¹ Sočinenija i pis'ma A. S. Puškina, ed. by P. O. Morozov (St. Petersburg, 1903), ii. 440–441.

² A. S. Puškin, Polnoe sobranie sočinenij, ed. by V. Brjusov (Moscow, 1919), i, 281. Brjusov does not give the title of the poem. The only poem I can find which fits the description given by Brjusov is “Le Mancenillier.” See C. H. Millevoye, œuvres completes, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1827), i, 144–146.

³ Puškin v mirovoj literature, “Puškin i Kol'rid.” (Leningrad, 1926), pp. 137–138. The quotation from the Academy edition is in volume one, page 762.

⁴ Literalurnoe nasledslvo, “Zametka ob ‘Ančare’,” xvi-xvii (1934), 869–876.

⁵ N. Izmailov, Puskin i ego sovremenniki, “Iz istorii Puškinskogo teksta ‘Ančar, drevo jada’,” xxxi-xxxii, 3–14.

⁶ I unfortunately have been unable to obtain a copy of Lesnyj's article; consequently I do not know how he presented his argument. Judging from the nature of the article and the journal in which it appeared, I presume that the author did not present the subject in a scholarly manner. The reference given by Izmailov is Ja. Lesnyj, V masterskoj prirody, “Otkuda Puškin zaimstvoval obraz ancara?” iv, 35.

⁷ Curiously enough, the two most recent and most detailed articles on this subject do not discuss Erasmus Darwin: See D. D. Blagoj, Akademiku Viktoru Vladimiroviču Vinogradu, “‘Ančar’ Puškina” (Moscow, 1956), pp. 94–116, which I came across after I had written my first draft, and V. G. Bogoljubova, Puškin, issledovanija i materialy, “Ešče raz ob istočnikax ‘Ančara’ ” (Moscow-Leningrad, 1958), ii, 310–323, which was printed after I had first submitted this article for publication.

⁸ There are various travel records which mention the upas tree. See, for example, André Cleyerus' and Speilman's article in the Ephémérides des curieux de la nature, décurie ii (1684), obs. 45 and 54. Other travel records important for this essay will be mentioned later. An inaugural dissertation

⁹ For example, in the pages of the Annales du Muséum d'histoire naturelle (1802-13), the same journal in which Thomas Jefferson published his description of a type of ploughshare (i, 322), one finds among other articles on Indian flora M. Leschenault's “Mémoire sur le Strychnos lieute et l‘Anliaris toxicaria, plantes vénéneuses de l‘île de Java, avec le suc desquelles les indigènes empoisonnent leurs flèches; et sur l'Andira harsfieldii, plante médicinale du même pays” (xvi, 459–482). This article, relatively free from elements of the fantastic, gives a history of the reputation of the tree to which Leschenault now, apparently for the first time, gives the name antiaris toxicaria.

¹⁰ J. J. Stockdale, Sketches, Civil and Military, of the Island of Java and its Immediate Dependencies ; comprising interesting details of Batavia, and authentic particulars of the Celebrated Poison-Tree (London, 1812).

¹¹ The London Magazine, i (Dec, 1783), 511–517.

¹² I have chosen to make Professor Lowes' words my own. See J. L. Lowes, The Road to Xanadu (New York, 1927), p. 464, n. 79.

¹³ See M. Charles Coquebert's article in the Bulletin des sciences de la Société Philomatique and Leschenault's article cited above. Also William Marsden, History of Sumatra, 3rd. ed. (London, 1811), pp. 110–111, and Thomas Horsfield, Transactions of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences (Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen), “The Oopas Tree,” VII (1814), 1–59.

¹⁴ The French version appeared in Mélanges de littérature étrangère, i, 63. The Russian adaptation can be found in Detskoe čtenie dlja serdca i razuma published in 1785. In this country only the second edition is available. The article appears there in vii (1819), 43–53. This Russian adaptation was reprinted in Muza, ii (1796), 183–186. The Foersch article apparently appeared four times in English: in The London Magazine, The Monthly Repertory, Stockdale's book, and Pennant's Outlines of the Globe, iv, 42.

¹⁵ J. V. Logan, The Poetry and Aesthetics of Erasmus Darwin (Princeton, 1936), p. 19.

¹⁶ Logan, pp. 19–20.

¹⁷ Lowes, pp. 18–19.

¹⁸ The two documents were included in all the editions of The Botanic Garden and in the separate editions of The Loves of the Plants. In this article I shall cite The Botanic Garden (New York, 1807), part ii.

¹⁹ Les Amours des plantes, poème suivi de notes et de dialogues sur la poésie, ouvrage traduit de l'Anglais … par J. P. E. Deleuze (Paris, 1800). All quotations from the French translation of Darwin's poem in this article will be from this edition.

