“The crime of kings … destruction on the people brings”

“The crime of kings … destruction on the people brings” states a compact principle of political responsibility: royal wrongdoing spreads its consequences beyond the person who commits it. Its companion image, “The sinless die, as in the lake / The fish must perish with the snake,” gives that principle its sharpest form, showing the innocent caught in the destruction unleashed by another’s offence.

Wording and Meaning

The expression links a king’s crime directly to public ruin. Its force lies in the movement from ruler to people: the king may be the source of the wrong, but the consequences reach a wider community. The following comparison makes that unequal burden visible. In the lake, the fish perish along with the snake; in human affairs, the sinless suffer beside the guilty.

Narrative Context

The lines appear amid images of a fallen city: a stately pile and palace collapse, with terraces, domes, and jewelled walls brought down. The passage then turns from physical ruin to its human cost, declaring that the good die and the sinless perish. The saying therefore accompanies destruction rather than presenting an abstract maxim alone; its language connects the fall of royal splendour with the deaths of those who did not commit the offence.

Political and Ethical Force

The expression rejects the idea that a ruler’s wrongdoing can remain private or self-contained. The ruler’s power makes the consequences collective: subjects may bear the cost without sharing the guilt. The lake simile sharpens this contrast, since the fish are victims of the snake’s presence, not participants in its actions. Together, the lines frame royal misconduct as a danger to the innocent and make the suffering of ordinary people part of the measure of a king’s crime.