- English translation
Warned that he would be changed into something else as punishment, the monkey answered, 'Then they'll turn me into a gazelle.'
- Literal wording
They said: 'O monkey, they are going to transform you.' He said: 'They are going to make me a gazelle.'
- Meaning and lesson
The saying points to a condition already at the very bottom. A monkey, imagined as the ugliest of creatures, cannot be punished by a change of bodily form into anything worse, so any threatened transformation could only improve it. The joke lies in the monkey calmly treating a curse as a favor.
Applied to people or situations, it marks something so poor in looks, character, or circumstance that threats of change lose their force. Whatever happens next can only be better, so warnings and punishments ring hollow to whoever is already at the lowest point.
- When it is used
Use it, often wryly or mockingly, about someone or something so bad that no threatened change could make matters worse. It can also voice the defiance of a person with nothing left to lose. Applied to a person, it carries a clear insult.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Warned that he would be changed into something else as punishment, the monkey answered, 'Then they'll turn me into a gazelle.'