²⁰ All quotations from the Russian texts come from volume three (both parts) of the Academy edition of Pushkin's works (1949). The finished poem is in part one, page 133. The variants are in part two, pages 693–701.

²¹ Pushkin was most probably the first to use the word ančar in Russian. (The word does not appear in the Russian translation of the Foersch article in Detskoe čtenie, as the Academy of Sciences' dictionary leads one to believe.) V. G. Bogoljubova suggests that Pushkin learned of the word (and of all the facts about the tree) from Leschenault's article cited above. But the form of the word there is antiar. Why would Pushkin render this in Russian as ančar? The two variant forms (antjar and anlschar) appear respectively in Raffles' and Crawfurd's Description of Java published in a French translation in 1824 (p. 24) and in Dr. Horsfield's article on the tree (see note 14). The English form anchor is used in a reprint of Horsfield's article in Raffles' History of Java (London, 1817). But it is unlikely that Pushkin consulted any of these more or less technical works. Horsfield's article, however, did appear in 1825 (Oct. 20, no. 126, pp. 536–537) in the Journal de St.-Pélersbourg politique et littéraire, a journal which Pushkin might very well have read. Or he might even have read Deschamps' “Notice sur le Pohon-Upas” (which refers to the tree as antjar), for it was reprinted in 1808 in the first volume of the popular series Annales des voyages. It was the second article in the volume; the first one was an intriguing travel report entitled “Voyage de Pétersbourg à Moscou.”

²² Bogoljubova points to this correspondence of terms in Leschenault and Pushkin, but she fails to note that Lesche-nault uses the phrase upas antiar to refer to the poison, not the tree. See Bogoljubova, p. 315, n. 10.

²³ There is another literary fact connected with the expression drevo smerti. After Pushkin published his liberal poem “Stansy,” he was answered by Katenin in a poem entitled “Staraja by?.” There the tsar is portrayed in a good light. In the poem he is compared to a sort of “tree of life” (neuvja-dajuščee drevo). Katenin sent Pushkin a copy of the poem; shortly afterwards Pushkin wrote “Ančar.” (See Blagoj, pp. 103–104.) There are similar stylistic and imagistic parallels with other works in Russian literature, especially Radiščev's “Vol'nosf ” and the two Russian versions of Millevoye's “Le Mancenillier,” one by A. R. and the other by Tumanskij. (See Blagoj, p. 101, n. 3).

²⁴ The later substitution of a tiger for a lion is not surprising, but the appearance of a deer as an alternate image is. Most likely Pushkin recalled this phrase, “the deer does not dare” (ne smeet lan‘), from his own poem Ruslan i Ljudmila where there appears the phrase lan’ ne smeet. It occurs in the sixth chapter in a descriptive passage which begins “In the remote silence of the burning steppes” (V nemoj gluši stepej gorjučix). This passage describes a valley where birds do not fly (ne v'jutsja pticy), where cool spring breezes do not blow (proxlada vešnjaja ne veet), and where everything around is silent (krugom vsë tixo). In portraying the “valley of Death” (in stanzas A and B), Pushkin was obviously reminded of this other valley he had described in his first major poetic work.

²⁵ On the question of Pushkin's knowledge of the English language and of Byron's poetry, see E. J. Simmons, English Literature and Culture in Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), pp. 281–296.

²⁶ Bogoljubova argues that Pushkin's reference to a branch with withered leaves comes from Leschenault's article where he speaks of “des branches fleuries.” Of course Foersch's reference to branches and dried leaves is more to the point. Also Bogoljubova asserts that in Leschenault there is given evidence of the possibility of going to the tree and returning. Hence she deduces from Leschenault the Pushkin variant “And he returned safely” (I vozvratilsja bezopasno). Again, in Foersch there is a report of people returning safely.

²⁷ Soviet scholarship has made much of the political overtones of Pushkin's lyric. There are many articles dealing with the word “tsar” (or “king,” car') in the last stanza. At the suggestion of the censors it was changed to “prince” (knjaz'). Poetically, of course, car' is the proper word, as it balances with its vehicle, ančar (Ančar—A Car'). It may be possible to connect the poem with the contemporary political events in Russia (which Blagoj attempts to do) or with the revolts in Java from 1825–30 (which Bogoljubova attempts to do); my concern here, however, is literary relationships, not political ones.

²⁸ Blagoj, in the article cited above, maintained that Pushkin obtained his material from the abridged Russian version of Foersch's article in Detskoe čenie. Of course, Pushkin may have read this version. But it could not have been the main source, for only about one-half of the “facts” in the article appear in the abridged form. Furthermore, the poem contains material found only in the thesis and the Darwin verse.