**The Author and the Robber** *Ivan Krylov* (tranlated by @grok ) In Hell’s dark halls, where only shadows stay, Two sinners came to judgment on one day. The first a robber was, who worked the road And ended on the gallows for that load. The second, famous everywhere, a writer Whose books poured poison, quiet, slow, and brighter. He planted unbelief and rooted vice, Sweet-voiced as any Siren—and as nice To hear, and just as fatal. Hell is swift: No long delays, no legal drift. The sentence fell at once. From iron chains Two great cast cauldrons hung above the plains. They set the guilty in those pots of iron. Beneath the robber rose a roaring pyre; Megaera lit it. Such a flame she raised The very stone of Hell’s high vaults was crazed. The writer’s lot looked lighter at the start: A little fire smouldered under his heart. But as it burned it grew, and would not tire. Ages went by; it only climbed the higher. The robber’s fire had long since died away; The writer’s worsened with each passing day. No ease in sight, he cried out in his pain That gods were unjust, deaf to just complaint: He’d filled the world with glory by his art; If he had written freely, for his part The punishment was far too sharp and long. He was no worse, he swore, than that first wrong. Then, snakes among her hair, a scourge in hand, One Fury of the three took up her stand. “Wretch! Will you blame Providence?” she said. “Will you rank this thief equal with the dead Who wrote as you have written? His offence Is nothing next to yours. His violence Could harm the world only while he drew breath. Your bones are dust—and still, after your death, No sunrise comes that does not show some ill Your pages first made possible, and will. The poison in your books does not grow weak; It spreads, and turns more savage week by week. Look!”—and she opened earth before his eyes— “See all the crimes and all the miseries Of which you are the cause. Those children there Who shame their homes and drive their parents to despair: Who poisoned mind and heart? Your words alone. Who mocked as childish dreams the marriage throne, The law, the magistrate, and laid the blame For every human grief upon their name, And tried to tear society’s bonds apart? You did. Who called unbelief a higher art— ‘Enlightenment’? Who dressed both lust and vice In colors fair enough to look like price Worth paying? Look: a country, drunk on you, Is full of murder, theft, and riot too, Of faction and revolt, and by your hand Is led toward ruin. Every tear that land Has shed, each drop of blood, is charged to you. And you dare raise your blasphemy anew Against the gods? How many evils still Will rise from books you cannot now unsay? Suffer. The measure here is what you made.” So spoke Megaera in her wrath, and then She slammed the iron cover down again.