Spring Essence. In her 2000 article about the book for Publishers Weekly, Bridget Kinsella says: “In the English translation it is easier to see the double entendres that are part of Xuan Huong’s style.” Likewise, in his review of the book for the New York Times, Sam Howe Verhovek notes that many of the translations of Ho’s poems “have not-sohidden sexual imagery.”

The opposite appears to be true for “Spring- Watching Pavilion,” in which the hidden meaning seems to be totally lost in translation. To visualize this, it will help to reproduce the Vietnamese version of the poem:

Em ai, chieu xuan toi khan dai Lang lang chang bon chut tran ai. Ba hoi chieu mo chuong gam song. Mot vung tang thuong nuoc lon troi. Be ai nghin trung khon tat can. Nguon an muon truong de khoi voi. Nao nao cuc lac la dau ta? Cuc lac la day, chin ro muoi

In his discussion of “Spring-Watching Pavilion” in the endnotes section of Spring Essence, Balaban discusses the hidden meaning in this particular poem. Balaban says, “Huong is punning tonally off ai.” As Balaban notes, Ho uses this word in various ways, including strategically placing it so that, when it is combined with other words in the lines below it, the vertical reading gives the poem a hidden meaning. Balaban notes the example of lines five and six, in which the second word on each line, “ai” and “an,” respectively, “can be read vertically as one word, ai-an, meaning ‘love.’” Ultimately, Balaban says that Ho’s many clever tonal manipulations make it seem “as if compassion is spreading throughout the poem. Dust and dissolution engender love.” In other words, in the surface poem, Ho is discussing the necessity of returning to nature to find nirvana. While readers can see that Ho is separating herself from the human world by secluding herself physically in nature, the hidden meaning is more direct. As the poem progresses, and Ho retreats from the human world, compassion grows. Taking this idea to its logical end, the total retreat from the “dust” of the human world results in physical death, which is represented by the term dissolution, or decay. It is only here, in death, that love is engendered, or procreated. Ho is saying that humans must die before they can be born into true love, which could be understood as nirvana. These kind of tonal manipulations are impossible to reproduce in English, so Balaban is not able to retain this exact message.

So far, it looks like Balaban has been able to save very little of the original meaning. Given this fact, why should English readers think that they are reading most, if any, of Ho’s original poem? The answer is imagery. No matter what structural or tonal changes have been lost, the poem retains Ho’s original imagery. One of the most powerful aspects of poetry is in its use of images. This poem employs two main types of imagery—natural and man-made. The poem begins with the mention of “a gentle spring evening” in the first line. As the poem continues, the reader sees that the natural images dominate the poem, indicating the poet’s preference for natural religion over the man-made variety found in institutionalized belief systems like Mahayana Buddhism. Most of the natural images are related to water. The poet describes “bell tolls” that echo “like a wave”; heaven is viewed “upside-down in sad puddles”; love is depicted as a “vast sea”; and grace exists in “springs” that “flow easily everywhere.” Like Vietnam itself, this poem is very wet.

When poets use such blatant imagery, it is usually intentional. In this case, Ho’s reasoning becomes clear when one examines the traditional symbolism of water. In general, water is a symbol for life or creation, and is often associated with femininity, since humans are born from a woman’s fluid-filled womb. Because of this, the poem takes on strong overtones of creation. In addition, the vastness of the sea, the largest body of water found on the earth, represents cosmic infinity, where everybody originates and must eventually return. Collectively, these images emphasize the cyclical role of nature in life, death, and the search for nirvana. This is powerful imagery in any language.

In the end, while it was impossible for Balaban to retain Ho’s tonal manipulations, he has preserved her imagery. This imagery is ultimately the most important part of Ho’s poem, since “Spring- Watching Pavilion” is a poem that is based on nature, and nature does not change regardless of the language in which it is depicted. Verhovek says of the poems in Spring Essence: they “use timeless natural images and simply sound beautiful, both in Vietnamese and now in Mr. Balaban’s translations.” In his introduction, Balaban makes readers fully aware that his translation “almost certainly contains inevitable errors of provenance as well as errors that are purely of my making, a foreigner.” However, this ultimately is not important, because Balaban’s translations, including his translation of “Spring-Watching Pavilion,” still retain enough important elements to make them worth reading. This is why Balaban notes that, while he was “swimming in waters way over his head” during his translations, he was still “cheered by shouts from Vietnamese standing on the far shore.” While it is certainly the goal of any translation to accurately communicate all aspects of a poet’s message, this goal is not always attainable. It would be a tragedy if the world was deprived of the work of poets like Ho, simply because a translator was afraid that he or she might not get it totally right.

Source: Ryan D. Poquette, Critical Essay on “Spring- Watching Pavilion,” in Poetry for Students, Gale, 2003. Poquette has a bachelor’s degree in English and specializes in writing about literature. In

Written during a time of political turnover and upheaval in her home country of Vietnam, Ho Xuan Huong’s poem, “Spring-Watching Pavilion,” found in the collection Spring Essence, captures a calm moment of serenity. In this poem, Ho discusses the discovery of enlightenment in the midst of an environment where such discovery could seem impossible. John Balaban has translated the poem from its original into English. In his poetic translation, Balaban has attempted to maintain the flavor of the original poem while making it easier to comprehend for the English reader. Fortunately, as Balaban explains in the Introduction to Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong, Ho was a master “in composing two poems at once, one hidden in the other” that would appeal to both the common people and the aristocrats. Balaban includes footnotes to many of the poems to help the English reader discover the second or hidden poems. Still, there are many lines and ideas in the poem that could be interpreted in various ways. Though it is difficult to know which of the interpretations is correct, it is interesting to observe the variety of possibility and the impact the different readings have on the understanding of the text as a whole.

