Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan

Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan

Analysis and translation of “Qua Đèo Ngang” by Bà Huyện Thanh Quan

One of the pleasures and challenges of writing Vietnamese poetry consists in a group project in which the participants, either in person or in absentia, each

contribute a poem that must follow the same rhyme scheme as the lead poem, and treat more or less the same topic

The preferred form is the bound verse form called thất ngôn bát cú (seven words in eight lines) structured in four couplets dating back to the Tang Dynasty Its brevity and challenges are among some reasons why the form is enjoying popularity till the present day The poet must set the tone and mood in the exposition of the setting, expand with details on the theme, discuss the theme, and wraps up, all in fifty-six words A further challenge calls for the second couplet and the third

couplet to be parallel for word for word in a way that satisfies both the tone

patterns and the ideas behind the words themselves This kind of word game is not for the faint of heart or the rank beginner Talking about rules!

The poem could be in any kind of genre, narrative, epic, elegiac, lyrical, etc and treat any kind of topic from the political, historical, satirical and allegorical to the humorous

No other illustration of this seven-word meter can surpass Bà Huyện (Madame the Prefect) Thanh Quan’sQua Đèo Ngang (Arriving at Ngang Pass) in popularity, which is a classic example any student of Vietnamese poetry is likely to learn Bà Huyện Thanh Quan, née Nguyễn Thi Hinh, married to the Prefect of Thanh Quan Lưu Nghị (1804-1847), is a minor poet; yet, in my opinion, she occupies a

prominent place in the literature because of this one poem, which a casual student

of Vietnamese literature cannot fail to recognize

Đèo Ngang (Transverse Pass) in the Hoành Sơn transverse mountain range marks the historical boundary between the North beginning with Hà Tĩnh Province and the South beginning with Quảng Bình Province during the civil war, which pitted the northern House of Trỉnh against the southern House of Nguyễn, both houses ostensibly pledging allegiance to the Lê King in Thăng Long (Hanoi) Further back, it was also the frontier between Vietnam and the Kingdom of Champa until the Vietnamese annexed it piecemeal Đèo Ngang Pass figures prominently in Vietnamese literature, being an inspiration of so many poets and writers over the centuries

Bà Huyện Thanh Quan, from her native Hanoi, was on the way to assume her official post in Huế when she reached Đèo Ngang Pass at the end of the day The majestic landscape made such an impression on her that she composed an immortal poem to express the deep longing for her native land, and the melancholy she felt far from home At this historical juncture, decades after the civil war, the nation was unified under the Nguyễn Dynasty But memory of the contributions of the Posterior Lê Dynasty to the greatness of Vietnam was very much in the hearts and minds of the northerners despite the decline of the era Bà Huyện Thanh Quan was one of those scholars who could not forget that glorious past, and her arrival at Đèo Ngang Pass triggered a chain of remembrances of times past of which her poem is the epitome

Analysis

Let us analyze it more closely to uncover its meaning I will read the poem “Qua Đèo Ngang,” first historically, then in the present

Structure and Literal Meaning of “Qua Đèo Ngang”

The poem’s structure is simple enough It consists of four couplets with distinct functions Each line comprises seven words Since Vietnamese is largely a

monosyllabic language, for most purposes each syllable is a word However, one distinctive linguistic feature is that Vietnamese are fond of reduplication A syllable with a structure CVC is repeated; the initial consonant C- is changed in the second syllable to form a new word whereas the sequence -VC remains unchanged to rhyme together The result is C1VC + C2VC Two examples are used in the poem: Lom khom and Lác đác The combination thus obtained by reduplication may be considered a disyllabic word

The rhyme pattern is simple too There are end rhymes and no internal rhymes The end rhymes occur in lines 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8

We notice in passing that tone patterns of this verse form are strict, though They are divided into two categories: the low tones called bình, the high tones called trắc Since tone patterns are a complex topic, a discussion would take us too far afield Tone patterns have been expertly treated by our sinologist Phi Minh Tam in intermitment issues of Firmament starting with July 2016

Bước tới Đèo Ngang, bóng xế tà,

Cỏ cây chen đá, lá chen hoa.

