TERZA RIMA, ter'tsit rtyrna (It., third rhyme, triple rhyme). A verse form of Italian origin, of which the first and most notable use was made by Dante in the Dininu C'ammedia. Each stanza consists of three lines (usually hendeeasyllables) with two rhymes; lines 1 and 3 repeat the middle rhyme of the preceding stanza, and thus the series of stanzas is closely interwoven. The series or canto is closed by a single line rhyming with the mid verse of the foregoing stanza. The whole scheme may be represented in this way: a b a, b e h, e d e . . . y z y z. Ordinarily the end of a stanza, coincides with a pause in the thought, but so cohesible is the form that in the canto the strophic individuality may escape notice. There are several theories as to the development of the terza rima ; it is doubtless /:iced on an earlier form, but rather on the serrentese (Provencal sirrentis) than on the ritornello. Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was much under the influence of Ital ian models, introduced the stanza into English, choosing it for three satires. Sir Philip Sidney
experimented with it in his Arcadia, and :Milton tried it in a version of the second Psalm. There have been some attempts to preserve the original metre of the Dirina in English trans lation, notably by Byron, who made a version of the Francesca episode in the Inferno-. Byron's Prophecy of Dante is also written in terza rima. The best English specimen of this difficult stanza is Shelley's Ode to the West Wind. Con sult: C'assini, Sully forme metriebr italianc (2d ed., Florence, 1890) ; Stengel, Vers Ielu•e," in Groeber's Grundris.s der eoma,iscla, Philologie (Stras-doirg, 1893, vol. ii., part. i.) ; II. Schuchardt, Ritornen and Ter:inr (Halle, 1875) ; G. Paris, in Romania, N'01. iv. ( Paris, 1S75) ; and Alden, English Verse (New York, 1903),