- English translation
When they told the man on the stake to mind his modesty, he answered: 'Let those who have a life to return to fret about such things.'
- Literal wording
They said to the impaled man: 'Have some shame.' He said: 'The one who is going back to the world is the one who weeps over it.'
- Meaning and lesson
A man dying by impalement, a cruel and graphic image, is urged to show modesty, a call to decorum rather than a charge of wrongdoing. He answers that worrying about how one looks in the world belongs to those who will go on living in it. Shame and reputation matter only to someone with a future among other people.
Applied more widely, the saying describes a person so far past recovery that social pressure no longer reaches them. It can explain why someone in a desperate situation disregards decorum. It can also mock people who lecture the doomed about manners while ignoring the catastrophe in front of them.
- When it is used
Use it when someone in a ruined or hopeless position is pressed to keep up appearances, or to explain why such a person ignores criticism. It has a grim, ironic edge and may sound callous if applied to someone who is actually suffering. Its execution imagery is graphic.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: When they told the man on the stake to mind his modesty, he answered: 'Let those who have a life to return to fret about such things.'