The Kim Vân Kieu of Nguyen Du - The Viet Nam Literature Project

Eric Henry handout for Viet Nam Literature Seminar
The Kim Vân Kieu of Nguyen Du (1765-1820), translated by Vladislav Zhukov.
Canberra: Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian
National University, 2004; xii; 170 pp. ISBN 1 74076 127 8.
This is a translation of the 3,254-line narrative poem generally referred to as “The
Tale of Kieu,” “Truyện Kiều,” or just “Kiều” for short. It is also known by its original
title: “Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh,” or “A New Song of Broken Entrails.” The author
Nguyễn Du, a court official under the Gia Long Nguyễn dynasty, wrote the poem at some
point between 1810 and 1820, making use of the plot and cast of characters of a Chinese
novel (Jin Yun Qiao Zhuan) that he encountered, one may surmise, while serving as an
emissary to the Qing court. Kiều then came, in a few generations, to be the most widely
revered and constantly quoted work in the whole of Vietnam’s classical literature.
Aside from the book under review here, there have been at least five previous efforts
to represent Kiều in other languages, three in English (Lê Xuân Thủy, Kim Van Kieu,
1968; Huỳnh Sanh Thông, The Tale of Kiều, 1983; Michael Counsell, Kiều, 1994) and
two in French (Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, Kim Văn Kiều, 1946; René Crayssac, Kim Van Kiéou,
1968). The translations of Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, Lê Xuân Thủy, Huỳnh Sanh Thông, and
Michael Counsell are all accompanied in their published form with the original
Vietnamese text, while those of Crayssac and Zhukov are not. Only the Nguyễn Văn
Vĩnh and Huỳnh Sanh Thông translations have full sets of scholarly notes, a feature that
will recommend them to many readers.
All the translations considered here are in verse except for those of Nguyễn Văn
Vĩnh and Lê Xuân Thủy. 1 Though each translator has his own approach, it would appear
that the adoption of some verse form or other is necessary if one is to suggest anything of
the movement and spirit of the original; the verse translations all manage to capture the
reader’s attention to a degree not reached in the prose versions of Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh and
Lê Xuân Thủy. Huỳnh Sanh Thông uses unrhymed iambic pentameter; Michael Counsell
uses rhymed couplets in which the initial lines are in iambic trimeter (three stresses, six
syllables), and the closing lines in iambic quadrameter; Renée Crayssac uses rhymed
1 Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh (1882 – 1936) was the first person to create and publish a quốc ngữ
transcription of the poem, which had previously existed only as a text in demotic characters (chữ
nôm). This transcription began appearing in 1906 in various magazines edited by Vĩnh. Over the
next three decades, he made three complete French translations of Kiều, of which the one
mentioned above was the third. He himself admitted that he did not aim at “elegance” in his
translation.

The Kim Vân Kieu of Nguyen Du Review 2
iambic hexameter couplets; Vladimir Zhukov uses rhyme-linked couplets in which the
initial lines are in iambic hexameter and the closing lines in iambic octameter. Incredibly
and uniquely, Zhukov reproduces the intricate rhyme scheme of the original throughout
his translation, as I shall now explain.
The couplet in the Vietnamese original (which also regularly occurs in Vietnamese
rural folk verse), has an initial line with six syllables and a closing line with eight. The
last syllable of the initial line rhymes with the sixth syllable of the closing line, while the
last or eighth syllable of the closing line supplies the rhyme for the couplet that follows.
Zhukov has the last syllable of his hexameter line rhyme with the sixth stressed syllable
of the following octameter line; the last syllable of his octameter line then supplies the
rhyme for the couplet that follows. With inexhaustible invention, he keeps this up
throughout the 3,254-lines of the poem, never evincing any sign of fatigue or
discomfiture.
Of the translations under consideration, only those of Huỳnh Sanh Thông and
Zhukov maintain a strict relationship between translated couplets and original couplets.
Counsell and Crayssac are both prone to use more than one couplet to represent a single
couplet in the original; and Counsell occasionally omits a couplet or two. This must be
regarded in some sense as a failing; pace and compression are highly salient aspects of
the style of the original. Of the two translators who are strict with regard to pace, Zhukov
is a little more flexible; he allows the meaning of one couplet to flow into another when it
suits his purpose; but, as in Huỳnh Sanh Thông’s translation, the total number of his
couplets is the same as the number in the original poem.
Of all the versions under consideration here, Zhukov’s is the boldest in use of
language; it is preeminently the work of a poet, and will appeal most strongly to readers
for whom poetic concerns are paramount. It demands an extremely active engagement on
the reader’s part. If one wants to make sense of the lines, which force words to assume
unusual meanings and force syntactic connections to assume unwontedly heavy burdens,
only “multi-pass” reading will do. No neutral or unhighlighted words occur; each vocable
is a bright fragment in a constantly unfolding mosaic of bright fragments. It succeeds to
an extraordinary degree in balancing the musical with the syntactic. The slow tempo
forced upon the reader by syntactic complication is essential to the musical effect of the
couplets. The English reader must struggle to read this poem in much the same way that a
Vietnamese reader must struggle to read the original.
Is the struggle worth it? Opinions will no doubt differ, but I would say that it is more
than worth it; there are lines where one may feel a mounting exasperation, but such lines

