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THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) VOLUME 8 NUMBER 1 JAN 2006
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An Introduction To the Vietnamese Classic CUNG OAN NGAM KHUC NGUYEN NGOC BICH
Cung Oán Ngâm Khúc, or Complaints of an
Odalisque, is considered one of the three masterpieces of classical
Vietnamese literature. Ranking right
behind The Tale of Kiều, it can compete with
the Lament of a Warrior's Wife (Chinh Phụ Ngâm Khúc) as one of the quintessential gems of a tradition
that is known for its great poetic output.
If the Lament is the more popular one because of its universality,
being the story of a woman whose husband has on account of a war long
absented himself from home, a theme familiar enough until the twentieth
century in Vietnam, the Complaints of an Odalisque are always a darling of
the scholars and intelligentsia owing to its great beauty, sophistication and
philosophical depth. Philosophical
Influences on Vietnamese Literature Recorded
Vietnamese literature dates back to at least 986 when Đỗ
Pháp Thuận, a
Buddhist priest, was sent by King Lê Đại Hành, to meet
with a Chinese ambassador, Li Jue. Disguised as a boatman, Đỗ
was ferrying the Chinese envoy across the river when the latter saw two wild
geese. To test the Vietnamese, Li made
up two impromptu verses: Nga
nga, lưỡng nga nga Ngưỡng
diện hướng
thiên-nha. There: wild geese, two
wild geese swimming,
staring up at the sky! Realizing
that the Chinese deliberately left the poem unfinished, Đỗ
rejoined with another two verses to make it a quatrain: Bạch-mao
phô lục-thuỷ, Hồng-trạo
băi thanh-ba. White feathers against
a deep blue, Red feet burning in
green waves. (Revised translation by NNB, with
Burton Raffel) The
Chinese was duly impressed and upon returning to the Celestial Court, gave a
very favorable report on the newly independent nation. This
first poem, which by the way is only half-Vietnamese (since the first couplet was given by the Chinese envoy), was to mark many
of the characteristics of the classical Vietnamese tradition in
literature. It is a tradition at first
schooled in the Chinese classics, which gave a common educational background
to the scholars of the Far East, with China being the center and Vietnam,
Korea and to a lesser extent, Japan, radiating from it. The homogeneity of these four countries is
comparable to the situation of medieval Europe when scholars of various
lands, from Ireland in the Atlantic to Bohemia in Eastern Europe, from
Denmark in northern Europe to the northern shores of Africa, all shared in
the common heritage of classical and medieval Latin. Being
trained on possibly the same core curriculum (the Four Books and the Five
Scriptural Writings), Đỗ Pháp Thuận may have been
slightly different from his Chinese counterpart in the sense that he was a
Buddhist priest, in fact the highest ranking Buddhist priest of the land
since one of his title was “Khuông Việt Đại Sư”, the Great Monk Who Set Parameters for
Vietnam. In this way we may assume
that he knew a great deal of the Buddhist doctrines of the day and was quite
familiar with some of the major scriptures of that faith. From early on, then, Vietnamese literature
has been deeply influenced by Buddhist thought and concepts--so much so that
even today, it is not at all uncommon to hear Vietnamese Christians refer to
Buddhist concepts as if that were the most natural thing to do, despite the
fact that such concepts, if examined closely, may be totally contrary to Christian
doctrines. For instance, in matters of
love and marriage Vietnamese Christians feel no awkwardness whatsoever in
referring to the idea of duyên nợ
(an affinity or a debt incurred from a former existence that links two human
beings). Or if they saw something
tragic worthy of one's pity, they would say, “Tội-nghiệp
quá!”, which literally
means, “It's his/her karma resulting from a mistake or crime (committed in a
previous existence)!” Two
strands, therefore, came together and formed the moral and ethical foundation
of the traditional Vietnamese. And an interplay of these two strands is what makes up the
moral compass of much of the traditional literature of Vietnam. See, for instance, the tension caused by Hiếu, Filial Piety (Xiao in Chinese), the Confucian
ideal that caused Kiều to sacrifice her love
for Kim Trọng in order to save her father and
brother, and T́nh, Love, a concept that Confucian
ethics had almost no room for, something that only Buddhism had an
explanation for. A
third strand is sometimes mentioned in terms of influences on Vietnamese
literature. Daoism, the philosophical
school first enunciated by Laozi, then elaborated
by Zhuangzi, came to Vietnam under two forms: a
higher form as represented by the lofty conceits of the Dao De Jing
(reportedly by Laozi) and the Nanhua
Jing (authored by Zhuangzi), and a lower form which
is no more than alchemy and magic (represented by the search for immortality
and unconventional behavior). In its
popular form, Daoism is expressed in terms of drunkenness, a certain relaxed
morality and a concern with nature, including the so-called natural appetites
of mankind, since it believes in wu wei (Non-action, Non-interference, Laissez faire). In this manner, Daoism also has its say in
the monument we are studying, the Complaints of an Odalisque. Finally,
an indigenous strand, which may be the strongest, can also be detected in
this work. I am referring to the
somewhat monotheistic belief of the ancient Vietnamese in a supreme deity
which they call Ông Trời,
August Heaven, a mildly anthropomorphic figure which is supposed to be just
and impartial if somewhat laid back, later to be assimilated with such
Chinese Daoist concepts as Tạo
Hóa or Hóa Công, the Creator, sometimes represented as a whimsical child,
Con Tạo or Hóa Nhi, Child Creator.
