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Phạm Su Mạnh's Poems Written while Patrolling the Vietnamese Northern Border in the Middle of the Fourteenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

O. W. Wolters
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Extract

I recently discussed the response of Pham Su Mạnh and other fourteenth century Vietnamese officials to signs of peasant unrest when the Trṇn dynasty (1226–1400) weakened. I suggested that the officials were witnessing social and political conditions that compelled them to abandon their habitual sense of being the emperors' obedient subordinates and, instead, reluctantly to assume the responsibility of defining norms of good government. Their unwonted behaviour led me to believe that important changes were under way in fourteenth century Vietnam. Educated men, under pressure of events, were beginning to become monitors of government even though they served and wanted to protect the Tân autocracy.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 107 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1982

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References

1 Wolters, O.W., “Assertions of Cultural Well-Being in Fourteenth Century Vietnam: Part two”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11, no. 1 (1980): 74–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 They are published in the Thα văn Lý-Trṇn (Nhà Xuâť Khoa Học Xã, Hội, Hanoi, 1978), vol. 3.

3 The Việt Điện U-Linh Tập. Perhaps some of the tales in the Lĩ Nam Chich Quài were compiled in the later years of the 14th century.

4 Ngû∼yen S ng, TVTL = Toàn Viêt thi lục (HM 2319 in the library of the Société Asiatique, Paris, undated preface), q. 3, pp. 14a-b.

5 TVTL, q. 2, p. 10b. He also flaunts his knowledge of Chʼü Yüan.

6 Nguyễn T Thành, TV = Thα văn L -Trần, vol. 3, p. 21.

7 TV, vol. 3, p. 56.

8 They are published in TV.

9 S. Couvreur, Li Ki, 2nd edition, Ho Kien Fou, 1913, vol. 2, p. 469.

10 The cultural significance of the expression “writing and chariots” is illustrated in one of Nguyễn Trãi's poems, composed in honour of Lê Lα i's victory in 1432 over tribal rebels at Lai Châu in the extreme northwestern part of Vietnam. Trãi was related by marriage to Nguyễn Đan (1326–90), one of the 14th century witnesses. Trãi states that Lê Lα i pitied the customs of distant people and concludes his poem:

From now within the four seas chariots and script will be uniform.

This is similar to the a bundant virtue and magnificent achievement of remote antiquity.

Trãi sees Lê Lcr i's victory as a civilizing mission and, by implication, comparable with the achievement of the Văn Lang rulers; c-Trãi tâp (HM 2210 in the Société Asiatique; first preface dated 182S), q. I, p. 12b-13a.

11 Hawkes, Terence, Structuralism and Semiotics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977), p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 I am referring to Bùi Bićh's Hoàng Viêt thi n. ee TV, vol. 3, p. 115, note 1.

13 I have used the texts collated by the editors of TV. I thank Professors Jonathan Culler, Harold Shadick, and James Siegel for their citicism of an earlier draft of this essay.

14 TV, vol. 3, p. 107.

15 TV, vol. 3, p. 112.

16 TV, vol. 3, p. 113.

17 The TV text gives “miasmas” instead of “peaks”. The text in the HM copy in Paris gives “peaks”, and I follow it here because I believe that Mạnn's imagery is not influenced by the Chinese convention that the Vietnamese northern mountains were characterized by miasmas. I give below two references to “miasmas”, one by Nguyễn Trung Ngạn and the other by Mạnh. Ngạn is following the convention but Mạnh associates miasmas with the Chinese side of the border.

18 TV, vol. 3, p. 109.

19 TV, vol. 3, p. 109.

20 TV, vol. 3, p. 109.

21 TV, vol. 3, p. 114.

22 TV, vol. 3, p. 109.

23 TV, vol. 3, p. 114.

24 TV, vol. 3, p. 110.

25 Professor Siegel observes a contrast in these poems between Mạnh's vivid military details and the unsubstantiality of the physical border. He merely names the peaks and ravines. Miasmas are excluded. Colour is reserved for the flags. He is interested in movement near the border but, when he looks at the border itself, he never seems to see it. The Tam Thanh poem emphasizes the border's invisibility by referring to celestial sites “close at hand” or “within easy reach” but never seen. Yet the border contains a celestial capital and is a centre surrounded by a girdle of streams and a moat. A celestial capital is necessarily invisible, and this is what gives substance to things outside it such as flags and troops. The flags and troops compensate for what is not seen; they supply presence to make up for absence on the border itself. The Celestial Capital creates a physical gap, and the gap represents the border.

26 See note 14 above.

27 TVTL, q. 2, p. 26a.

28 TVTL, q. 2, p. 33b.

29 TVTL, vol. 3, p. 98.

30 TV. vol. 3, p. 101.

31 TV, vol. 3, p. 99, note 2.

32 I have consulted the 1960 editions by Lê H u Mụuc and by Đinh Gia Khánh and Nguyễn Ngọc San.

33 TV, vol. 3, p. 99.

34 Vietnamese historians believe that Thục is not a toponym but the patronym of a ruler of a federation of Âu Việt tribes; Nguyễn Khc Viện, Le Vietnam traditionnel — quelques étapes historiques. Études vietnamiennes, no. 21 (Hanoi, 1969), p. 21.

35 In another poem Mạnh mentions Phong Khê, associated with An-d ng who overthrew the Hùng kings in the 3rd century b.c. In yet another poem he mentions Ông Trọng, a hero of the 3rd century b.c. who became a Vietnamese tulelary spirit. Ông Trọng's shrine is noted in the poem. In both cases Mạnh is alluding to sites in the neighbourhood of Hanoi.

36 In the first tale.