«ما بال من أوله نطفة وجيفة آخره يفخر»
Why does one whose beginning is a drop and whose end is a corpse boast?
The prose saying warns against arrogance by pointing to the human being’s lowly beginning and mortal end. The verse gives that thought a measured, balanced literary form.
The rhetorical force lies not merely in repeating “drop” and “corpse,” but in shaping the contrast between beginning and end. The text attributes the earlier saying to ʿAlī; the attribution should not be confused with a Prophetic Hadith.