Quindi gli elettrici
Effluvi esalino,
Che i nervi e i muscoli
Urtino e scuotano,
E insinuandosi
Entro le cellule
Del molle cerebro
Sgombrin l’inerzia
E vi risveglino
Moto e vigor.

O i sensi ignavi
Offuschi e aggravi
Pesante e torpido
Crasso vapor.
E a chi s’interna
Nella caverna
Trasmuti ed alteri
Indole e umor.
Udiste? o incantamenti
Attendete più forti e più possenti?

Coro di spiriti (dal fondo della grotta): Perché t’infochi,
Con gridi rochi?
Perché ci evochi
Da i stigi lochi,
Gran ciurmator?

Trofonio: Se in quest’antro talun per una porta
Entri, e per l’altra sorta;
Il tristo in gaio, e il gaio
In tristo umor converta,
E se all’antro poi torni e v’entri e n’esca
Per l’opposto sentiero,
Torni all’umor primiero.
Così prescrive e vuole
Il poter di mie magiche parole.

Coro di spiriti: Qui stiam con irti
Orecchi a urdirti;
Lemuri e spirti
Ad obbedirti
Attenti ognor.

Giovanni Battista Casti (1724-1803)

Let electrical
emanations be emitted,
shocking and shaking
nerves and muscles,
and insinuating themselves
into the cells
of the flaccid brain,
let them cast out inertia
and reawaken
activity and vigour.

Or let them dull the lively
senses, and induce
heavy, sluggish,
foggy vapours.
And whoever enters
the cave, let them
transmute and alter
his temperament and mood.
Did you hear? Or are you waiting for
stronger, more powerful incantations?

Chorus of spirits (from the depths of the cave): Why fire yourself up
with raucous cries?
Why have you summoned us
from the Stygian depths,
O great deceiver?

Trofonio: If a person should enter this cave
by one door and leave by the other,
change the melancholic mood to merry
and the merry to melancholic.
And if he then comes back, and leaves
through the opposite door,
let the first mood return.
Thus it is prescribed, and thus decreed
by the power of my magic spells.

Chorus of spirits: Here we are, ears
pricked to hear you,
ghosts and spirits
ever attentive
to do your will.

English: Avril Bardoni © 2015