To explain further in English -- this is a parody of a famous скороговорка (tongue-twister):

Ехал Грека через реку
Видит Грека в реке рак
Сунул Грека в реку руку
Рак за руку Греку цап!

Greka was going across a river.
Greka sees a crayfish in the river.
Greka stuck his hand in the river.
The crayfish pinched Greka's hand -- snap!
In the original "Greka" is a man's nickname, but in Novikov's parody, "Greka" becomes a Greek man (грек) -- and we hear the courtroom testimony of the Greek, his horse, and the crayfish.

So, here's my translation... I won't even try to do it in rhyming verse!

Explanatory testimony of the victim (a Greek)

Once on a wonderful summer day,
I rode onto a bridge, where the highway ended.
I look down, and crawling out of the watery expanses
Came a gigantic crayfish with the ugly face of a bandit!

And rudely grabbing the reins of my mare,
He said to me (in nothing but cuss-words!):
"So what the hell are you traveling here for, you lowlife?
Get out of here! Go back, and step lively!"

Smiling slightly, with calm decorum,
I answer him in a civilized way,
Saying that "I'm a foreign man,
Could you explain this all to me more calmly?"

But the crayfish, grabbing my hand with his pinchers,
Spits in my face and shoves my horse.
We fall in the river and only from fright
My horse broke something, throwing me off.

And so, what happened? These were all ruined:

(1) A harness
(2) Пропитка [don't know what this means here -- maybe the "polish" on the leather saddle?]
(3) And a pair of shorts that my grandpa used to wear!

I'm not lying!!!
But if this crayfish will compensate me for the ruined items, I can forget this whole episode.

Testimony of the Crayfish

On that day, I was sitting under the bridge, relaxing.
Our brother the crayfish doesn't like such heat!
At this point, along comes a Greek --
Who are famous for their love of pranks and fighting.

To keep it short, that Greek rides up to the bridge,
Climbs down from his horse, sticks his hand in the water,
Stirs it up, and briefly put, starts bothering me,
So that I can't relax here. And, he's yelling at the top of his lungs!

I say to him, with calm decorum:
"Cease your rowdiness. It will lead to bloodshed..."
So, using his sheepskin jacket as a net,
He starts trying to catch me under the bridge.

Lacking the willpower to tolerate such indignity and torture,
And also because the Greek had gotten my nice mud all dirty,
I gleefully pinched his hand.
Am I sorry? Of course... I'm sorry that I didn't pinch him harder!

But the Greek pretended that it was, like, really painful.
And fell into the stream along with his horse,
While cursing in a most improper fashion.
He broke my house AND the gazebo next to it.

And if the Greek isn't a complete pig of a man,
Let him build me a new house,
And give me his horse. [Okay, here's where I began to lose sympathy for the crayfish. Of course he has a justifiable claim for the replacement of his house and gazebo, but he also demands the HORSE in punitive damages?! This is why "tort reform" is such a hot political issue in America. --Th.M.]

From the court interrogation of the eyewitness (a horse)

I will not philosophize at length here.
Comrades! Both of them are good guys:
They'd get drunk, they'd call me rude names like "camel,"
And they'd beckon me into the reeds -- for a kinky three-way, I guess.

Then they had a big fight. An understandable thing!
You don't wanna touch either a Greek or a crayfish when they're drunk.
But as far as which of them pinched whose hand,
And whose whatever was broken... is it the horse's fault?!

EPILOGUE

"I'm so bored and depressed,
And nobody will give me their hand,"
Grieved the crayfish under a sunken tree branch:
"I could gnaw on a hand for three days straight!"

"But people just walk on by... If only someone would
Drop his vodka-flask into my nice clean creek, but no!
I don't need a flask of vodka, I swear to God.
But I'd use a hand as frugally as I could
And chew on it for a long time, little-by-little."

"You might say that, supposedly, I don't like Greeks?
That's not true! I honestly don't give a damn about race --
I'll gladly put up with Jews, Arabs, and Blacks,
As long as a person isn't totally anorexic, with no meat on 'em!"

"But hark! In the distance, a sound fills the air,
And an echo flies over the river.
It looks like my long-lost friend is coming,
With his nibbled-off right hand!"

-- Ой, как я обожаю такой конец в рассказе: С оттенком оптимизма, но не "слишком по-голливудски." Кстати, если будут снимать фильм про эту историю, я надеюсь, что наймут РУССКОГО рака для роля, а не какого-то пиндостанского омара, бля...