In what dread expanse I behold the Slave apart from Man, One, like the sun in a clear sky, the Other as gloomy as the earth

In what dread expanse I behold
The Slave apart from Man,
One, like the sun in a clear sky,
The Other as gloomy as the earth.
One is everything, the other a nullity,
If only he had known his slavish duty,
Had questioned nature; had examined
Who is to blame for all his misfortunes?
Then with that very same hand
He would have torn off the chains he himself had put on.

Literal translation

An excerpt from the poem "Man", 1805, by Ivan Petrovich Pnin (1773–1805)

Illustration: The file on the submission of the Saint Petersburg Censorship Committee to the Trustee of the Saint Petersburg Educational District, Count Stroganov, on the prohibition of Ivan Petrovich Pnin's work "An Essay on Enlightenment with Respect to Russia" as conducive to the "inflaming of minds"

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

In what dread expanse I behold the Slave apart from Man, One, like the sun in a clear sky, the Other as gloomy as the earth

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s