- English translation
Only my own pot does me any good: I eat my fill, and if it drips down my front, no one has a word to say.
- Literal wording
Nothing benefits me except my own pot; I eat, and I spill onto my chest.
- Meaning and lesson
The speaker values their own cooking pot, qidr, the vessel their food was cooked in, above any other. From it they can eat their fill, and if food spills onto their chest (sidr, a colloquial form of sadr), nobody objects, because the pot is theirs alone. The spilling signals freedom, not clumsiness. The endings qidri and sidri rhyme.
More broadly, the saying holds that real enjoyment comes only from what a person owns, not from what belongs to someone else, even when its use is permitted. What is one's own can be used freely and without worry, even when the use is careless or less than tidy.
- When it is used
Say it when someone turns down a generous offer to use another person's things and prefers what is truly theirs, even if the other's things are freely permitted. It fits frank remarks about independence and ownership, often said with gentle humor.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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