Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778 (vi)

from historian Nhung Tuyet Tran and the University of Hawai'i Press

Here for the third time is the spread of pages 36 and 37. The first time, (iv), I called your attention to the verso, left-hand, page 36 where Nhung Tuyet Tran passes along a sad song of the people, “Like a female stork drudging by the banks of the river. ”

The verse recalled to me Ezra Pound’s “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” in translation from Li Bai. So I had a look at that lieder and found that “Like a female stork drudging” steals its thunder, a blues lyric rather than art song from a scholar.

I called your attention to this spread of pages a second time, (v), to the recto, right-hand 37. There Nhung reports on the inscription of a stele, a list of the names of the women who erected it to memorialize their building of a bridge for the market.

I would have preferred naked epigraphy, the roll of sisters, but I find the historian’s commentary alone stirring. Her history is an anthology of poetry like the book of Psalms, and Songs, and the Greek Anthology itself.

I have shown you this spread of pages 3 times because it is typical of the book to pass along heightened speech from deeply felt occasions. The other way to demonstrate that would be to show you many pages.

In the next 20 pages alone I have found school rhymes for girls, off-color warnings, proverbs, zingers from dictionaries, and a table of the words people used to address one another in respect. To show you all those would make unfair use of the book’s copyright.

The book is a tissue woven of verse with knots of poetry, heart speaking to heart in public. For me to pick out bits to write in my own prose report would be like Ezra presenting Bai passing along a song the drunken poet heard somewhere.

Like a female stork drudging by the banks of the river
I shoulder the rice for my husband
My cries of sorrow are crisp and clear
Now, I must return and feed my daughters and sons
So that you can tame the waters and mountains in Cao Bang.

This was the sixth Viet Nam letter of 7 so far addressed to Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778 by Nhung Tuyet Tran. It is the third letter to show and the second to discuss “Like a female stork drudging by the banks of the river.”

The first letter judges the book by its cover, on March 30, 2022.

The second letter reads the title page, on April 30, 2022.

The third letter discusses Vietnamese women and Southeast Asia in light of the book’s introduction, on June 1, 2022.

The fourth letter is the first with the poem, “Like a female stork drudging by the banks of the river,” on July 18, 2022.

The fifth is the second letter to discuss epigraphy from steles women raised in the markets they built, on December 12, 2022.

The seventh letter, on March 27, 2023, presents 2 more poems to make the point that the work of history is also an anthology.

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.