In the Complaints of an Odalisque one will notice that the main
character, an imperial concubine, frequently calls on Ông
Trời to be her witness and/or to dispute with
him the poor treatment that He apparently reserves for her. Besides
that supreme deity, for which there is no contest, the ancient Vietnamese
also acknowledge a pantheon of divinities that may consist of anything from a
tree spirit to a demon to various natural gods (the God of Fire or of the
Hearth, a somewhat tamer version of the Indian Agni; the God of Thunder; the
God of Lightning; the God of Rain; the God of Clouds, etc.). Last but not least, in ancient times the
Vietnamese are found to be worshippers of the Linga,
the male energy symbol (in some localities called Ông
Đùng or Cái Nơ in Vietnamese), and sex deities, especially fertility
gods, not excluding the Yoni, the female energy symbol (sometimes called Bà Đá or Cái Nường in
Vietnamese). In a somewhat veiled
manner, this question, the attractiveness of sex, is a dominant theme in the
Complaints of an Odalisque. Even the
sexual act is frankly acknowledged and beautifully described therein. Next
to the gods there are also supernatural beings, such as national, regional or
local heroes who upon their death may become the objects of specific
cults. Ancestors, especially those
believed to be watching after their descendants, also form the basis of a
cult called ancestor worship. However,
these minor deities are not part of the discourse in the present work. Indigenous
Forms and the 7-7-6-8 Quatrain The
first four centuries of recorded Vietnamese literature are marked by the
dominance of Chinese poetry forms: four-syllable verses (very rare),
five-syllable verses (somewhat more common), seven-syllable verses (the most
common kind) in poetry and the fu (phú in
Vietnamese) or rhymed expository prose.
The language itself is classical Chinese but read in a Vietnamese
pronunciation, hence the name of this language as Hán-Việt,
Sino-Vietnamese. The seven-syllable
verses for the most part are written in couplets, quatrains (tứ tuyệt in
Vietnamese, the preferred form used by Zen priests, especially on their death
beds) or octets (thất ngơn
bát cú in
Vietnamese). These last two forms, the
(five- or seven-syllable) quatrains and octets are called lüshi
(luật-thi in Vietnamese), “regulated poetry”,
as they are strictly ruled by tonal combinations and rhyme schemes. That
was, however, the poetry and literature of the court, of the Buddhist monks
and of the high classes which are impregnated with Chinese and Buddhist
allusions as scions of that upper crust of society were raised on such a
tradition. This was not, as can be
suspected, an expression of vọng ngoại (looking outside, aping the foreigners) so
much as a necessity imposed on the leadership of the time, China being the
overwhelming power to the north with which the country had to deal throughout
its history. The need for Vietnamese
to learn and read Chinese, or at least Sino-Vietnamese (so that they could
“converse with the pen”, bút-đàm in that
language), was thus a necessity as much as it is nowadays an absolute
requirement that one speak, read and write English if Vietnam is to
communicate and trade with the rest of the world. The
common people, though, spoke Vietnamese and had their popular songs and
poetry, that included forms more adapted to the Vietnamese language. For instance, in contrast to the Chinese
predilection for the impair beat (five syllables, seven syllables to a verse)
the Vietnamese prefer the four, six or eight-syllabled
verse. That is why the most common
verse in Vietnamese poetry is the 6-8 beat, by far the most popular form of
the Vietnamese folksongs. It is
the impact of this “pair” reflex (since four, six or eight can all be reduced
to a binary base) of the popular tradition which by the fifteenth century
brought about the first transformation of the Vietnamese lüshi
(luật-thi) into the so-called Hàn-thi when lüshi was adapted
and applied to the Vietnamese language.
