The ''Chinh phụ ngâm'' ("Lament of the soldier's wife", 征婦吟) is a poem in classical Chinese written by the Vietnamese author

Đặng Trần Côn Đặng Trần Côn (chữ Hán: ; born Trần Côn; c. 1705–1745) was the author of the ''Chinh phụ ngâm'' a masterpiece of chữ Hán literature of Vietnam. Đặng Trần Côn was born in Nhân Mục village (or Nhân Mọc), Thanh Trì d ...

(1710–1745). It is also called the ''Chinh phụ ngâm khúc'' (征婦吟曲), with the additional -khúc ("tune", 曲) emphasizing that it can be performed as a musical piece not just read as a plain "lament" (ngâm, 吟). The Chinese-language poem was translated into vernacular

chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...

by several translators including

Phan Huy Ích Phan Huy Ích (chữ Hán: 潘輝益; 1751–1822) was a Vietnamese poet. Phan Huy Ich served two dynasties, both the Le dynasty then the Tay Son uprising. About the time of the collapse of the Tay Son dynasty he wrote the preface to Ngô Thì ...

and

Đoàn Thị Điểm Đoàn Thị Điểm ( vi-hantu, 段氏點, 1705 - 1748), courtesy name Thụy Châu (瑞珠), pseudonym Mai Khuê (梅閨) or Rosy Clouds Lady (紅霞女士), was the classical-Vietnamese female poet. Biography Đoàn Thị Điểm was born in 17 ...

. It was also translated into Japanese, English, French and Korean languages. The first eight lines of the poem along with the music composed by Professor Võ Văn Lúa were adopted as the national anthem of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina from 1946 to 1949.

References

Vietnamese poems Lê dynasty literature Chinese-language literature of Vietnam Works about wars {{poem-stub

External links

Chinh phụ ngâm – Lament Song of a Soldier's Wife
– annotated, side-by-side translation by Vương Thanh