The King’s Cat and The People’s Cat
Poet: Doan Thi Diem
When the tom-tom resounds,
Goes on board,
Letting tears fall like rain….
When the tom-tom resounds,
Goes on board,
Letting tears fall like rain.
The principal characters appearing in Chinh Phu Ngam do not belong to the lower classes.
She is the wife of a warrior who goes to war, crowned with glory. Yet this poem is not a warrior’s song, but a lament that begins with an invocation to the creator, and includes a painful reproach.
When sky and earth
Are caught in the whirl of a tempest,
Under the burden of misfortune, our rosy cheeks fade.
Tell us, far-off Heaven, indifferent blue sky,
Who the instigator of all those nameless trials is.
A reproach which is also addressed to the great of the world.
The country has experienced three hundred years peace,
But today,
The battle uniforms are given to the men.
We must obey, the order is imperious
Our poor feelings carry little weight!
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Yet she struggles with herself. As a warrior’s wife, she must be strong, in spite of her own feelings.
Although war strikes the warrior hard, it also brings him glory.
My husband, descendant of authentic heroes
Has put writing brush and ink slab aside without regret,
To carry out the profession of arms;
Swearing to annihilate the throne’s enemy,
He longs to take citadels by storm.
Your mantle is of crimson red
Brilliant as sunset’s hues
Your horse is white,
Dazzling as snow….
The author, whose writing sometimes has epic accents, very quickly relapses into a moving human lament.
Oh my husband!
Is it possible that we two should be torn asunder?
And that suddenly here our ways must part?
Oh! Willows growing by the way, do you know
The agony that torn me asunder, do you know?
He has gone far away under the rains and winds
I come back, alone to my nuptial chamber.
Her verses convey all the anxiety and tenderness of a woman but the expression of these feelings are not easily translated into English, a language that is too precise, too accurate.
And the woman follows her beloved in her imagination:
Where does he take a rest in these beautiful clear nights?
How many cols and valleys have you still to pass through?
Oh! Dreary regions for his nostalgic heart,
For him who had for such a long time worn the cuirass.
Suddenly the reproach bursts out against him for whom wars are waged.
Behind his curtains of bright brocade.
Is the Emperor aware of these sufferings?
Who will ever depict to him our soldier’s life?
You face serpents and tigers on your way.
You suffer the cold of mists and wind!
Whereas she says:
I am here without knowing where war has led you.
At all times, soldiers make light of their lives
As if they were no more than a wretched weed.
What wouldn’t one do to please one’s monarch?
The reproach this time is addressed to her beloved with a psychological nuance that is very delicate and specifically feminine.
A touch of jealousy is mixed in:
You prefer your king and your glory
To me who simply love you
She understands, however:
How hard it is to climb the path to glory.
There is always that dualism between the “warrior’s wife” and ‘the woman in love”.
To whom can I tell the trouble of my heart?
Making allusion to the woman’s fate at her time, she cries out:
Dear one, my Master, to shut myself away is my woman’s destiny.
Statement blended with sadness expressed in the following verse:
Is yours to spend life in the worlds wandering ways?
A controlled but deep anger breaks through:
I never dreamed to wed a warrior.
And an outburst of love.
You and I in the springtime of our life
Happy in love so tenderly shared,
A pair so young, so perfectly disposed,
Why have such distances been thrust between us,
Why are we stopped from sharing in our life
Each day between us all our joys and cares?
Lines expressing regret, but also a constant reproach, to those who by their wars destroy the happiness of family life, a simple life of mixed cares and joys.
A tone of great simplicity enhances the emotion. It becomes lyrical, a lyricism of daily reality, evoking birds and trees.
Will you remember the day of our farewell.
Below the willow-tree no singing oriole came
I asked when I could hope for your return
And you replied: “when cries the “Do quyen”
And now the oriole and the “Do quyen” both have aged,
About our court, the swallows have returned.
Do you remember now the day you went away
The apricot buds had scarcely opened to the Eastern wind,
And I asked, dear, when would you come back.
And you assured me when the peach trees bloom.
And peach blossom now is scattered on the wind
Already faded petals strew the river banks.
The parallelism of verses, words, verbs and colors accentuates the melancholy of these stanzas and makes them rather like a melody.
The elapsing seasons cradle the young woman’s sadness:
Only a passing wind fluttered my gown,
The river lapped the sand along the banks.
Not only does the poet have the secret of harmonies that can be felt even in translation, but she also has the gift of evoking images:
In my braided hair fell only the dead leaves
In the evening, I stay prostrate before my own shadow,
At night, my hair falling loose on the pillow,
I stay awake alone with the solitary moon
She knows how to choose everyday words, like all women. She is as much a woman of the people or of the palace as she is the wife of a lord:
I am ashamed of adjusting my dress
Of putting the broach
On my tousled hair,
My belt is too large for my waist!
I no longer make up, I speak to nobody.
For whom would I make myself pretty?
With the passing of time, she is overcome by fear of oldage:
Do you see? Even fair Van Quan herself
Is a pitiful sight when her hair becomes white
I am at an age when my beauty
Like a flower blossoms
How can one hold back?
Time, which flies unceasingly?
Oh! Cruel destiny! Where are my young days going?
Will I soon be an old lady devoid of charm?