This hybrid form allows for some seven-syllable verses to be shortened
to just six syllables without impairing the general structure of the quatrain
or octet. For instance, Nguyễn Trăi in the
fifteenth century could write a poem like this: Góc thành Nam lều một căn. No nước
uống, thiếu cơm ăn. Con đ̣i trốn, dường ai quyến; Bầy
ngựa gầy, thiếu kẻ chăn. Ao
bởi hẹp ḥi khôn thả
cá; Nhà
quen thú thứa, ngại nuôi vằn. Triều-quan
chẳng phải, ẩn chăng phải. Góc
thành Nam lều một căn. South of the City is
my hut With plenty to drink,
not so much to eat. The servant is gone,
enticed away. The horses are lean
for want of a groom. The pond is too small
for fish. And we simple folk do
not keep brindled dogs. Neither a courtier's
or a hermit's-- South of the City is
my hut. (Revised
translation by NNB) In
fact, this opening poem of Nguyễn Trăi's collection, Quốc-âm
thi-tập (“Collection of Poems in the National
Language”), is in itself a tour de force, an octet written almost entirely in
six-syllable verses (5 out of 8)-a radical departure from the Chinese lüshi. To
this day, however, no one has been able to find out the rule (or rules)
whereby some seven-syllable verses could be shortened to six syllables in a
so-called Vietnamese
lüshi poem. (That is probably why a scholar like Prof. Lê Hữu Mục in Canada totally rejects the existence of the
so-called Hàn-thi, poem in the Hàn-luật
mold. What is certain, however, is
that a famous poet like Hồ Xuân Hương in late
eighteenth or early nineteenth century still wrote several of her poems in
this mode, witness her “Chàng Cóc
ơi! Chàng Cóc ơi!
/ Cong cóc đi đâu chẳng bảo tôi. / Ṇng nọc đứt đuôi từ đấy nhé! / Ngh́n năm không chuộc dấu bôi vôi”) By the
sixteenth century, a second hybrid form also made its way into Vietnamese
poetry, what came to be known as the 7-7-6-8 form. The first known recorded poem in this mold
is one by Lê tức
Mao (1462-1529) but the internal rhyme scheme of this form was not yet quite
set. In its mature period, the final
syllable of the first seven-syllable verse always rhymes with the fifth
syllable of the following verse. But
in the seventeenth century, for instance, the final syllable of the first
seven-syllable verse occasionally rhymes with the third syllable of the
following verse. By the
second half of the eighteenth century, however, the 7-7-6-8 form was
thoroughly domesticated to become one of the glories of the Vietnamese poetic
tradition. Thus, in a mere half
century this form produced four minor classics of traditional Vietnamese
literature, possibly in this sequence: Đ̣an Thị Điểm's Chinh Phụ Ngâm, Nguyễn Gia Thiều's Cung Oán Ngâm
Khúc, Lê Ngọc Hân's Ai Tư Văn (“Dirge in Memory
of Emperor Quang Trung”)
and Nguyễn Du's Văn Tế Thập Loại Chúng Sinh (“Summons to the
Souls of the Ten Categories of People”).
Despite its quatrain form, the 7-7-6-8 form lends itself very easily
to a sequenced narrative, somewhat like the quatrain form used by Edward G.
FitzGerald in his translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyát. The
Complaints of an Odalisque therefore were written while the form was at its
peak development. It is a thoroughly
Vietnamese work, even more so than the Lament of a Warrior's Wife because the
latter, especially in its premier form, a composition in Sino-Vietnamese by Đặng Trần Côn, was essentially a patchwork of classical Chinese
figures and clichés that only impressed people owing to its timeliness and
sincerity. Ai Tư
Văn, Princess Lê Ngọc Hân's dirge mourning
the precocious death of her emperor-husband, is equally sincere and heart-wrenching, it is nonetheless a somewhat derivative
work--parts of it copying the Lament.
Only Nguyễn Du's
Summons is a Vietnamese original comparable to the Complaints of an
Odalisque. It is a more powerful work
also because it describes a much broader canvas than the private sufferings
of the concubine in the Complaints. Musical
Qualities of the 7-7-6-8 Form What
is little noticed, even in Vietnamese discussions of the 7-7-6-8 (song thất lục bát) form, is that, probably more than any other poetic
form in Vietnamese literature, it is associated with
music and known for its musical quality.
