Nguyễn Du

“Across his shoulder is a bag stuffed with wind and moonlight, which is what the world calls poetry.”
― Nguyễn Du, The Tale of Kiều

“She says: ‘We are cursed,
who are born beneath the peach blossom
and fated to work these green pavilions.
I thought I had escaped them,
but the breeze has blown me back.
To understand life is to know despair.
Genius and beauty are worthless:
they make heaven jealous.
I had filtered my springwater with alum:
it bubbles now with muck and mud.
The potter’s wheel torments all women:
it spins and spins, without throwing us off.
When I left home, I accepted my fate:
but why must destiny still hack away
at a rose already shredded?
Half my youth is gone too soon.
I’ll offer up the rest of it.
I’ll end my young days here.”
― Nguyễn Du, The Tale of Kiều