The paper represents an attempt to figure out the specificity of the transformation of metaphors in Russian translations of William Butler Yeats's verse. While analysing this, we rely on the early poems by Yeats, written from 1889 to 1914, and their Russian translations by Grigory Kruzhkov. We regard Yeatsian metaphors through the prism of esoteric philosophy. Referring to historians of alternative religions, we define esotericism as a syncretic system of religious and philosophical doctrines and practices, predominantly characterised as secret and inaccessible. The esoteric element within Yeats's system of interwined poetics and style is regarded as a bilateral linguistic sign - with its own signified (motifs as recurring meanings) and signifier (metaphors as tropes based on similarity). In other words, metaphor - a bright feature of Yeats's style expresses esoteric motifs. Due to the cryptic character of Yeats's verse, it makes sense to divide esoteric metaphors into closed and open ones - according to the contextual clarity. The mechanism of a closed metaphor is based on the clear connection between comparison subject and comparison object, which are expressed via parameter word and argument word respectively. An open metaphor (a symbol), on the contrary, is empty of direct verbal markers of the comparison object. Closed and open metaphors in early Yeats's verse reflect four esoteric motifs linked to the ontology and ethics of the three doctrines, namely, Theosophy, Hermetism and Rosicrucianism. Those four motifs can be described as 'the interaction between the Seen and the Unseen', 'the importance of self-improvement and spiritual enlightenment', 'the sacralisation of Beauty', 'the integration of the world religions and cults'. Early Yeats's esoteric metaphors are quite thoroughly reconstructed by the Russian translator. Despite this fact, the detailed analysis reveals significant translation transformations - the changes of parameter word, argument word and/or syntagmatically related words. These changes cause subsequent alterations of the poetic information. The translation transformations of Yeats's metaphors can be described as four different groups: extension, interchange, addition, and substitution. As a result, the Russian translations become more expressive, concrete, visualised than the original texts. Grigory Kruzhkov pays more attention both to the emotional colouring of verse and its style in general, whereas the meaning (be it esoteric motif or any other piece of meaning) seems to have minor importance.
