The Tale of Kiều
by Nguyễn Du
Ch. 25: Kiều Resigned to Her Fate
Translated by Vuong Thanh 

Chapter 25: Kiều Resigned to Her Fate 

Alone in her room, Kiều sobbed and sobbed.

Thinking about her life, she felt a resigned sorrow for her lot.

“How regrettable that a thing frost-clear and silver-white”, 

thought she, “must roll in the dust and wind, like any other things!

Grief or joy, it’s just one life.

A beautiful maiden does not live forever in this world.

In an earlier life, I did not do well to deserve good karma.

This life, I have to repay the debts that I owed.

Anyhow, since the vase’d been shattered,

I’ll use my body to repay life’s debts and be done.”

On a bright moonlit night, 

Dame Tú dropped by and gave her some advices:

“The trade of love’s fairly involved.

We, the practitioners, need to know all its tricks.”

Kiều said: “Living this life with frequent comings of winds and rains,

when I must give my body, what else for me to do but give it!”

The bawd said, “All men are alike.

Who will waste money here if he does not get his money’s worth. 

In this trade, there’s still a lot of things to learn.

How to deal with men during the day or with one at night. 

Daughter, you must know these things by heart:

seven seduction’s ploys, eight intimacy’s techniques.

Play love games with them until you have worn them out,

till their stony hearts must beg, till their minds are drunken with lust.   

Flirt with a coquettish glance, enchant with your sensual lips,

sing in the moonlight, sport among the flowers.

These are the art and practices of this house’s trade.

Mastery of these skills required to be an exemplary mistress.”

Kiều quietly listened to her teachings from start to finish.

She knitted her eyebrows and her face went pale.

Just to hear what was said already embarrassed her.

She thought, “Life’s so full of many queer and unpleasant things.

Poor me! A  girl who’d led a sheltered life 

now have to learn these very curious trades. 

I must be shameless hereafter and wear a brazen face.

Since my life had sunken down to this level , so be it!

Alas for my life, I had gone astray.

My life’s in the hands of others. What can I do?”

The brothel then let down Kiều’s new pink curtains.

The higher the jade’s price, the greater the person’s intrinsic worth.

So many flirting butterflies and bees swarmed around her.

Month-long drink sprees, whole nights of mirth and laughter. 

Like a leaf trembling under the winds,

like a branch perched by many birds,

at dawn, she showed one handsome official out,

at dusk, she went to meet a poet-scholar.

Late at night, when the drunkenness had passed,

startled at her state, she felt sorrow for herself.

“I was raised in silk and brocade,

but now I’m like a shredded flower, laying in the middle of the road.

This face - how is it so shameless, so brazen.

This body – the butterflies and bees have been all over.

Let them take their pleasures of my flesh.

As for me, I do not know what it is that they call Love!”

Sometimes she’d enjoy a fresh breeze by the flowers.

Sometimes she’d gaze through the curtains at the moonlit snow.

All the sceneries, none of them does not bear sorrow.

 When a person’s sad, the scenery can never be joyful!

Sometimes she’d paint, or write some verse, 

play the lute under moonlight, or chess beneath flowers.

But her cheerfulness is just a forced cheerfulness.  

With whom to share her joys when there’s no friend of the heart?

Bamboo leaves rustling in the wind, 

raindrops falling on plum blossoms, 

she did not care to enjoy,  as her mind had hundreds of concerns.

Her heart, when she thought about the present and distant past,

became a tangled mess, a well of pain.

She missed her parents so much.

Each day they’re getting older. 

Far away, beyond the mountains and the rivers,

they’d never have thought her life could have turned out like this!

Her brother and sister are still a little too young and innocent.

Who would replace her then to take care of the parents?

She remembered her troth with her beloved.

From so far away, would he understand her heart’s feelings?

When he returns and asks for her, only to find that she,

like the willow branch on Chương Đài street, 

was broken off the tree and passed from one hand to another.

She hoped she could somehow repay his love and wondered:

“Was the other flower (her sister) attached onto this branch yet?”

Her emotions tangled like a skein of raveled silk threads.

Dreams of her hometown filled many a long night. 

Behind the gauze curtains of her window, she felt so forlorn, 

without family and friends in this small corner of the world.

Just a sunset today, soon another sunset tomorrow. 

Day passed by day, as the silver hare and the golden crow chased each other.

She thought of those in the Heartbreaking Destiny League:

“God had made them to be beautiful women,

But he must injure them, destroy their lives to balance the scale!

Each girl, once doomed to a life of dust-and-wind,

will have to drink her full cup of shame till it’s empty.”