Lament of a Warrior’s Wife: From Đặng Trần Côn to Hoàng Xuân Nhị

Trans­lated from French • Eng­lish (anglais)

“No, she has for­got­ten ev­ery­thing, think­ing only of her hus­band’s de­par­ture. An­other god [than the god of war] in­spires her, dic­tates her touch­ing farewells and bathes her eyes in tears. So true is it that the tor­ments of the briefest ab­sence ex­ceed the strength of lovers!”

Cat­ul­lus. Tra­duc­tion com­plète des poésies de Cat­ulle, suivie des poésies de Gal­lus et de la Veil­lée des fêtes de Vénus (Com­plete Trans­la­tion of the Po­etry of Cat­ul­lus, Fol­lowed by the Po­etry of Gal­lus and the Vigil of the Feast of Venus), trans. from the Latin by François Noël. Paris: Ré­mont, 1806.

These verses by Cat­ul­lus could just as well have been writ­ten in the Viet­nam of the 1740s. It was dur­ing this trou­bled pe­ri­od, marked by mil­i­tary con­scrip­tion, that the Lament of a War­rior’s Wife (Chinh phụ ngâm)¹Re­jected forms:
Plaintes d’une femme dont le mari est parti pour la guerre (La­ments of a Woman Whose Hus­band Has Gone to War).
Com­plainte d’une femme de guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife).
Com­plainte de la femme du guer­rier (La­ment of the War­rior’s Wife).
Com­plainte de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife).
Plaintes de la femme du guer­rier (La­ments of the War­rior’s Wife).
Com­plainte de la femme d’un sol­dat (La­ment of a Sol­dier’s Wife).
Plainte d’une femme de sol­dat (La­ment of a Sol­dier’s Wife).
Le Chant de la femme d’un guer­rier (The Song of a War­rior’s Wife).
Chant de la femme du guer­rier (Song of the War­rior’s Wife).
Chant de la femme du com­bat­tant (Song of the Com­bat­an­t’s Wife).
Ro­mance de la femme du com­bat­tant (Ro­mance of the Com­bat­an­t’s Wife).
Plaintes d’une chin­h-phou, femme dont le mari part pour la guerre (La­ments of a Chin­h-Phou, a Woman Whose Hus­band De­parts for War).
Les Plaintes d’une chin­h-phu (The Laments of a Chin­h-Phu).
Scan­sion d’une femme de guerre (S­can­sion of a Woman of War).
Scan­sion d’une femme dont le mari est à la guerre (S­can­sion of a Woman Whose Hus­band Is at War).
La Com­plainte de l’épouse du guer­rier (The Lament of the War­rior’s Wife).
La Com­plainte de l’épouse du com­bat­tant (The Lament of the Com­bat­an­t’s Wife).
Femme de guer­rier (élégie) (Wife of a War­rior [El­e­gy]).
Chinh phụ (ngâm khúc). was com­posed. Amid the rolling of drums rise the tears of a young Viet­namese wom­an, whose hus­band, gone to the front, is slow in re­turn­ing—and never re­turns. “All the sad­ness, all the re­volt, […] all the an­guish of wait­ing is ex­pressed there with in­com­pa­ra­ble re­fine­ment.” It is an in­ti­mate el­e­gy, not a pam­phlet. And yet it strikes such a note of help­less de­spair, such a sin­cere yearn­ing for the gen­tle­ness and sim­ple joys of love, that it awak­ens an in­stinc­tive aver­sion to war. Leg­end has it, in­deed, that some sol­diers, hear­ing it sung at twi­light in the camps, would desert. Lis­ten to the war­rior’s wife:

“Many are those who de­part, few are those who re­turn:
On the fields of car­nage, the sol­dier’s ad­ven­tur­ous life
Is all too like the color of leaves!”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. Plaintes d’une chin­h-phou, femme dont le mari part pour la guer­re, et autres poèmes (La­ments of a Chin­h-Phou, a Woman Whose Hus­band De­parts for War, and Other Po­em­s), trans. from the Viet­namese by Hoàng Xuân Nhị. Paris: Stock, 1943; reis­sued as Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife), Paris: Sud­estasie, 1987.

This lament has been borne down to us by three ex­cep­tional fig­ures, brought to­gether across the cen­turies: an orig­i­nal po­et, a trans­la­tor of ge­nius, and an in­trepid fran­co­phone in­ter­preter.

