«فِي فَرَحْكُمْ أَبُصِّ وَارْجَعْ وِفِي غَمُّكُمْ لِيَّ التَّلَاتْ وِالْأَرْبَعْ»

The speaker protests an unequal relationship. When the others are celebrating, the speaker counts for little and stays only long enough to glance in before leaving. When misfortune comes, though, the same people turn to the speaker, who ends up shouldering the greater part of their burden.

The saying exposes people who remember someone only when they need help. Its closing words, arjaʿ and al-arbaʿ, rhyme, sharpening the contrast between joy and grief. The three and the four is a numerical figure for the larger share, not a literal count of tasks or days, and the tone is a complaint of being taken for granted.

Said by someone, often to relatives or close associates, who is invited only briefly to good occasions but expected to carry most of the work and worry whenever trouble arrives. It is a pointed reproach about one-sided, need-based attention, not a general remark on friendship.