# Antiaris

Эмиль Шарафутдинов

Перевод стихотворения А. С. Пушкина "Анчар" на английский язык.


Amidst a desert barren country,

Upon the scalding earth,

Antiaris*, like a menacing sentry,

Stands all alone in the whole universe.


The wold's emaciated nature

Begot it on a day of wrath

And filled its branches' dead verdure

And roots with fluids venomous.


The poison trickles through its bark,

At midday melting in the sun,

And freezes, as it grows dark,

In transparent and viscid gum.


Of birds thither flies none,

Nor comes a tiger - only a whirlwind harsh

Upon the tree of death will run

And forth already putrid rush.


And if a wandering cloud sprinkles

The tree's rampant leaves,

The rain already poisoned trickles

Upon the ardent sand beneath.


But by a man a man was sent

To the antiaris on an errand,

And he obediently went,

And with the poison he returned.


Indeed the deathly gum he brought

And faded leaves upon a bough,

And down perspiration poured

In cold streams from his pallid brow.


He brought - and weakened and he lied

Upon a mat under a marquee's vault,

And there, the poor slave, he died

At the feet of an unconquerable lord.


And with the poison thus obtained

The king imbued his loyal darts,

With which destruction then he sent

To neighbors into foreign parts.


* The Poison Tree. (Alexander S. Pushkin"s note.)