Literal translation
the stone goes to the pile of stones
Meaning
money flows to those who already have it
Explanation
Pèiro means stone, and clapié, a word built on the root clap, highly productive in Provençal place names for rocky heaps, refers to the pile of stones, the mound where pebbles gleaned from fields are gathered; la pèiro vai au clapié thus literally translates as the stone goes to the pile of stones, an agricultural image of the daily gesture of adding each stone picked up to others of the same kind already piled together. In use, the expression means that money flows to those who already have it, or more broadly that like goes with like, the idea being that things of the same nature naturally tend to cluster together, just as stones inevitably end up on the pile. The word clapié itself does not appear as a standalone entry in the reference dictionaries; its kinship with clapiho, rubble, unambiguously confirms the sense of a pile of stones. The register is proverbial, tinged with social fatalism about the concentration of wealth or the natural clustering of like with like.