That is why many 7-7-6-8 poems have the word “khúc”
attached to them, “khúc” meaning a “musical composition”,
to wit: Hồng Sĩ
Khải's Tứ Thời Khúc Vịnh (“The Four Seasons: A Composition in
Interludes”), composed toward the end of the sixteenth century. (Cf.
Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, written in the early 1700's.) The
Lament of a Warrior's Wife is referred to either as Chinh
Phụ Ngâm or Chinh Phụ Ngâm Khúc, “ngâm”
being the term that stresses the declamatory, incantatory aspect of the
poetry. The
Complaints of an Odalisque's official name is Cung Oán Ngâm Khúc. The
“Dirge in Memory of Emperor Quang Trung” is named Ai Tư Văn in Vietnamese, “văn”
meaning “a dirge”, a funeral lament supposedly accompanied by a “phường bát âm’ (an ‘eight instrument orchestra”). Nguyễn Du's
“Summons to the Souls” does not carry the word “khúc”
or “văn” in its Vietnamese title but the word “văn tế” in itself
refers to “a funeral oration’, a ceremonial occasion requiring much solemnity
and a formal kind of choreography marked by gongs and bells. Even
later, in the nineteenth century, Cao Bá Nhạ, to disculpate
himself and distance himself from the treasonable rebellion of his brother
Cao Bá Quát, wrote a Tự T́nh Khúc, “Self-confession”. Since
no one has studied this question--the relation of the 7-7-6-8 form to music
or at least to a musical composition form called “khúc”--in
some depth the following is only a hypothesis on my part, one which I believe
however to be very creditable as it can be supported by features found in
particular in the Cung Oán
Ngâm Khúc. To
start with, a musical phrase is one that is regulated by a certain number of
features: For
instance, it should have a beginning, a climax or development, and an
ending. Each verse of a 7-7-6-8 khúc has precisely just that. Each
musical phrase is usually divided into a definite amount of bars of equal
time duration. It is clear from the
6-8 form common to the folksongs that the basic bar in Vietnamese poetry is a
two-beat bar, which normally gives: -- --
/ + +
/ -- -- -- --
/ + +
/ -- --
/ + -- -- --
/ + +
/ -- -- -- --
/ + +
/ -- --
/ + -- (The
hyphens correspond to bằng, or even-register,
notes and the plus signs to trắc,
uneven-register, notes. In practical terms, an even-register
monosyllabic word is one which carries an even-ngang-or
down-huyền-tone and an uneven-register word
is one which carries any of the four remaining tones of the language, namely sắc, hỏi, ngă, nặng.) Now,
how can a seven-syllable verse fit into this binary pattern? I believe that if one looks closely at the
structure of a 7-7-6-8 khúc, one would have the
following: Trải
vách quế / gió vàng / hiu
hắt Mảnh
vũ-y / lạnh ngắt / như đồng. Oán
chi / những khách /
tiêu-pḥng Mà
xui / phận bạc / nằm trong / má đào? which
translates, according to Dương Quảng Hàm (Văn-học Việt-nam,
Saigon: Bộ Giáo-dục,
n.d., reprint of 1939 edition, page 18) into: O +
+ / --
-- / + + O -- --
/ + +
/ -- -- -- --
/ + +
/ -- -- -- --
/ + +
/ -- --
/ + -- Looking
at this structure, it is clear that the whole composition is quite regular
with the exception of the three first syllables (or beats) of the two
seven-syllable verses. Since O is a
neutral tone could it be then that these three-syllable groups are in
actuality disguised two-beat bars? In
other words, that they are triplets in musical terms, meaning that they are
the equivalent of a two-beat bar even though they are three notes? And if this is the case, then a 7-7-6-8
composition (or khúc) is actually equivalent to a
quatrain made up of two 6-8 syllable verses. A
Symphonic Composition It is
most unlikely--and it certainly is not my intention here to state any
imaginary links--that the author of the Complaints, Nguyễn
Gia Thiều
(1741-1798), could ever meet Beethoven (1770-1827) even though they are rough
contemporaries living on two opposite sides of the planet. Nonetheless it is by no means far-fetched
to claim that the two share a certain amount of techniques that can only be
said to be musical. For
instance, it is usually taboo in poetry to repeat the same words (and
sometimes the same constructions) in contiguous verses. But in music that is quite common as such a
structure, when repeated, signals to the listeners that it is a motif that
the composer wants to impress on them.
