- English translation
By the time the unlucky one is finally ready, the market has already packed up.
- Literal wording
By the time the bleary-eyed woman has lined her eyes with kohl, the market will have emptied out.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying is aimed at a person whose bad luck never seems to lift. Whatever such a person sets out to do, misfortune comes along too, so their efforts keep ending in disappointment rather than reward.
Its image, where 'على ما' means 'by the time' rather than 'on what', pits a bleary-eyed woman's kohl against the market's closing: once she has finished, the trading is already over. That gap stands for the way a luckless person's chances slip away before they can be seized.
- When it is used
Apply it to someone whose ill fortune follows them into every undertaking, especially when an opportunity disappears just as they become ready for it, or when each fresh attempt runs into the same bad luck as before.
- Register
- Colloquial, dialectal Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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