Imaginary dialogue between Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương
by Charactorium · Hồ Xuân Hương (1772 — 1822) · Literature · Culture · 5 min read
It is on the shores of West Lake, in the Cổ Nguyệt Đường with its shutters open to the water, that Nguyễn Du comes to find Hồ Xuân Hương one late autumn afternoon, around 1813, shortly before his departure as an envoy to the North. The ink is still drying on a sheet near the brazier, and the scent of lotus tea floats in the room. The two poets have known each other for years, united by the same taste for chữ Nôm and for verses that scratch beneath the silk. He has not come out of curiosity, but as an equal — to understand how she makes the people's language sing while others are content with the Mandarin Chinese.
—Xuân Hương, you and I both write in Nôm while the literati despise this language. Why do you persist in the language of the people?
Because chữ Hán, my friend, is the language of stelae and edicts — cold, stiff, made for men who bow to the emperor. Nôm, on the other hand, is my mother's tongue, the language of markets and rice-field songs. When I write about a rock, a cave, a fan, I want both the peasant woman and the mandarin to hear their own voice beneath it. You, who handle Nôm with such patience, know that it does not let itself be tamed like Chinese: you must obey it. I chose this language because it alone can speak of both stone and flesh, without having to choose.
Chinese is the language of stelae; Nôm is the language of markets and rice-field songs.
—They say your style is thanh thanh tục tục — elegant and bawdy at once. Aren't you afraid that equivocation will make you more enemies than readers?
Enemies I already have, and it is not my ink that will create them. You see, I never say the obscene: I paint a landscape, a crevice in the rock, an overripe fruit, and it is the reader who blushes at what he himself puts into it. Where is my fault? A verse clean on the surface, equivocal beneath — that is my way of laughing in the face of the virtuous who condemn the body by day and covet it by night. Grave men hate being shown such a mirror. But you, you laugh, because you know that double meaning is the only freedom left to a woman who holds a brush.
I paint a crevice in the rock, and it is the reader who blushes at what he puts into it.
—Twice you have been married as a lẽ, never a first wife. Do you bear this condition of concubine as a wound?
As a wound, yes, and as a subject for verse, which makes it bearable. To be lẽ is to share a man, to rise before the principal wife, to endure her moods and have only the leftovers of tenderness. I wrote about it without disguise: a woman who serves two nights out of ten and waits her turn like a servant. Many women live this in silence; I shout it on paper. It is not that I despise marriage — it is that I refuse to pretend it is sweet for those relegated to the second rank. My complaint is not only mine; it is that of all the lẽ mọn of Tonkin.
A woman who serves two nights out of ten and waits her turn like a servant.
—Your second husband, the mandarin of Vĩnh Tường, passed away after barely twenty-seven months. How does one live through such a brief widowhood?
Twenty-seven months, my friend — I counted every moon. I thought I had finally found a home of my own, a literate husband who appreciated my verses, and then death took everything from me before the household rice had even taken on its flavor. Widowhood, when it is so short, leaves no time for hatred nor for true happiness: only a great emptiness where one wonders if one has dreamed. I wept for Vĩnh Tường as one weeps for a missed season. Then I took up my brush again, for it is the only thing no husband, living or dead, has ever taken from me.
Death took everything from me before the household rice had even taken on its flavor.
—My first husband had a pavilion built for you on the water so you could write away from quarrels. What did this refuge give you?
Silence, first of all — that rare treasure for a woman in a household. Tổng Cóc, with all his faults, at least understood that I was withering in the noise of the main house, amid the reproaches of the first wife and the cries of children. So he had this thủy tạ built on stilts, at water level. There, I heard the lapping against the wood, the wind in the reeds, and nothing else. It was on these damp planks that I composed my best verses, those where the water, the boat, and the night say far more than they seem to. A man can offer you a body of water; he will never know all that you write on it behind his back.
A man can offer you a body of water; he will never know all that you write on it.
—This residence, the Cổ Nguyệt Đường, you have made it your very name. What does this lakeshore where we are now represent to you?
This lake is my homeland more than any village of my ancestors. I grew up here, in this Pavilion of the Old Moon, when the quarter was the most flourishing in Tonkin. The name of the house became my pen name — Cổ Nguyệt, the old moon, the one that has seen everything and is surprised by nothing. Every morning the water changes color, every evening the mist rises, and I have learned that nothing lasts except what one sets down on paper. It is here that I receive the literati, here that I drink tea with you, here that I will perhaps die. This lake is my open inkwell.
Cổ Nguyệt, the old moon — the one that has seen everything and is surprised by nothing.
—Our literati friends — Phạm Đình Hổ, Phan Huy Huân — flock to your home. What do they seek in these versification gatherings?
What they find nowhere else: a woman who gives as good as she gets and does not lower her eyes. At my place, one does not merely recite — one issues challenges, rhymes on a word thrown out at random, laughs loudly, and sometimes blushes. Phan Huy Huân wrote overly flattering things about my supposed beauty; I return his compliments in verses sharper than he hoped for. These men come because with me poetry becomes a living, dangerous game, where wit counts more than rank. You, better than anyone, know that among poets there is neither man nor woman, neither concubine nor mandarin — only verses that stand or fall.
Among poets there is neither man nor woman, neither concubine nor mandarin — only verses that stand.
—You and I share the same art of Nôm. In what ways are our paths as poets alike, and in what ways do they diverge?
We draw from the same source, you and I: this language of the people that mandarins disdain and that we raise to the highest level. But your path is that of the long narrative, of destinies that span years and draw tears; mine is that of the short verse that stings and startles. You sing of women's misfortune with a tenderness that ennobles them; I shout it with a disturbing anger. We may be saying the same thing — that life is cruel to the weak and the beautiful — but you make people weep, and I make them laugh bitterly. That is why we understand each other without ever copying each other.
You make people weep, and I make them laugh bitterly — that is why we understand each other.
—Few archives are kept on women of letters. Do you fear that your name will be lost, for lack of a mandarin to record it?
I think of it every time I seal a poem. Clan registers keep the names of husbands, sons, governors; of a woman, they retain at most that she was the lẽ of so-and-so, the mother of so-and-so. No official scholar will take up the brush to say who I was. But you see, I make a bet: that my verses will travel from mouth to mouth where stelae crack. Perhaps they will forget my face, my birth date, the place of my grave — scholars will even argue over my existence. Let them argue! As long as a peasant woman chuckles at one of my double meanings, I will not be entirely dead.
As long as a peasant woman chuckles at one of my double meanings, I will not be entirely dead.
—If only one thing were remembered about you, Xuân Hương, what would you want it to be?
Not my marriages, not my misfortunes as a concubine — that, every woman in this country has lived. What I would like to be remembered is that a woman dared to write the body, desire, and revolt in the language of her people, without asking anyone's permission. That I took Nôm, this script deemed lowly, and put enough wit into it to make hypocrites tremble. The rest — my rank, my widowhoods, my grave lost beneath the lake's waters — belongs only to my poor flesh. But the verses, they are free. Take them with you to the North, my friend: that is how they will travel farther than I ever will.
A woman dared to write the body and revolt in the language of her people, without permission.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Hồ Xuân Hương's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.