- English translation
Salim, whose company have you been keeping? Some sick soul must have passed it on to you.
- Literal wording
Whom did you keep company with, O Salim, who was afflicted and infected you?
- Meaning and lesson
The saying uses sickness as a figure for bad character, not literal disease. A person whose conduct was once sound is asked, rhetorically, which afflicted companion passed the ailment along, implying that the change did not arise from within but was caught through close association with someone already morally unwell.
Its broader lesson is that upright people are not immune to the habits of those around them. Keeping company with the corrupt can gradually spoil even a good nature, so the proverb works both as a warning to choose friends carefully and as a comment on someone already showing the effects.
- When it is used
Applied, as a pointed rhetorical question rather than a plain statement, to a person of good character who has begun to behave badly, attributing the change to corrupt company. It suits discussions of how close associations can shape, and spoil, a person's conduct.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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