"Scourge" is employed in literature both as a literal implement of punishment and a metaphor for widespread affliction. In its literal sense, the term occasionally connotes the physical whip used in self-punishment or coercive discipline, as when characters are described enduring lashings [1][2][3]. At the same time, it functions powerfully to depict broader calamities—whether war, pestilence, or societal decay—as destructive forces afflicting humanity or empires, seen in descriptions of war as the “greatest scourge of mankind” and of oppressive regimes as the scourge of civilization [4][5][6][7]. The word's dual capacity to describe both tangible violence and abstract misery allows it to pervade works from religious scriptures and classical epic poetry to modern narratives, underscoring a universal image of suffering and retribution [8][9][10].