This recalls the famous line of Ronsard:
“Vous serez au foyer une vieille accroupie”
(You will be an old .woman, crouched by the fireside)
But it is the woman, the Vietnamese Helene of the XVIIIth century, that launches the appeal:
“Cueillez des aujourdhui les roses de la vie”
(Gather ye rosebuds while ye may?)
Yet, the Chinh Phu Ngam ends on a note of moderation, a note of hope
The banners will leave the frontier
I’ll pour wine softly, in a cup,
I’ll recite my poems tenderly, in a murmur
And in our old age, we’ll live side by side
Our happiness will wash away
Years of infinite sadness and waiting!
In spite of this “happy ending”, conventional in Vietnamese classics, this long poem is bathed in an atmosphere of unutterable sadness.
Acceding to the customs of the time, the author locates the scene in ancient China and makes many allusions to Chinese geography, mythology and literature.
But it is certainly a Vietnamese woman who confides us her thoughts and feelings on the theme of war and peace.
Isn’t it remarkable that Vietnamese literature, which is so rich and various, has not brought forth epic poems extolling strength and war?
Chinh Phu Ngam, the only poetical work dealing with war, is rather a poem in favour of peace!
And protecting our love dearly,
We will enjoy the blessings of peace at last,
Oh! My husband! It’s in the hope of your early return
That I sing these verses so full of my tenderness
Peace, love, happiness: eternal aspiration of women, of mankind.
It is in these values that lay the universal message and the profound humanism of Chinh Phu Ngam.
The Wife of the Sub Prefect of Thanh Quan, the Bard of Nostalgia and Ruin
A grey March morning In Hanoi, under a drizzle which spreads thin veil over faces and things.
A certain melancholy clings to the trees of the avenue and pervades the voices declaiming the poem
“Crossing the Transversal Pass’
This traditional recital performed impromptu by the well-known singer of “Ca Tru” Thi Phuc, her pupil Kim Dung and the latter’s daughter Thu Huong. Each of the three generations gives its own rendering of this masterpiece of the Wife of the Sub-Prefect of Thanh Quan
On the Transversal Pass where the sun is sinking
Trees and plants weave thick foliage,
Rocks are dotted with flowers!
At the foot of the mountain, woodcutters bend under their bundles
Near the market at the river side, some huts
Nostalgic, the moon-hen cries: “cuoc, cuoc!”
In vain the wild partridge calls his mate: ‘gia, gia!”
I gaze at the immensity of the sky, of the mounts and water!
To whom, alas! can I confide my heart’s trouble?
An echo of two past centuries! The Transversal Pass, a part of the Truong Son buttress, this range of mountains along which the Ho Chi Minh Trail will run later, joining the East Sea.
This far away “march” of the country gives rise to nostalgic memories in the traveler’s mind.
Thi Hinh was born into the Nguyen family, in the suburban Hanoi Village of Nghi Tam. Her husband Luu Nguyen Co, a scholar, was awarded the rank of Licentiate at the triennial competition of 1821 and was appointed Sub-Prefect. Our poetess is known under the name of “The Wife of the Sub-Prefect of Thanh Quan”. She was a teacher in the royal harem.
As a woman, she was excluded from competitions and the mandarinate. But in her verses she illustrates her epoch by voicing her regret for the past.
To date, research has uncovered only a few of her poems, all in the same form: 8 seven foot line, a form both concise and supple, allowing delicate chiseling after the manner of the Italian sonnet.
Besides “The Transversal Pass’, another of her often mentioned poem: “Regrets for Old Thang Long”.
Among the archives of Hanoi, there is a plan of the town, which dates back to about 1490 under King Le Thanh Ton’s reign. Behind the high walls circled by the Red River, the River To Lich flowed through the town, near wide moats stood temples, pagodas and palaces. But Thang Long was devasted twice in 50 years. In 1786, King Le Chieu Thong, battling feudal dissidents ordered the Trinh Lords’ palaces to be burnt down. Five buildings burnt many days and nights. All that remained was blackened stones and ashes.
In 1820, Gia Long, the founder of the Nguyen Dynasty, afraid of the scholars and peasants faithful to the memory of the Le Dynasty, transferred his capital to Hue, in the centre of the country. At his death, his son Minh Mang reporting to his suzerain, the Emperor of China, asked to be enthroned. But the Ambassador sent by the latter stopped in Thang Long. “The only capital of Vietnam that has been recognized”, he said. And Minh Mang had to make a 700 kilometers’ journey northwards to receive his title of vassal. He revenged himself by destroying all the attributes of suzerainty: royal palaces, temples of Heaven, etc…
It is possible that the Wife of the Sub-Prefect of Thanh Quan, born in the first decade of the XlXth century, was present in Thang Long during the devastation of the town.
Why does it please the Creator to upset the human stage?
How many stars have fled, how many misty seasons gone!
The soul of autumn grasses haunts old paths where carriages once passed
On ancient palaces walls rays of evening float.
The stones still face the months and years
But in sorrow the water trembles, and shudders at these changes
Present and past reflect in the ancient mirror
My heart breaks at the sight!
This educated woman meditated on the flight of time, the frailty of human things and the relentlessness of fate, with a poignant sadness engendered by the sight of ruins. The poem recalls Du Bellay, although his work, “Les Antiquites de Rome’ belongs to another source of inspiration.
She knows how to use soft tonalities to convey her delusion through dreamy landscapes.