One is reminded here of Beethoven's famous
“Destiny motif” with which he commences the Fifth Symphony in C Minor (1809),
the so-called Fate Symphony. Then
it is also a common practice in music to develop a motif by varying it
somewhat so that, while different, it still shows an air of familiarity that
helps us to connect the variations with the original motif. Finally,
a motif is usually sustained throughout a movement in a major musical
composition such as a symphony or a concerto.
All
three of these features can be found with no difficulty in the Complaints of
an Odalisque. Thus, the theme of
Destiny is also a prominent theme in the Vietnamese work: Oán
chi những khách tiêu-pḥng Mà
xui phận bạc nằm trong má đào? Duyên
đă may cớ sao lại rủi? Nghĩ
nguồn cơn dở dĩi sao đang? V́
đâu nên nỗi dở dang? Nghĩ
ḿnh ḿnh lại thêm thương nỗi ḿnh! O
Heaven, why this relentless grudge towards us harem dwellers? Why
bestow upon us a thin destiny under these rosy miens? Lucky
I had thought my love to be, then why this calamity? Must a
lucky love always end up bitter like this? Why
did the whole thing turn out to be such a disaster? The
more I think about it, the more I pity myself. As
Destiny is the motif of this opening passage, it should come as no surprise
that “thin destiny” is repeated in at least three different ways, under three
different variations in just four lines: “Lucky… then why this calamity?” “… lucky love end up bitter” “the whole thing turns out to be
a disaster.” Even
the last verse has the appearance of a forceful musical phrase with the word
“ḿnh” repeated three times to emphasize the sense
of self-pity: “Nghĩ ḿnh
ḿnh lại thêm thương nỗi ḿnh”, literally,
“The more I think about myself, the more I pity myself”. In
terms of compositional structure, one can divide the Complaints into four
sections, or movements, with an opening and a coda, all marked by clearly
different moods: The
Opening (verses 1-8), somewhat objective, gives a broad statement of the
issue. The
first movement (verses 9-44) is one of joy and pride--allegretto--as the main
character discovers her own burgeoning beauty and
great talents. The
second movement (verses 45-116) is like a rejoinder (a counterpoint), a
reality check on life, one that is furnished by the
wisdom of Buddhism. An
Interlude occurs here (verses 117-132) to reverse the thinking, leading to
the inevitability of love and passion. The
third movement (verses 133-208), appassionata, is
the climax of joy and sexual fulfilment when the
main character knew all the favors of the King, now clearly biased towards
her and she being his favorite. The
fourth movement (verses 209-324) is the letdown of love once it has known its
peak. Everything after this can only
be downhill. The
Coda (verses 325-356) is a direct address to the King and to the Creator,
lamenting their vicious, rotten treatment of her now that she is no longer
young and beautiful, or simply because she is no longer the King's favorite. The
theme of Destiny is weaved throughout the work as can be seen in the
following verses: Human
affairs, though, have strange ways to turn out. (verse 45) Like a
dream the world turned out to be And
the loom of creation has its mysterious ways. (verses 49-50) O what
a tragedy this floating life, A mere
bubble in the sea of suffering, a duckweed on the
shore of illusion. (verses 67-68) Life
is a crucible constantly boiling in a furnace: Pitiful
the human condition as drawn and redrawn in the clouds. (verses 75-76) Good
fortune or misfortune, only Heaven has the prerogative to give, It
does not yield any of its power, no matter how small, to anyone. A top
is spun whimsically up there And
one's destiny appears but dimly, like someone walking in the night. (verses
89-92) This
must be then a debt from a former life Or
some anterior cause that now claims its denouement. (verses 121-122) How we
come together, that's Heaven-decreed: One
thing is sure, there is no escape from human love. Let us
then turn our faces away and keep silent, See
where the stroke of Fate will have us land. (verses 129-132) So when
it became my fate to serve my lord... (verse 183) Yes,
killing without a Ryukyu blade, Killing
simply with a personal tragedy--how cruel can that be. (verses 239-240) A
flower fallen from a branch, do I have any choice? (verse 292) Thus,
one can say with confidence that the theme of Destiny is the main motif of
the symphonic poem known as the Complaints of an Odalisque. It is, in other words, its leitmotiv
although it is a motif of Fate as understood in the Buddhist tradition. Buddhism
v. Love and Sex It has
been said that Buddhism is a quietist faith marked by passivity. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Buddhism's drive for stilling
human passion is precisely based on the recognition of the power of love, of
desire. It is the power of desire, Dục in Vietnamese, which is all-consuming and
therefore could be destructive in its extreme forms such as passion. Hence, the need to abate it (verse 48): How I
wish that Guanyin's poplar dew can abate my
passion! Until
and unless one understands this one can never get into the spirit of the
Complaints of an Odalisque or understand the tensions inherent in the
poem. Far from being a pessimistic
faith, Buddhism can be a religion of wit and joy, even pranks, as can be seen
in the spirit of Zen Buddhism, the major tradition in Vietnam. And Tantric Buddhism, the major school of
Buddhism followed by the Tibetans, is probably the major faith of mankind
that delves in depth into the power of sex with its kundalini
energy that proceeds through six centers of increasingly potent psychic power
(chakra in Sanskrit) to blossom forth into a sahasrara,
pictured as a lotus with a thousand petals. With
such a magnificent understanding and representation of love, it is no wonder
that the third “movement” of the poem, especially in verses 135-152, contains
some of the most candid expressions of sexual love found in traditional Far
Eastern poetry: ...
