Но в прошлом году я случайно наткнулся на удивительно точный перевод вступления к "Руслану и Людмиле" - "У лукоморья дуб зелёный"
http://tars.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Pa ... uslan.html
Walter Arndt wrote:An oak tree greening by the ocean;
A golden chain about it wound:
Whereon a learned cat, in motion
Both day and night, will walk around;
On walking right, he sings a ditty;
On walking left, he tells a lay.
A magic place: there winds his way
The wood sprite, there’s a mermaid sitting
In branches, there on trails past knowing
Are tracks of beasts you never met;
On chicken feet a hut is set
With neither door nor window showing.
There wood and dale with wonders teem;
At dawn of day the breakers stream
Upon the bare and barren lea,
And thirty handsome armored heroes
File from the waters’ shining mirrors,
With them the Usher from the Sea.
There glimpse a prince, and in his passing
He makes the dreaded tsar his slave;
Aloft, before the people massing,
Across the wood, across the wave,
A warlock bears a warrior brave;
[A grieving princess in a cell,
And faithful wolf that serves her well];
See Baba Yaga’s mortar glide
All of itself, with her astride.
There droops Kashchey, on treasure bent;
There’s Russian spirit… Russia’s scent!
And there I stayed, and drank of mead;
That oak tree greening by the shore
I sat beneath, and of his lore
The learned cat would chant and read.
One tale of these I kept in mind,
And tell it now to all my kind…
Куда уж нам до богоподобных критиков... 