"Il Bosco" (The Wood) by Giovanni Pascoli. English translation, with original Italian text. "Il Bosco" (The Wood) from the collection "Myricae" (1891-1900)

Girl in White in the Woods, August 1882, Oil on paper mounted on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, the Netherlands

The following translation of "Il Bosco" ("The Wood") by Giovanni Pascoli is from the book "The Poems of Giovanni Pascoli: Translated in English, with Original Italian Text," published by LiteraryJoint Press (2017). Also available as Amazon ebook (Free on Kindle Unlimited!)  

 

The Wood

Oh, old wood full of arbutuses,

which smells of mushrooms and casts a spell,

which I already heard ringing loud

with invisible cicadas and birds:

within you live the mischievous fauns

at the mercy of which are airs that whisper;

lives the nymph, who the slow steps spies,

her blonde hair in the flickering shadows.

At dawn, through the brushwood the nymphs 

appear at times, if the desire wins them over,

some the eye catches, and the sun kisses.

And they disappear; yet alive is the thicket,

always alive in the flowers of the periwinkle

and in the great wisps of the acacia shrubs.

Il Bosco

O vecchio bosco pieno d'albatrelli,

che sai di funghi e spiri la malìa,

cui tutto io già scampanellare udia

di cicale invisibili e d'uccelli:

in te vivono i fauni ridarelli

ch'hanno le sussurranti aure in balìa;

vive la ninfa, e i passi lenti spia,

bionda tra le interrotte ombre i capelli.

Di ninfe albeggia in mezzo alla ramaglia

or sì or no, che se il desio le vinca,

l'occhio alcuna ne attinge, e il sol le bacia.

Dileguano; e pur viva è la boscaglia,

viva sempre ne' fior della pervinca

e nelle grandi ciocche dell'acacia.

From the collection “Myricae” (1891-1900)