What a night, o what a night that was! The
sun wrapped itself around me, a camellia flower left tremulous. A
dahlia bud dreaming of a lucky downpour Or a
camellia sleeping and awake throughout the night, I was
like a flower that blossomed at the approach of spring As the
east wind caresses now the peach, and now the plum. With
the wind whistling my dancing outfit was soon in shreds And my
feathered coat discarded, barely visible in the moonlight. An
explosion of joy like an orchestra gone wild, I
hardly knew what to do... The
kingfisher mattress was redolent of musk, And my
body jangles twinkled in the pale moonlight. A few
love drops in the cloud-and-rain game, And I
locked you, peony twig, in my fragrant sandalwood urn. In the
pavilion next door the music was entrancing And a
flute--appassionata--came over from the royal
quarters. The
more they played the more impassioned we became And
the more triumphant the music, the more benumbed we collapsed. A
female persona The
magnificence of the poetry found in the Complaints of an Odalisque has made
it one of the three classic works taught in school in Vietnam. But like The Tale of Kiều,
there are passages that are best left to a more mature stage in life. For how can one teach with equanimity to
high schoolers scenes of seduction as found in Kiều or sex scenes like the above as found in the
Complaints? That
is why passages like that are either passed over, ignored or given
allegorical interpretations in the manner of what happened to the Song of
Solomon (also called Song of Songs) found in the Old Testament. For instance, in the Vietnamese case, the
Complaints of an Odalisque is usually interpreted as Nguyễn
Gia Thiều's veiled
way of speaking on behalf of a courtier who, after reaching the pinnacle of
power, say as a prime minister, loses the king's favor and therefore spends
the rest of his life pining after a return to more glorious days. But a close study of the author's life does
not support such a reading. For
instance, in the biographical notice given by Professor Tơn
Thất Lương
in his well-known Tân Việt
edition of Cung Oán Ngâm Khúc this was how Nguyễn Gia Thiều's career was described: “Nguyễn belonged to a family of learned
scholars. He was born in 1741 and
known for his intelligence and good features.
In his youth, besides literary studies he also learned martial arts
and became adept at military skills, for which reason at nineteen he was
picked to serve at Court as a Cavalry Captain. For his feats he was given the title of
Lord of Ôn Như. “Thereafter
he spent time studying and practicing literary skills, studied astronomy and
geography, and devoted himself to Buddhist and Daoist
research. Calling himself Hy Tơn Tử
(Rare Descendant) and Như Ư Thuyền (Tathagata Zen),
he corresponded with philosophers and poetics experts, taking the leisurely
life of an dilettante to be his ideal and spending time to write poetry about
the wind and the moon, not caring in the least bit about court
matters... When the Tây Sơn took over the
North, he went into hiding and did not want to be a mandarin [serving the new
dynasty]. He took ill and died in
1798, at the age of 58. “...
