I've worked on this translation on and off since I was maybe 13 and began translating poems. It was one of the earliest I attempted, and of course I've revised it a lot ever since. The Russian title of this poem just means "dagger." But it is hard not to think that the dagger envisioned by this poem is in fact the Caucasian khanjali.
![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mWWgaHOP3Rs/mqdefault.jpg)