- English translation
They asked the camel to play the pipe, and he answered: 'I have neither lips pressed together nor fingers set apart.'
- Literal wording
They said to the camel, 'Play the pipe.' He said, 'There are no lips drawn together, and no fingers spread apart.'
- Meaning and lesson
The image is of a camel told to play a reed pipe. Its answer points to its own body: a thick lip that cannot purse around a mouthpiece and a solid hoof with no separate, spread fingers to cover the holes. The fingers it lacks are divided ones, not skilled ones. The request fails before it begins.
Applied to people, the saying targets the act of loading someone with a task they cannot perform well. It treats the demand as the problem, since the person asked simply lacks what the job requires, just as the camel lacks lips and fingers.
- When it is used
Use it when someone is being made to carry out a job that their abilities or natural makeup leave them unable to do well, highlighting that the demand itself is ill-suited to the person receiving it.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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