- English translation
Offering condolences a year late only opens the old wounds again.
- Literal wording
O you who console me after a year, O you who renew the sorrows!
- Meaning and lesson
The saying mocks any gesture that arrives after its proper moment has passed. Condolences belong to the days right after a death. Offered a full year later, they no longer comfort anyone and look more like a careless afterthought than real concern.
The second half of the line adds a sharper image: a badly timed kindness can pull a person back into a grief they had begun to put behind them. This gives the reproach extra force, but the core point remains bad timing; the saying need not imply that every late gesture causes pain.
- When it is used
Use it as a pointed reply when help, apology, sympathy, or a gesture comes long after it was needed and seems pointless. It suits informal speech and can sound reproachful or sarcastic. Because its imagery comes from mourning, avoid using it lightly around someone actually grieving.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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