He was a true expert in the art of poetry and led many in the Later Lê period to become fine poets”. It is
thus clear that Nguyễn Gia
Thiều was never a very high official at court
and that he entertained very little ambition to become one, let alone
regretting his days at court. The
belief that he “borrowed the fate of a concubine to describe his own
situation” (page XVI of the same edition) does not stand very close scrutiny. This is also the conclusion arrived at by Dương Quảng Hàm in his classic Việt-nam
Văn-học Sử-yếu
("An Outline History of Vietnamese Literature," California: Sống Mới, 1979,
being a reprint of the tenth printing, 1968, by the Ministry of Education in
Saigon, page 322): "The topic chosen by the author in this work probably
does not have anything to do with his life and the events in the country at
the time." This reading seems
justified in view of the fact that together with Nguyễn
Gia Thiều's work,
other authors of the time also treated the same topic: Vũ
Trinh (1759-1821) had a Cung Oán
Thi Tập
("Complaints of an Odalisque, a Book of Poems"), and both Nguyễn Huy Lượng (? -1808) and Nguyễn
Hữu Chỉnh (?
-1787) each had a Cung Oán
Thi of his own.
This seems to tell us that the topic was for some reason in vogue and
that it did not reflect anyone's particular career or concerns. What
is more likely, according to Phạm Thế Ngũ's Việt Nam Văn Học Sử Giản Ước Tân Biên ("A Concise and
Newly Written Literary History of Vietnam," Saigon: Quốc
Học Tùng Thư, 1961, Volume II, page 175) is that in this
work, "he has succeeded in speaking up on behalf of the imperial
concubines their feelings of grudge and mortification”. For that purpose the author has assumed a
woman's voice to describe her situation--a true feat since to assume a female
persona he had to throw overboard many distinct cultural habits of a male
personality, including speech and thought patterns, in order to be
convincing. In this, however, Nguyễn Gia Thiều succeeded brilliantly. The repetitive pattern of much of the poem,
especially if one compares the quatrains among themselves, gives the
impression that it is a woman's nagging, a woman obsessed, conscious of her
beauty and talent (which make her fall especially dramatic, traumatic even),
self-centered and very much in love with herself. And confined to royal quarters now gone
cold (in more than one sense), it is no wonder that she kept ruminating,
alternating between despair and ever dwindling hope. The
Language of Symbols Classical
Vietnamese which, like most Southeast Asian languages, very much respects the
hierarchies in society contains very few pronouns that are truly equal. Even a word like "tơi"
("I" in modern Vietnamese) is considered insolent and almost never
used in poetry when addressed to someone, even though the original meaning of
the term was "[your] servant."
Except in the folksongs, the theater and modern poetry, even the
milder term "ta" for "I" is
avoided and almost never found in classical poetry. Instead,
relational terms are preferred such as "anh"
("older brother") and "em"
("younger sibling," with the connotation of "younger
sister") in the folksongs and "chàng"
(for a man) and "nàng" (for a woman) in
situations when less intimacy is called for.
In classical poetry, "chàng" and
"nàng" become "chàng"
and "thiếp" ("minor
wife") when both are married, and these are the terms used in a work
like ?ồn Thị
?iểm's Chinh Phụ Ngâm, "Lament of
a Warrior's Wife," which is probably contemporary with the Complaints of
an Odalisque. The
case of the Complaints is different since it involves only two characters,
the odalisque and her king or emperor.
A third character is sometimes addressed, to wit August Heaven, but he
is like God Almighty and certainly not one's equal. The Old Man of the Moon is the proverbial
matchmaker, so he is addressed also, especially because he is known often to
be a bumbler. For the odalisque to
address her king/emperor/lord she could not possibly call him "anh" or "chàng,"
hence the need for some more respectful way of marking their difference,
their distance. Nguyễn
Gia Thiều has
chosen to use a more impersonal language where both speaker (the odalisque)
and addressee (her king/emperor/lord) are couched in symbolic language. Thus, one can dress up a list of all the
formulas that the speaker use to describe herself and her addressee as
follows: Speaker
(the odalisque) Addressee (the
king/emperor/lord) (being a woman) (being a man) flower, blossom Lord, Supreme Lord camellia (flower) Spring, Spring Lord, Lord of Spring dahlia east wind, Lord of the East rose mallow nine tiers, nine steps, nine- graded lord rose features dragon features perfume the Sun garden Once
we know this secret (this symbolism), the reading of the work becomes very
simple and straightforward. The
Illustrations In the
present work, to illustrate the poetry of Nguyễn
Gia Thiều, we are
very fortunate to have the posthumous works of Mai Lân,
the illustrious painter and sculptor who owned the Thế
