Math and Translation

Terza Rima is a rhyme scheme made famous by Dante Aligheri in "The Divine Comedy," where the poem is broken up into 3-line "paragraphs." In Italian, it uses a chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D. This is apparently child's play in Italian but stupidly ridiculous in English. Every translator of the "Inferno" has had to deal with this problem and it's kind of like Fermat's Last Theorem in mathematics. 


Except where the famous theorem eventually got solved, nearly every translator of terza rima has had to cheat. And I told you that to share this:

Terza Rima

Richard Wilbur

In this great form, as Dante proved in Hell, 
There is no dreadful thing that can't be said 
In passing. Here, for instance, one could tell


How our jeep skidded sideways toward the dead 
Enemy soldier with the staring eyes, 
Bumping a little as it struck his head,


And then flew on, as if toward Paradise.