- English translation
Even at death, they are still looking toward what they crave.
- Literal wording
The kites die with their eyes on the hunt.
- Meaning and lesson
Deeply rooted habits stay with a person to the very end. Just as the bird of prey keeps watching for game even as it dies, someone shaped by a long-standing practice or disposition does not shed it, however much time passes.
In the colloquial idiom, saying that someone's eye is on a thing means they crave it, not merely that they are looking at it. The kite's last gaze toward prey thus becomes a picture of appetite that outlasts everything else.
- When it is used
Use it of someone who keeps going back to a long-familiar habit or appetite, to suggest that a disposition formed over many years is unlikely ever to be given up.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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