Lom khom dưới núi, tiều vài chú

Lác đác bên sông, chợ mấy nhà

Nhớ nước đau lòng, con quốc quốc,

Thương nhà mỏi miệng, cái gia gia

Dừng chân đứng lại trời, non, nước,

Một mảnh tình riêng, ta với ta

The first couplet introduces the setting The time is the end of day; the place is nature in its lush green where rocks vie with vegetation, and leaves vie with flowers for a place under the setting sun The location is a mountain pass in the Hoành Sơn Range, which runs to the sea perpendicular to the north-south

orientation of the Trường Sơn Range, which forms the backbone of the country The time of day is important in that it evokes distinct moods The waning sun, in its last gasp of light, is conducive to reverie and reflection more than any other

time of day Thus, in the fourteen words, the poet sets the mood and tone of the entire canvas of mental and emotional disposition on the sight of this corner of nature, still pristine due to minimal human touch

Bước tới Đèo Ngang, bóng xế tà,

Arrive Pass Ngang shadow decline twilight

Arriving at Ngang Pass at dusk,

Cỏ cây chen đá, lá chen hoa

Grass trees mix with rocks leaves mix with flowers

(I behold) plants among rocks mix with leaves amid flowers

The second couplet provides details that will support the development of the topic

or theme of the whole poem Now the impersonal space of the ambiance gives way

to wisps of human presence, which, like nature itself, marks it existence by feeble, insignificant traces of man and his barren creations From the description it is apparent that the location is isolated with a scarce population of woodcutters still at work wrapping up the day’s labor, and a tiny marketplace of a few stands, trying to

eek out a precarious living amid scarcity The desolation of the area inspires awe of

a melancholy sort, and though beautiful in many respects leads inevitably to

homesickness and nostalgia The rule of word-for-word parallelism is enforced in this couplet

Lom khom dưới núi, tiều vài chú

hunched (reduplicative) below mountains woodcutters a couple men

Hunched below the foothills a handful of woodcutters

Lác đác bên sông, chợ mấy nhà

Scattered (reduplicative) side river market a few houses

Scattered across the stream a couple of market stalls

The next couplet is the development of the poem’s theme, yet it is virtually

untranslatable Here word-for-word parallelism aggravated by pun and identity of sound wreaks havoc with comprehension of meaning Let’s see why

Nhớ nước đau lòng, con quốc quốc,

Miss nation/country pain heart animal/bird (classifier) nation nation

Missing native land rends the heart of the quail (literal translation)

In the above line, nước means nation/country, and the poet misses her native

country, which is Hanoi What does a bird have to do with the emotion of the poet here? By a play on words con quốc quốc, by reduplication to balance with the next line, is con cuốc (in some northern pronunciation), which is a bird, possibly a quail The poet intentionally uses a pun to associate her native land (nước) with a bird called con quốc/cuốc, only because the word nước is synonymous with quốc, and because the word quốc is identical insound with cuốc in the northern dialect Thus, the bird metaphor serves to link her feeling of nostalgia to the poet’s own heart Knowing that, we can interpret the verse as meaning

“my heart ached for missing my native land.”

We come now to the last line of the couplet, which is constructed on the same pattern to achieve perfect symmetry with the first line

Thương nhà mỏi miệng, cái gia gia

Love home tire mouth animal/bird (classifier) home home

Loving home tires the mouth of the partridge (literal translation)

Similarly, in the above verse, nhà (home, house) is a synonym of gia By playing

on the word gia, the phrasecái gia gia evokes the bird named con đa đa (which is possibly a partridge) The classifier for things cái is often used to refer to animate beings such as a girl/woman or an animal in the northern dialect The đa đa<gia giarelationship most likely has the derivation gia gia>da da>đa đa, as gi– and d – are pronounced [z] in the northern dialect, and d- can alternate with đ- as in

dao/đao indifferently Again the bird metaphor is continued to link the poet’s feeling to her mouth, which is grown weary for constantly crying out for home Hence, we can interpret the verse as meaning

“my mouth grew weary of crying out for home.”

Thus, strict parallelism is preserved in the meanings of the couplet, albeit with the help of some mental and linguistic acrobatics

The final couplet wraps up the emotional journey that the poet embarked on when confronted with a landscape that stunned her entire being with its isolation and beauty, which paradoxically inspires melancholy, longing for hearth and home, and

yearning for native land, a supremely human emotion we saw expressed by

Joachim du Bellay’s Regrets, Sonnet XXXI, which Phạm Trọng Lệ showcased above

Dừng chân đứng lại: trời, non, nước,

Stop legs stand there; sky, mountains, water

Stopping (to see): sky, mountains, water

The line begins with the redundant collocation dừng chân đứng lại (stop, stay there) But why the pleonasm here? The landscape; it’s the landscape, which is so arresting and so compelling that it invites reflections and invokes the bond that all humans feel for the place where they first entered the world The two wordsnon and nước taken together also mean the country or nation Additionally, where the poet came from there was living a great reservoir of pining and loyalty for the glory days of the Lê Dynasty The passage of time and the present state of affairs only serve to accentuate the sentiment that lingered on tenaciously That fact can only intensify the poet’s sense of regret and desolation for time gone by and cast a pall of melancholy and forlornness on the present We should not fail to notice the motifs: nhà=gia, nước=quốc(home, country) In a parsimonious piece like this, the repetition is telling

Một mảnh tình riêng, ta với ta.

