Du Nguyễn, Thanh Vuong, Translator
Within a hundred-year lifespan in this earthly world, Genius and Destiny have a tendency to oppose each other. A turbulent mulberry-field-covered-by-sea period had passed. The things that we saw still deeply pain our hearts. It’s not strange that beauty may beget misery. The jealous gods tend to heap spites on rosy-cheeked beauties. Turning scented pages of an old volume under an oil lamp, I started reading a long-ago tale of love and romance. It was during the Chia-Ching’s rule of the Ming dynasty. The two capitals were stable; peace reigned in the country. There was a respectable townsman with surname Vương. Of modest wealth, he belonged to the middle class of society. He had a son, the youngest, named Vuong Quan, to carry on the family lineage of Confucian scholars. The first-borns were two beautiful daughters. Thúy Kiều the eldest, Thúy Vân the younger. Apricot slender in frame, snow pure in spirit. Each to her own charms, but both girls were perfect. Vân’s beauty was very remarkable. Her eyebrows – full crescent arcs, her moonlit face – oval. Jades tingled in her voice; flowers bloomed from her smile. Her speech: educated, chaste and refined. Clouds yielded to her hair’s lustrous shine and flow. Snow ceded to the silky whiteness of her skin’s glow.
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