Hệ Painting and Sculpture Center in Saigon
before 1975 and whose full name was ?ặng Trần Mai Lân
(1927-2004). Founder of the Mai Lân Gallery in Hanoi (1947), he had exhibited in almost
all major cities of Vietnam (Hanoi, Hải Phịng, Hải Dương, Saigon, Huế, ?à Nẵng...) since the
early 1950's. His Center has trained
several generations of Vietnamese plastic artists from 1956 to 1984. After
the communist takeover of South Vietnam, he went into semi-retirement and
went around the country to study various historical sites such as the Old
Quarters of Hanoi and other northern cultural relics, a habit that he had
developed in the mid 1950's by studying the historical sites in Huế and Hội An - Đà Nẵng. This results in a major project, a series
of illustrations of Vietnamese classics that would consume the rest of his
life. Before he died in 2004, Mai Lân had completed the illustrations meant for six
classical works of Vietnamese literature, namely: The Tale of Kiều
(240 illustrative paintings) Cung Oán Ngâm Khúc
(40 illustrations) Chinh Phụ Ngâm (71
illustrations) Bích Câu Kỳ Ngộ ("The Strange Encounter at Bích Câu") (54
illustrations) Lục
Vân Tiên (name of the
hero of a novel in verse) (124 illustrations) Thạch
Sanh (name of the hero of an epic) (127
illustrations). Unfortunately,
Mai Lân died before he could see his works in
print, for which he had prepared several manuscripts. The present work is therefore a
collaborative effort "beyond the grave" between the translator and
the artist, thanks to the good office of Mrs. Mai Lân,
the artist's widow. For this kind
intervention, which makes it possible now to offer this posthumous work of
the great artist to the public, we sincerely thank Mrs. Mai Lân for agreeing to this collaboration. A Word
on the Translation This
is not the first time that Nguyễn Gia Thiều's Cung Oán Ngâm
Khúc has been translated into English or another
language. Its
very beauty, despite its being riddled with Chinese allusions, was seen as a
challenge to many a translator into an European
language. First translated into French
(Nordemann 1905, Phạm
Gia Kính 1950, Huỳnh Khắc Dụng 1951), it was subsequently attempted into
Russian and German (by Hubert Hohl, “Klagelied der Odalisque”, in
Vietnam Culture Journal, 1982: Vol I, No 1, pp.
52-55, and 1983-1984: combined Vol II, Nos 1&2, and Vol III, No 1,
pp. 125-128) among other European languages.
In English, partial translations can be found here and there but the
first full translation is probably the one by V?n-Hà Vũ Trung Lập (The Complaints
of an Odalisque, Saigon: Việt Tiến, 1967), followed by a more recent complete
translation by Huỳnh Sanh
Thơng ("A Song of Sorrow Inside the Royal
Harem," in An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems, New Haven: Yale, 1996,
pages 63-77). The
present translation is a reworking of an unpublished manuscript by the
translator, completed as far back as 1965 in New York and meant for inclusion
in the anthology A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry (Nguyễn
Ngọc Bích, ed., New
York: Knopf, 1975). However, because
the earlier version was an uneven one and therefore unsatisfactory the
translator has tried a whole new approach which this time he believes to be
more successful. This is because, in
his opinion, Vũ Trung
Lập strove to be fluent in English to the
detriment of accuracy in a work noted for its erudition, startling imagery
and linguistic fluency. Professor Huỳnh Sanh Thơng's version reads a little better but he, too,
despite his great command of the English language, sometimes departs too far
from the original. The opening
sentence, for instance, with the exception of the "autumn wind,"
simply does not exist in the original: moonlight and sighing are found where
the original talks about "spending time in cinnamon-bark walls." Further down (verses 11-12), one runs into
a contresens giving the exact opposite of what the
original says. Professor Huỳnh has: The flower has scarcely opened when it
fades
like Lady Pan's white silk in autumn chill. whereas
it should be: A flower, I scarcely had to smile,
opening fully my pistils, When already Lady Ban's embroidery
lost its famed glory. It is
because of considerations like these that I had thought it necessary to
attempt yet another English version of this masterpiece of Vietnamese
literature. I have tried to be as
close to the original as I can without losing too much of the poetry inherent
in Nguyễn Gia Thiều's work.
Whether I have succeeded or not is a question that must be left, no
doubt, to the discretion of the English reader.
NGUYEN NGOC BICH The Writers Post &
literature-in-translation, founded
1999, based in the US. Editorial
note: Works
published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed Wordbridge magazine (ISSN: 1540-1723). Copyright
© Nguyen Ngoc Bich & The Writers
Post 2006. Nothing in this magazine may be downloaded, distributed, or
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