Topsy-Turvy Land Part 5

First seek your neighbour, then build your house.

First get a companion, then go on the road.

Whoever dies in a strange land, dies a martyr.

When the judge is oppressive, the very air is, too. Don't cut your head off with your tongue.

Keep your dog hungry and he will follow you.

Leave off sin, then ask forgiveness.

Every horse knows its rider.

Talk is feminine, but a good answer is masculine.

With little food a bed tastes good.

A trotting dog is better than a sleeping lion.

Every girl is beautiful in her father's eyes.

His tongue is sweeter than dates but his hands are as hard as sticks.

There is no perfume after the wedding.

Clouds do not fear the barking of dogs.

A bird catches a bird.

Poverty is the mother of deceptions.

The fruit of haste is repentance.

That man is like the _Kaaba_; he goes nowhere but every one comes to him.

The tongue of a fool is the key to his destruction.

The needle clothes others but is itself naked.

If the owl were game to eat, the gunner would not have pa.s.sed by the ruined castle.

Happy is the man whose enemy is wise.

Time is stingy of honour.

The best generosity is quick.

If your neighbour is honey, don't lick him all up.

If you don't know a man's parents look at his appearance.

What a strange world if all wool were red!

Fall but don't bawl.

Your enemy will love you when the a.s.s becomes a doctor.

Wait, donkey, till the gra.s.s grows.

A loaned garment is not warm.

He is a hard man; his name is Rock, son of a Cliff.

The oppression of a cat is better than the justice of a rat.

While I was fis.h.i.+ng, I was caught.

A blacksmith came to shoe the Pasha's horse and a frog in the pond stuck out her foot too.

One nettle seed will ruin a garden.

Who speaks the whole truth will get a broken head.

What's the good of a house without food?

Ask experience but don't neglect the doctor.

She wears seven veils but has no modesty.

He fasted a year and breakfasted on an onion.

A false friend is an open enemy.

They gave me no food, but the smoke from their kitchen blinded me.

When the lion is away, the hyenas play.

They said to the blind man, throw away your stick; he replied, why desert an old friend?

Haste is of the devil; deliberation, of G.o.d.

They put the dog's tail in the press forty years, and when it came out it still had a curl.

Lucky days do not come in a bunch.

Look for a thing where you lost it.

Some of these resemble our own proverbs and others may perplex you at first. Of course they are all better in Arabic than in the translation.