XVII + 

The house is crammed. A thousand lamps + 

On pit, stalls, boxes, brightly blaze, + 

Impatiently the gallery stamps, + 

The curtain now they slowly raise. + 

Obedient to the magic strings, + 

Brilliant, ethereal, there springs + 

Forth from the crowd of nymphs surrounding + 

Istòmina the nimbly-bounding; + 

With one foot resting on its tip + 

Slow circling round its fellow swings + 

And now she skips and now she springs + 

Like down from Aeolus’s lip, + 

Now her lithe form she arches o’er + 

And beats with rapid foot the floor. + 