Đặng Trần Côn: The Original Poet

Of Đặng Trần Côn, the an­nals have pre­served the im­age of an ab­so­lute man of let­ters. When a cur­few de­scended upon the cap­i­tal Thăng Long (p­re­sen­t-day Hanoi), the au­thor dug a clan­des­tine cel­lar in or­der to keep se­cret vigil with his books. Who knows whether the hum­ble lamp of his stu­dious nights is not the very one im­mor­tal­ized in these stan­zas:

“[…] per­haps the lamp un­der­stands me…
Or does the lamp not un­der­stand me?
Then I shall suf­fer alone?”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. Plaintes d’une chin­h-phou, femme dont le mari part pour la guer­re, et autres poèmes (La­ments of a Chin­h-Phou, a Woman Whose Hus­band De­parts for War, and Other Po­em­s), trans. from the Viet­namese by Hoàng Xuân Nhị. Paris: Stock, 1943; reis­sued as Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife), Paris: Sud­estasie, 1987.

The wounds of a coun­try then torn be­tween the lords of the North and the South lent his po­em, writ­ten in clas­si­cal Chi­ne­se, a ter­ri­ble apt­ness. It was read and ad­mired as far as Chi­na. And some, alarmed by the bril­liance of such tal­ent, ex­claimed: “All his in­tel­li­gence is man­i­fest in this long po­em. The au­thor will live three years more at most.” A grim and truth­ful prophe­cy: Đặng Trần Côn died three years lat­er, driven, it is whis­pered, to sui­cide.

Đoàn Thị Điểm: The Translator of Genius

The work, de­spite its mer­it, might never have spread among the peo­ple, had it not been for its trans­la­tion into the na­tional lan­guage by Đoàn Thị Điểm, called Hồng Hà (“Rosy Re­flec­tions” or “Rosy Cloud”)²Of Đoàn Thị Điểm we have no in­for­ma­tion other than that sup­plied by the grief of her hus­band, who mourned her in a fu­neral ora­tion:
“Ply­ing her brush to de­pict land­scapes,
She gave voice to feel­ings of great depth […]
Ca­pa­ble of mov­ing even the Im­mor­tals; […]
Alas! She had no set­tled abode; […]
Wed only past her thir­ti­eth year,
She left this earth past her for­ti­eth; […]
She de­parted with­out fore­warn­ing her aged moth­er; […]
Is fate not strange?
Is Heav­en, then, un­just?…”. Her res­o­lutely feminine ver­sion—in­spired, if I may say, by the storms of the soul—rose to the rank of orig­i­nal cre­ation, some­times even eclips­ing Đặng Trần Côn’s source text, ad­mirable as it al­ready was! “This shows to what de­gree the po­et­ess […] pos­sessed all the se­crets both of the Chi­nese lan­guage and of her na­tive tongue.” Never be­fore had the song thất lục bát me­ter (“­dou­ble sev­en, six, eight”), so well suited to no­ble melan­choly, been em­ployed with such art: “Each word is a tear, each verse a sob […] from the heart. And it is a heart in flames, a heart in tem­pest, […] the pretty lit­tle heart of a woman wounded unto death by the di­a­bol­i­cal ar­row of love—and of the most se­ri­ous love, con­ju­gal love.”³Thus speaks Trần Văn Tùng in his re­mark­able col­lec­tion Poésies d’Ex­trême-Ori­ent (Po­ems of the Far East).

Hoàng Xuân Nhị: The Intrepid Francophone Interpreter

A few words, fi­nal­ly, on Hoàng Xuân Nhị. Present in Paris at the first thun­der of the Sec­ond World War, he sought in the po­etry of his an­ces­tors a uni­ver­sal mes­sage to ad­dress to a Eu­rope in flames. His Journal de­scribes the en­thu­si­asm that one day made him walk—or rather fly­—across the cap­i­tal, de­claim­ing aloud like a man pos­sessed, like a mad­man. Parisians turned around with amused or pity­ing looks: “Poor things!” he thought, “they would have been trans­ported with de­light and would have for­got­ten the in­fi­nite sad­ness of the war, had they but a drop of my great hap­pi­ness!”

