough in English :)
I admit that I am fully incompetent in classical Chinese, but can you really translate 已而 as "give up your vain pursuit"?
The latter carries quite a lot of meaning, while 已而 is just two characters... Is it a sort of classical 成语?
Actually, looking at it again now, give up your vain pursuit seems okay, sorry about that
成语 most probably not (supposing that the madman's song to Confucius, whence the quote, was not known proverbially). I was about to agree that Legge overdid it, but then I checked again the basic meanings of 已
http://old.zhonga.ru/character/cn/160709
The translation is justifiable. In the context of the notorious vagueness of classical Chinese))
@mark1003 No problem :)
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This sentence was initially added as a translation of sentence #814504
added by shanghainese, March 28, 2011
linked by shanghainese, March 28, 2011
linked by roger_rf, March 25, 2012