Proverb of the day: They told Goha "count your sheep." He said, “one is standing and one is lying down.” قالوا لجحا عد غنمك، قال واحدة قايمة وواحدة نايمة

Ahram Online , Friday 11 Sep 2015

They told Goha "count your sheep." He said, “one is standing and one is lying down”

sheep
Reuters
 

 قالوا لجحا عد غنمك، قال واحدة قايمة وواحدة نايمة

Alo le Goha edd ghanamak, al wahda ayma we wahda nayma

Translation: They told Goha "count your sheep." He said, “one is standing and one is lying down.”

 

Meaning: This proverb is still used to signify that one’s means are so modest that there is no need to bother with them. Goha, a fictionalised medieval character with an uncanny ability to use simple logic, won’t say that he owns two sheep because it is just as easy to describe them. 

Source: Egyptian Proverbs, (Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publishing, 1986) by Ahmed Taymour Pasha,

 Translated by: Nabil Shawkat

 
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