Why did he set­tle his choice upon the Lament of a War­rior’s Wife? Be­cause it was in­scribed “in [his] very blood” from the cradle: or­phaned ear­ly, he had found in “the in­fin­itely pre­cious tears of that no­ble and so pitiable wom­an, that Mar­i­ana Al­co­forado of Far Asia” a ma­ter­nal af­fec­tion. To trans­late her, to in­ter­pret her, was to ful­fill a hu­man­ist dream, set down in his Journal on De­cem­ber 25, 1940: “An orig­i­nal syn­the­sis—above all, a liv­ing one—of two hu­man­i­ties, of two worlds: of the East and the West, that is what I have re­solved to be, that is what I strive to be, that is what I am in the process of be­ing.” A pledge mag­nif­i­cently kept! Wit­ness the re­cep­tion ac­corded his trans­la­tion, which Robert Brasil­lach⁴I must note that Robert Brasil­lach’s calami­tous com­mit­ments un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion would come to con­tra­dict, with vi­o­lence, the hu­man­ist ideal he ap­plauds here. hailed in these lauda­tory terms: “Mr. Hoàng Xuân Nhị […] has been able to bring his coun­try closer to us […]. Man is one, from one end of the planet to the oth­er, and, in read­ing the med­i­ta­tions on the flight of days or on war, on the plea­sure of lov­ing, on death, I thought now of Cat­ul­lus, now of Homer, now of Corneille, of Mal­lar­mé, of Valéry. It is fine to be re­minded of these names, fine to know how to unite two cul­tures so dis­sim­i­lar in ap­pear­ance, and, with­out seek­ing any im­pure mix­ture, to help them un­der­stand each oth­er.”

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Further Reading

On Lament of a Warrior’s Wife

Quotations

“信來人未來
楊花零落委蒼苔
蒼苔蒼苔又蒼苔
一步閒庭百感催”

Chinh phụ ngâm on Wik­isource tiếng Việt, [on­line], ac­cessed May 7, 2026.

“Tin gửi đi (var. thường lại) người không thấy lại,
Hoa dương tàn đã trải rêu xanh.
Rêu xanh mấy lớp chung quanh,
Dạo sân (var. Sân đi) một bước trăm tình ngẩn ngơ!”

Chinh phụ ngâm (Đoàn Thị Điểm dịch) on Wik­isource tiếng Việt, [on­line], ac­cessed May 7, 2026.

“The tid­ings de­part, the man never re­turns!
The wil­low flow­ers have, more than on­ce, strewn the ver­dant moss.
The moss, more than on­ce, has fed upon those fallen flow­ers;
Each step upon the flag­stones awak­ens count­less sor­rows!”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. Plaintes d’une chin­h-phou, femme dont le mari part pour la guer­re, et autres poèmes (La­ments of a Chin­h-Phou, a Woman Whose Hus­band De­parts for War, and Other Po­em­s), trans. from the Viet­namese by Hoàng Xuân Nhị. Paris: Stock, 1943; reis­sued as Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife), Paris: Sud­estasie, 1987.

“The mes­sages have ar­rived, but you have not ar­rived.
The poplar’s flow­ers wither and fall upon the green moss,
The green moss, the green moss, and again the green moss!
At ev­ery step, in the de­serted court­yard, a hun­dred thoughts as­sail me.”

Đặng, Trần Côn. “La Com­plainte de l’épouse du guer­ri­er” (The Lament of the War­rior’s Wife), trans. from the Chi­nese by Mau­rice Du­rand. Bul­letin de la So­ciété des études in­dochi­noises (Bul­letin of the So­ci­ety for In­dochi­nese Stud­ies), Saigon: So­ciété des études in­dochi­nois­es, vol. XXVI­II, no. 2, 1953.

“Of­ten I have writ­ten him; he does not re­turn.
The as­pen flow­ers strew the green moss.
All around, what lay­ers of green moss!
Each step I take upon this soft car­pet
Re­calls one by one trou­bling mem­o­ries.”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. “Ch­inh phụ (ngâm khúc) = Femme de guer­rier (élégie)” (Wife of a War­rior [El­e­gy]), trans. from the Viet­namese by Tuần Lý (Huỳnh Khắc Dụng). Bul­letin de la So­ciété des études in­dochi­noises (Bul­letin of the So­ci­ety for In­dochi­nese Stud­ies), Saigon: So­ciété des études in­dochi­nois­es, vol. XXX, no. 3, 1955; reis­sued Saigon: Bộ Quốc gia Giáo dục, 1960.

