- English translation
All that packing and unpacking, and for what? You set out riding a camel and came home riding a cat!
- Literal wording
Oh, this loading up, oh, this setting down! You went off on a camel and came back on a cat.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying mocks a person who throws great energy into a venture meant to lift them higher, only to end up lower than where they began. Its opening cries pretend to marvel at all the loading and unloading while ridiculing its pointlessness. The camel and the cat mark a fall in standing or fortune, not literal travel.
Beneath the mockery lies a point about wasted ambition. The trouble produced the opposite of what was sought, so the speaker implies the person would have been better off never starting. It ridicules misplaced striving more than misfortune, stressing how a costly effort left someone diminished rather than raised.
- When it is used
Use it to tease or criticize someone who made a great effort to improve their position and came out worse than before. It is informal and openly sarcastic; aimed at another's failure it can sound like gloating, so use it with care, or at oneself as rueful self-mockery.
- Register
- Colloquial; sarcastic and mocking
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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