The Kim Vân Kieu of Nguyen Du Review 3
are far outnumbered by ones that make the reader cry “bravo,” as some quality of the
original is triumphantly carried into English. The great and numerous felicities of this
translation, in short, make the reader not only tolerant, but even fond, of its fierce
eccentricities.
To illustrate these qualities in detail, I shall here quote the lines describing Kiều as
she gazes day after day at the bay before the Ngưng Bích pavilion, where, after a suicide
attempt, she has been confined by the brothel-keeper Tú Bà:
Trước lầu Ngưng Bích khoá xuân, But like a gem which weedy growth from seekers shields
vẻ non xa tấm trăng gần ở chung. Tu keeps her close confined. Moon-bathed far hills and
fields are now her friends,
Bốn bề bát ngát xa trông, Where from her belvedere the landward view extends
cát vàng cồn nọ, bụi hồng dặm kia. Past folded golden dunes, and dark-red radial trends of
foot-worn ways
Bẽ bàng mây sớm đèn khuya And often here in reverie (before dawned days
nửa tình nửa cảnh như chia tấm lòng. Evolve their luminescent morning-cloud arrays) her
spirits tide
Tưởng người dưới nguyệt chén đồng From these affects to sentience for him she, near-bride
tin sương luống những rày trông mai chờ. Had drunk with from one cup beneath a cognate gliding
moon …now vain
Bên trời góc bể bơ vơ, And vague in this strange sky and mirroring sea-main,
tấm son gột rửa bao giờ cho phai? For loss yet lives, and through dire smite and petty stain
her thoughts endure
Xót người tựa cửa hôm mai, For Kim. And for her folk, wont once, youth’s pillars, sure,
quạt nồng ấp lạnh, những ai đó giờ? Catalpa-like, to canopy blithe days …Innuring time allay
Sân Lai cách mấy nắng mưa Their seasons, daughterless and sere, and grant that they
có khi gốc tử đã vừa người ôm. Stand staunch, that her revering hands might yet one day
their breadths embrace.
Buồn trông cửa bể chiều hôm, She sees beyond the harbor bar the sea’s free race,
thuyền ai thấp thoáng cánh buồm xa xa. And ponders on its distant sails, hard bent for places far away
Buồn trông ngọn nước mới sa, Or cons some pristine spring become a muddy bay;
hoa trôi man mác biết là về đâu? To that then whirling petals float, to die, decay, and under go…
Buồn trông nội cỏ dàu dàu, She sees wide fields of summer-stupored herb, bowed low
chân mây mặt đất một màu xanh xanh. By heaven’s heat; earth’s brow beneath the sky’s foot grow
contused in haze;
Buồn trông gió cuốn mặt duềnh, Hears how the wind at river-mouth walls waterways
ầm ầm tiếng sóng kêu quanh ghế ngồi. And banks the wavelets high to strike with thunderous sprays
her belvedere.
Chung quanh những nước non người And often such incessancy at crag and weir
Đau lòng lưu lạc nên vài bốn câu. Low-cadenced converse calls from her, in thousand-year
retold quatrains…