“Tid­ings of­ten reach me, but the man never re­turns;
The poplar flow­ers, all with­ered (fad­ed), have strewn the ver­dant moss.
The moss spreads all around a thick green­ish car­pet.
Each step I take awak­ens count­less mem­o­ries sweet and painful.”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. Chinh phụ ngâm = Com­plainte de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife), trans. from the Viet­namese by Bùi Văn Lăng. Hanoi: Édi­tions Alexan­dre de Rhodes, 1943.

“The tid­ings de­part, the man does not re­turn.
The with­ered poplar flow­ers strew the moss.
The moss spreads all around its green­ish car­pet.
Each step in the court­yard stirs a thou­sand vague feel­ings.”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. Chant de la femme du com­bat­tant (Song of the Com­bat­an­t’s Wife), trans. from the Viet­namese by Lê Thành Khôi. Paris: Gal­li­mard, 1967.

“You have of­ten writ­ten to me, but you have not re­turned,
The with­ered poplar flow­ers have formed a green mossy car­pet.
Upon this green moss, I have wan­dered round and round,
And ev­ery step in the court­yard rekin­dles in me a hun­dred des­o­late feel­ings.”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. Com­plainte d’une femme de guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife), trans. from the Viet­namese by Đông Phong [N­guyễn Tấn Hưng]. Mon­treuil-sous-Bois: J. Ouaknine, 2009.

“The mes­sages of­ten ar­rive, the man does not re­turn.
The with­ered poplar flow­ers strew the green moss,
The moss spreads all around green­ish lay­ers.
Each step in the court­yard awak­ens a thou­sand vague trou­bling feel­ings.”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. Tâm ca tình nghĩa vợ chồng: Chinh phụ ngâm = Chant de la femme du guer­rier (Song of the War­rior’s Wife), trans. from the Viet­namese by Đặng Quốc Cơ. Cachan: Q. C. Dang, 2012.

“Of­ten I have re­ceived tid­ings,
But never seen my hus­band again!
In our court­yard, the dry poplar flow­ers
Have cov­ered the thick car­pet of moss;
At ev­ery one of my pen­sive steps,
A thou­sand thoughts have come to as­sail me!”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. “Plaintes d’une femme dont le mari est parti pour la guerre = Chinh phụ ngâm” (La­ments of a Woman Whose Hus­band Has Gone to War), trans. from the Viet­namese by Lê Văn Chất, Hoàng Xuân Nhị, Hữu Ngọc [N­guyễn Hữu Ngọc], Nguyễn Khắc Viện, Phạm Huy Thông, Tảo Trang [Vũ Tuân Sán] and Vũ Quý Vỹ, with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Françoise Cor­rèze. An­tholo­gie de la lit­téra­ture viet­nami­enne. Tome II, 18^e siè­cle, pre­mière moitié du 19^e siè­cle (An­thol­ogy of Viet­namese Lit­er­a­ture. Vol­ume II, 18th Cen­tu­ry, First Half of the 19th Cen­tu­ry). Hanoi: Édi­tions en langues étrangères, 1972; reis­sued Paris-Mon­tréal: L’Har­mat­tan, 2000.

“Of­ten I have re­ceived tid­ings,
Never have I seen my hus­band again!
In the court­yard, the dry poplar flow­ers
Have cov­ered the thick car­pet of moss.
At ev­ery one of my pen­sive steps,
A thou­sand thoughts have come to as­sail me!”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. “Com­plainte de la femme d’un guer­ri­er” (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife), trans. from the Viet­namese by Lê Văn Chất. An­tholo­gie de la poésie viet­nami­enne (An­thol­ogy of Viet­namese Po­et­ry). Paris: Les Édi­teurs français réu­nis, 1969.

“(My) let­ters have of­ten reached (y­ou), but you are not seen re­turn­ing.
Poplar flow­ers, with­ered, are al­ready strewn upon the green moss.
(Upon) the green moss which, in many lay­ers, (grows) all around,
At ev­ery step I take, a host of sad feel­ings (be­siege my heart).”

Đặng, Trần Côn and Đoàn, Thị Điểm. “Une élégie an­na­mite: Chinh phụ ngâm = Le Chant de la femme d’un guer­ri­er” (An An­na­mite El­e­gy: The Song of a War­rior’s Wife), trans. from the Viet­namese by Dương Quảng Hàm. Bul­letin général de l’In­struc­tion publique de l’In­do­chine (Gen­eral Bul­letin of Pub­lic In­struc­tion in In­dochi­na), Hanoi, De­cem­ber 1940 and No­vem­ber 1942.

