Literal translation
eyelids of a magpie
Meaning
small, insignificant things
Explanation
This expression describes trifling, inconsequential things. The literal image, 'a magpie's eyelids', plays on extreme smallness: a bird's eyelid is already tiny on a person's scale, and smaller still on a magpie, so this minuscule object becomes the emblem of anything that carries no real weight in a matter. It is used to deflate what someone presents as a problem or obstacle, in response to a complaint judged overblown, in a familiar and mocking register. The magpie, a chattering and thieving bird in Provençal folklore as elsewhere, reinforces the sense of something insubstantial, almost comic in its smallness. The construction pairing 'de' with two nouns joined by 'd'' follows a productive Provençal pattern for coining vivid phrases that name a negligible quantity, comparable to other turns of phrase built the same way.