One piece feeling private me and me

(I sense) a private feeling of utter lonesomeness

The last line emphasizes the confidential nature of the poet’s sentiment by the repetition riêng ta với ta,(private to myself and to myself only) to signal she

doesn’t want to share with anyone the deepest secret of her heart and mind The poet seems stirred by a profound feeling that no one is allowed to know anything about, and prefers to keep it to herself to stay true to herself Readers can speculate all they want, just as this translator ventures to do so with the characterization of

“utter lonesomeness.” In the end, they must allow the poet to keep her private feeling forever private

By way of conclusion let us put the poem back together again and appreciate both the artistry of Bà Huyện Thanh Quan in handling a very challenging poetic form and the emotional turmoil she experienced when placed face to face with a piece of the larger country, which she has yet to know intimately

Arriving at Deo Ngang Pass

Arriving at Ngang Pass at dusk,

(I behold) plants among rocks mix with leaves amid flowers,

Hunched below the foothills a handful of woodcutters,

Scattered across the stream a couple of market stalls

My heart ached for missing my native land,

My mouth grew weary of crying for home

Stopping (to see): sky, mountains, water

(I sense) a private feeling of utter lonesomeness

Bà Huyện Thanh Quan has achieved a stroke of genius in that it convincingly encapsulates melancholy, nostalgia, homesickness, wistfulness and loneliness in just fifty-six well-chosen words Her diction is precise and concise The bound verse form imposes rules that the poet skillfully exploits with natural ease Her mastery of the seven-word-in-eight-line poetic form with its exacting word-for-word symmetry speaks of accomplished art and rare talent

Out of curiosity, I counted the number of words in the English version and found sixty-four, and although we can understand the gist of the poem, we pay the price

of some loss of aesthetics, literary pleasure and semantics The lesson here seems

to be that to really appreciate poetry there is no substitute for the original language But if we don’t know the language, there is no excuse not to experience vicariously the pleasure and knowledge obtained through translation How else do we know so much about the world, ancient and modern, but for translated works?

Critical Approaches

Thanh Quan’s poem lends itself to several critical approaches Two of the most popular is close reading (explication de texte), which is widely employed in

schools, and reader-response prevalent in journals and magazines on print or

online I will take historicist and presentist approaches because a literary text, like all texts in social sciences such as history, human geography, politics, economics, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, etc, in the humanities such literature,

languages, theology, law, religion, etc with a great deal of overlapping between the two categories as well as texts in hard and soft sciences are historical I consider the historicist and presentist viewpoints complementary rather than mutually

exclusive; hence, I will examine both

Reading Qua Đèo Ngang historically

Let us now read Qua Đèo Ngang historically We place it in its original historical context, i.e, in roughly the same period as Truyện Kiều, a couple of decades after the beginning of the nineteenth century The civil war was over In 1802, Emperor Gia Long was firmly in control of the country, now reunified, and chose Phú Xuân (Huế) in Central Vietnam as capital

Actually the country had been unified earlier by the Tay Son They routed the Thanh (Qing) invaders, who came at the request of King Lê Chiêu Thong, his mother and his wife, and chased them back to China The Thanh dynasty was founded by the Manchus, who had previously overrun China This is the second time the Vietnamese defeated the “barbarians,” so-called by the Chinese, who had conquered their country The first victory was in 1289, when Tran Hung Dao

decisively destroyed the Mongolian invaders, who had occupied China and

founded the Nguyên (Yuan) dynasty Having defeated the Trinhs, protected the Lês

in the North, and almost annihilated the Nguyens in the South, the Tay Son had in fact reunified the country

Nguyễn Anh, the sole survivor, was forced to take refuge in Siam; he asked the Siamese for help to recover the Nguyen’s territory The Tây Sơn crushed the

Siamese Nguyễn Anh sought help from France through the intermediary of French missionary Pierre Pigneau de Behaine (Ba Da Loc), Bishop of Adran He entrusted his son Prince Cảnh to the Bishop, who now turned politician, to intercede with the court of Louis XVI on his behalf The result was the Treaty of Versailles signed in November 1787 by the French Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Navy, and by Pigneau de Behaine, representing NguyễnAnh Louis XVI promised to supply and