آخرة الحياة موت.
Akhret al-hayah mot.
Translation: The conclusion of life is death.
Meaning: There is no point in being afraid of the inevitable. The point is still valid today, but not with the same poignancy as it was a century or two ago. Famine and plague ravished the land, halving the population more than once in any given century. The trend was only reversed in the mid nineteenth century, due to improved hygiene and medicine. You may still be afraid of death today, but every time you buy a course of inexpensive antibiotic, remember that without these pills, stronger men and men had died young in their thousands not so long ago.
Translated by Nabil Shawkat
Source: Egyptian proverbs, (Al-Ahram Center For Translation and Publishing, 1986) by Ahmed Taymour Pasha,
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