Scholarly woman ends happy!

[heliopausa]

It's Vietnam Women's Day today (International Women's Day is also celebrated, but in March, as everywhere else.)  So to mark the day, here’s something about one of the many notable women in Vietnam's history.

Nguyễn Thị Duệ was born in the late sixteenth century, under the Mạc dynasty.  I don't know her parentage, but her name suggests that she was from an undistinguished family - Thị Duệ  (pronounced, roughly, tea zway) means more or less "ordinary worker's daughter".  (It's possible, though, that this was a name given to deflect unwelcome attention - a name to go unnoticed by?) 

At the age of about twenty, she adopted another name, Nguyễn Thị Du, in order to sit the mandarin entrance examination, disguised as a young man.  The name Thị still has something of a female ring to it, but the history definitely says she was disguised when so called, and women did not at that time enter the exams or serve as mandarins.  Anyway, back to the story: 

Disguised, she entered the examination - and won! and having achieved doctoral status was thus all set for a career as a mandarin, but alas! (or not?) the new laureates had all, as was customary, to be presented to the king, Mạc Kính Cung, and the story says that it was he who identified the slender young doctor as a woman, and...

did not denounce her or shame her or anything of the sort!  Instead, he recognised her talent, and intelligently took her into his court, as teacher of his wives and concubines and, a little later, as high-ranking consort and advisor.  She is credited with continuing involvement in mandarin examinations and with famine relief policies, and war damage relief policies. (War between rival dynasties was ongoing throughout this period.)  But the wars rolled on, and the Mạc kings were overthrown by the Lê kings.  She had lost at one blow her home, her patron, her employer and her husband.

But not her intelligence and not her life.  Amazingly, despite her close identification with the Mạc administration her talent was such that she was (again!) not executed, but was able to maintain her career in the new regime, as scholar-teacher within the court, and as arbiter of examinations when examiners were in difficulties and in the end once more, as consort and advisor-mandarin.  (!!! I mean: pretty blinking adroit navigation of turbulent political waters!) 

Towards the end of her life she left the court and returned to her home village, where she was received with all honour.  After her death at the age of 80, she was venerated, along with other scholars, in the temple of literature there, as she is still..

 

Statue of Nguyễn Thị Duệ in her temple in Chí Linh District of Hải Dương province.— VNS Photo Bạch Liên

Of her poetry, I have struggled with the translation of just two lines.  I like it very much, but I can't say it neatly enough in English.  Here, in fourteen words, she gives a picture of a young girl (nữ nhi) straining to just barely touch the strings (lề) used to bind together the books of her time, and predicts with certainty that the girl who can do so much will advance, first to the humble copy-card used to learn characters (thiếp), and then to take her doctorate (trạng nguyên).

Nữ nhi dù đặng có lề
Ắt là tay thiếp kém gì trạng nguyên

She who uses all means possible to just touch the book's binding
Advances to spell out the words, and to win her doctorate. 

(Not literal, but I promise you a heck of a lot closer than G****** translate.)

Comments

[asakiyume]

I love your translation, and I can **easily** believe it's better than a machine translation, especially machine translation from a non Indo-European language (thinking of its laughable translations from Japanese). And I love the way she put it, and I love its encouragement!

The fact that the Mạc king was able to recognize her as a woman makes me wonder whether anyone else had, but had tacitly let her sit the exam anyway. Then again, probably no one was looking as closely at the examinees as the king was looking at the successful finishers.

Good for the Lê kings, not destroying everyone with potential. And good for her, picking up the pieces of her life!

It's a great story--thanks very much for sharing.

[heliopausa]

I was under the impression that the exams were multiday events, too, which would surely add to the chances of being seen to be a woman.

It is a great story, and lots to ponder, including the magnanimity (or intelligence?) of the Lê kings in this matter. There's heaps more about her with anecdotes and detail on the internet - though mostly in Vietnamese which brings us back to the machine translation issue, but it's not so bad when they're translating modern prose.

Yes, it can be very funny, especially when the material has words no longer in common use - one I've seen a couple of times is that the old, 'poetic' word for mountains, sơn, is written exactly the same as the modern word for housepaint, which can lead via machine translation to some rather odd-seeming poems! :)

[radiantfracture]

What a moving and thrilling story. Thank you!

{rf}

[heliopausa]

You're very welcome! :)

[jae]

That was so lovely and fun to read!

-J

[heliopausa]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)