Terza rima

**Terza rima** is a three-line rhyme scheme of Italian origin. The first line rhymes with the third one. The second line is free and can rhyme with a line in the next strophe.

Terza rima occurs in sonnets. Sonnets are often composed of two quatrains and two terza rimas, for example abba abba cdc dcd. This scheme can be found in many Italian, Spanish and Portuguese sonnets. This sonnet by the 16th century Portuguese poet Francisco de Sá de Miranda is a good example.
<poem>
_O sol é grande, caem co’a calma as aves,_
_do tempo em tal sazão, que sói ser fria;_
_esta água que d’alto cai acordar-m’-ia_
_do sono não, mas de cuidados graves._

_Ó cousas, todas vãs, todas mudaves,_
_qual é tal coração qu’em vós confia?_
_Passam os tempos vai dia trás dia,_
_incertos muito mais que ao vento as naves._

_Eu vira já aqui sombras, vira flores,_
_vi tantas águas, vi tanta verdura,_
_as aves todas cantavam d’amores._

_Tudo é seco e mudo; e, de mestura,_
_também mudando-m’eu fiz doutras cores:_
_e tudo o mais renova, isto é sem cura!_
</poem>

Usually terza rimas are linked to each other making long chain-like sequences. There is an extra line at the end of the sequence. The scheme of rhymes is: aba bcb cdc ded... xyx yzy z. Terza rimas are suitable for long poems. The best known example is The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Perhaps every child in Italy knows these lines by heart.
<poem>
_Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita_
_mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,_
_ché la diritta via era smarrita._

_Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura_
_esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte_
_che nel pensier rinova la paura!_

_Tant’è amara che poco è più morte;_
_ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,_
_dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ ho scorte._
</poem>
Spanish poet Bernardo de Balbuena, who lived in Mexico, wrote a long poem in terza rima named _Grandeza mexicana_
<poem>
_Oh tú, heroica beldad, saber profundo,_
_que por milagro puesta a los mortales_
_en todo fuiste la última del mundo;_

_criada en los desiertos arenales,_
_sobre que el mar del sur resaca y quiebra_
_nácar lustroso y perlas orientales;_

_do haciendo a tu valor notoria quiebra,_
_el tiempo fue tragando con su llama_
_tu rico estambre y su preciosa hebra;_
</poem>

In Britain Robert Browning used terza rima in _The Statue and the Bust_:

<poem>
_There’s a palace in Florence, the world knows well,_
_And a statue watches it from the square,_
_And this story of both do the townsmen tell._

_Ages ago, a lady there,_
_At the furthest window facing the east,_
_Asked, “Who rides by with the royal air?”'

_The bridesmaids’ prattle around her ceased:_
_She leaned forth, one on either hand;_
_They saw how the blush of the bride increased._
</poem>

Percy Bysshe Shelley invented a sonnet built of fout terza rimas and a couplet. It rhymes aba bcb cdc ded ee. Shelley used it in _Ode to the Western Wind_. It consists of five sonnets. Let us look at the first one.
<poem>
_O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,_
_Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead_
_Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,_

_Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,_
_Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,_
_Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed_

_The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,_
_Each like a corpse within its grave, until_
_Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow_

_Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill_
_(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)_
_With living hues and odours plain and hill:_

_Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;_
_Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!_
</poem> American poet Robert Frost in his poem _Acquainted with the Night_ used aba bcb cdc dad aa scheme.

Jan Kasprowicz, who translated Shelley's poem into Polish, used this scheme in a work by his own. It is called _Cisza wieczorna_. (_Evening Silence_).

Another form composed of terza rimas is a villanelle. It is made up of nineteen lines. It rhymes  according to the scheme aba aba aba aba aba abaa. An example is _Do not go gentle into that good night'' by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.