The Kim Vân Kieu of Nguyen Du Review 4
This is the passage which, in the Vietnamese original, culminates in four successive
couplets beginning with “Buồn trông…” “Sadly she gazed…”; the reader here feels that
time has come to a standstill as Kiều passes her days in fruitless longing. The only
translator who reproduces the effect of the four repetitions exactly is Huỳnh Sanh Thông;
his four equivalent couplets each begin “She sadly watched…” Craysac too reflects the
pattern with some fidelity; He begins with “Triste, elle rêve…” “Sadly she dreamed”;
then “Triste, elle suit aussi, d’un…” “Sad she also was at…”; then “Triste, encor, son
regard…” “Still sad, her gaze…”; and then “Triste, enfin, elle voit…” “Sad, at last, she
saw…”. Here, however, the effect of the repetitions is somewhat vitiated by the length
and inequality of the French verse paragraphs; the four couplets of the original are
respectively represented by three and half, two, three, and two hexameter couplets.
Zhukov doesn’t find it necessary to translate the four iterations of “buồn,” “sad,”
perhaps because the quality of sadness is very amply evoked throughout his rendering of
this passage. Thus the first “buồn trông” becomes “she sees”; the second “…or cons”; the
third “she sees” again, and the last “hears how (the wind, etc.).” The verb “cons” is a
particularly fine evocation of her relation to this unchanging seascape; idle and powerless
to leave, she must gaze at the scene till she gets it all by rote. The word “ponders” in the
second line of the first of these couplet helps to evoke what “buồn” does in the original.
The contrast between her captive state and the freedom of the objects dotting the
horizon’s expanse is finely brought out in “the sea’s free race” and in “distant sails bound
for places far away.” The scene evoked in the next couplet, “some pristine spring become
a muddy bay” perfectly evokes her tragic consciousness of degradation, and “under go”
in the line that follows carries a very felicitous double meaning: the petals literally “go
under”; they sink beneath the surface of the water; they also endure, that is “undergo,” a
loss of purity. In the following couplet, the drooping quality of the grassy vegetation
indicated by “dàu dàu” is marvelously rendered by “summer-stupored herb, bowed low /
By heaven’s heat.” “Contused in haze” is an equally marvelous rendering of “một màu
xanh xanh.” The following couplet provides an example of the manner in which Zhukov
uses syntax to compel words to take on unfamiliar meanings; the word “walls” in “the
wind… walls waterways” means “causes to assume the aspect of a wall,” an idea that is
reinforced by the next line’s “and banks the wavelet’s high.”
This trick of compelling words to assume new tasks can be seen in a number of
places in the lines that precede the “sadly gazing” couplets, as when “trends” becomes a
noun meaning “bends in the course of a path” in “dark red radial trends of foot-worn
ways,” and “smite” becomes a noun meaning “blows” in “through dire smite and petty

The Kim Vân Kieu of Nguyen Du Review 5
stain her thoughts endure.” Similarly, “tide” is forced to become a verb meaning “fly” or
“turn to” in “her spirits tide / From these affects to sentience for him she, near-bride /
Had drunk with…” Quite apart from the meticulously maintained terza-rima-like rhyme
scheme taken over from the original verse form, Zhukov’s lines are filled with additional
musical effects, some of which consist of alliteration (“dawned days”), some of more
complex groupings of vowels and consonants (“folded golden dunes,” “evolve their
luminescent morning cloud arrays”), and sometimes by a finely controlled flow of sense
from the end of one line into the beginning of the next (“…a cognate gliding moon, now
vain / And vague in this strange sky and mirroring sea-main”). In virtually every case,
verbs are highly specific and highly active; nouns are placed where their effect will tell;
no word is unweighed; no phrase is limp or automatic.
One might ask if this Kiều is a poem by Nguyễn Du or a poem by Zhukov. I would
say it is a poem by Zhukov that bears a rigorous and continuous relationship to the Kiều
by Nguyễn Du. It seems to me that this is all that can be demanded of the translator of a
great poem, and all that can be achieved.
It is hard not to feel some curiosity concerning the author of this most unusual and
distinguished effort. Neither he nor his publisher (Pandanus Books), however, are very
forthcoming in this regard. An Australian, Zhukov was a rifleman and interpretor, we are
told, during the Vietnam war. In a brief preface, he characterizes himself as one of those
ex-soldiers who have (in a phrase he borrows from G. B. Shaw) “reforged their muskets
into microscopes.” Following his discharge from service, he studied at the RAAF School
of Languages and engaged in further Vietnamese studies at The Australian National
University, after which, in the early 90s, he lived for two and a half years in Vietnam. He
holds degrees from five Australian tertiary institutions. Judging from his work, I would
hazard the guess that he has a deep and appreciative familiarity with English poetry of
many eras, including, perhaps, old English alliterative verse. One can only hope that we
will see his remarkable linguistic gifts applied to further projects.