Downloads

Printed Works

• Trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Đặng Quốc Cơ (elec­tronic ed.). (Y­oto Yotov).
• Par­tial trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Dương Quảng Hàm (1940-1942), part 1. (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).
• Par­tial trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Dương Quảng Hàm (1940-1942), part 2. (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).
• Edi­tion and trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Bùi Văn Lăng (1943). (Na­tional Li­brary of Viet­nam).
• Edi­tion and trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Bùi Văn Lăng (1943), copy. (Viet­nam­i­ca).
• Edi­tion and trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Mau­rice Du­rand (1953). (Viet­nam­i­ca).
• Edi­tion and trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Tuần Lý (Huỳnh Khắc Dụng) (1955). (Viet­nam­i­ca).
• Edi­tion and trans­la­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Tuần Lý (Huỳnh Khắc Dụng) (elec­tronic ed.). (Giao Cảm).
• Par­tial edi­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Georges Cordier (1932). (Na­tional Li­brary of Viet­nam).
• Par­tial edi­tion of Plaintes de la femme d’un guer­rier (La­ment of a War­rior’s Wife) by Georges Cordier (1932), copy. (Viet­nam­i­ca).

Bibliography

• Anony­mous. “La Femme an­na­mite à travers la lit­téra­ture d’An­nam: es­sai lit­téraire” (The An­na­mite Woman Through the Lit­er­a­ture of An­nam: A Lit­er­ary Es­say) [se­ri­al]. La Pa­trie an­na­mite (The An­na­mite Home­land), Hanoi, Au­gust 4 to Oc­to­ber 13, 1941. (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).
• Baruch, Jacques. Es­sai sur la lit­téra­ture du Viêt-nam (Es­say on the Lit­er­a­ture of Viet­nam). Brus­sels: Édi­tions Thanh-Long, “É­tudes ori­en­tales” se­ries, 1963.
• Brasil­lach, Robert. “Sagesses de l’Ori­ent. Lanza del Vas­to: Pè­leri­nage aux sources (De­noël) • Hoang Xuan Nhi: Plaintes d’une chin­h-phou (S­tock)” (Wis­doms of the East. Lanza del Vas­to: Pil­grim­age to the Sources [De­noël] • Hoang Xuan Nhi: Laments of a Chin­h-Phou [S­tock­]). Le Pe­tit Parisien, Paris, De­cem­ber 29, 1943. (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).
• Du­rand, Mau­rice and Nguyễn, Trần Huân. In­tro­duc­tion à la lit­téra­ture viet­nami­enne (In­tro­duc­tion to Viet­namese Lit­er­a­ture). Paris: G.-P. Maison­neuve et Larose, “Unesco d’ini­ti­a­tions aux lit­téra­tures ori­en­tales” se­ries, 1969.
• Hoàng, Xuân Nhị. Thuy-K­iêou: voix nou­velle sur un thème éter­nel de souf­france, suivi de Frag­ments du jour­nal de l’au­teur (Thuy-K­iêou: A New Voice on an Eter­nal Theme of Suf­fer­ing, Fol­lowed by Frag­ments from the Au­thor’s Jour­nal). Paris: Mer­cure de France, 1942.
• Hữu, Ngọc and Cor­rèze, Françoise. Fleurs de pam­ple­moussier: femmes et poésie au Viet­nam (Pomelo Blos­soms: Women and Po­etry in Viet­nam). Paris: L’Har­mat­tan, 1984.
• Lê, Thành Khôi. His­toire et an­tholo­gie de la lit­téra­ture viêt­nami­enne des orig­ines à nos jours (His­tory and An­thol­ogy of Viet­namese Lit­er­a­ture from Its Ori­gins to the Pre­sen­t). Paris: Les In­des sa­van­tes, 2008.
• Trần, Cửu Chấn. Les Grandes Poétesses du Viêt-nam: études lit­téraires (The Great Po­et­esses of Viet­nam: Lit­er­ary Stud­ies). Saigon: Im­primerie de l’U­nion Nguyễn-Văn-Của, 1950. (Na­tional Li­brary of Viet­nam).
• Trần, Văn Tùng. Poésies d’Ex­trême-Ori­ent (Po­ems of the Far East). Paris: B. Gras­set, 1945.