Literal translation
he has nothing left but his eyes to weep with
Meaning
he's lost everything
Explanation
This expression, transparent in both French and Provençal, describes a person completely ruined, who has lost everything to the point that nothing remains to him except the ability to weep over his loss. The word for eyes also carries, depending on context, the sense of today, a homonymic coincidence in the language unrelated to the meaning intended here, which is indeed that of the organ of sight. To weep, a well attested verb, completes the image by underlining that even the grief expressed through tears becomes the sole remaining resource for this person stripped of all material goods. The expression works through a reversed enumeration: starting from the idea of total destitution, it keeps only, as a last marker, the organic capacity to cry, which by contrast underscores the full extent of the loss suffered. It is used to describe a complete ruin, often after a financial catastrophe, a lost lawsuit, or a brutal setback, in a compassionate register, close to lament or sorrowful observation.