In the fourth line of her poem, Ho writes, “We see heaven upside-down in sad puddles.” This line can be interpreted in a few ways. With the statements of “worldly dust” and the “bell” that tolls three times, Ho has brought images into her poem that could be seen as elements of the city. When put in combination with these noisy and dirty images and when the line has been translated to “sad puddles,” it is easy to interpret this line to mean that if the poet were to view heaven in this environment, it would be distorted by the bustle and busyness of the city. This would not be heaven at all, only a “heaven upside-down” and therefore a hell. In this interpretation, the line is in the context of the village and city that has been left behind.

But, this line can be read differently. To see heaven upside-down in a puddle is to encounter the reflection of heaven while still on earth. Perhaps the puddles are not in the city, but just outside the pavilion where the poet is making her observations. By the fourth line in the poem, the reader already knows that the current evening is “gentle” and “unclouded.” To see heaven in this environment is to find peace in the unexpected. Perhaps this glimpse of heaven is what helps the poet come to the final conclusion about nirvana, that “Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten.” With this last line, Ho places the reader immediately in a place of spiritual enlightenment.

How can a reader determine which interpretation is more accurate? Since this poem is a translation, it can be helpful to return to the original text. In his Introduction to Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong, Balaban includes a literal translation of the poem, “Spring-Watching Pavilion.” In the literal translation, the fourth line reads, “one puddle mourning water turned over heaven.” In this translation, a new possible image comes forth—a view of heaven covered over by a puddle. Here, it becomes unclear as to which noun is turning. Is it the water turning or heaven? Perhaps it is the water that propels heaven to turn and become visible to the poet and then the reader. It is also possible that the heaven of this line could simply be the earth near the pavilion that has been covered over by a puddle from a spring rain. Both of these ideas would still support the idea that heaven is present in the here and now.

This explanation, however, does not fully clarify why the puddle would be in “mourning.” If the puddle is personified, or given human attributes, that allow for the puddle to show emotion, why would Ho choose sadness? Perhaps, because in this line, heaven is covered over, and therefore still inaccessible. Heaven is still just beyond reach. By focusing on this word, the reader would again have found support for the first interpretation, that this would not be heaven at all, but only a “turned . . . heaven.”

It is then good to look at the following line that says, “love’s vast sea cannot be emptied.” In the literal translation it reads, “sea love 1,000 immense cannot splash out shallow.” With the addition of this line, heaven becomes connected with the vast sea of love. In this way, the water that covers over heaven is indeed love, and the combination of love and heaven “cannot splash out.” These two things will always exist in this moment. Though one may not always recognize their presence, they cannot dissipate. “Nine times out of ten,” heaven will be available.

In both Balaban’s literal and poetic translations, symbols of water are ever present. This water is a symbol of a life force that flows freely and unhalting, through the observations of the poet. The bell rings in “waves,” and “springs of grace flow.” She freely plays with the images of water and uses them to help the reader think about nature, creation, and life.

The original text of this poem was written in Nom, a native Vietnamese language that was not often used. In this version, her choices of word placement and rhyme add new dimension to her poems. In addition, she demonstrates a keen skill with the lu-shih tradition and creates poems with definite rhyme and meter. A lu-shih is a classical Chinese poem that follows a strict form of eight lines of seven syllables with end rhymes at the first, second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines. In the Chinese tradition, there are also strict rules of the ways tones will fall in the lines. Though much of this is lost in translating Ho’s poem to English, other subtleties remain.

One such example is the use of the word “spring” in this poem. In the title, “Spring-Watching” could mean a pavilion that faces a natural spring, or it could define the season in time when the poet is making her observations. “Xuan” is the Vietnamese word for spring. It is also part of the poet’s name. In the entire collection of poems edited and translated by Balaban, this is the only poem with the poet’s own name in the title. By including her name in the title, Ho has given herself a direct place in her poem. In Balaban’s poetic translation, the word spring returns in both the first and sixth lines. In the first line, “spring” appears to describe the season in time, while in the sixth line, the word is used like a natural spring or wellspring. Because this word is also the name of the poet, each time it is used, it carries the additional weight of the presence of the poet in the poem. The line “springs of grace” could suddenly also refer to Ho’s personality. The continual repetition of the word “spring” adds to the authoritative and confident voice of the poet and the poem.

To help the reader understand other devices that Ho used in the poem, “Spring-Watching Pavilion,” Balaban provides an endnote to the poem that examines some of the Nom words in a different manner. Instead of reading the words from left to right, he reads them from top to bottom. Suddenly, two words in line five and two words in line six form two new words: “áI-ân,” which means love and “nghìn and muôn” which means vast. In the endnote to Spring Essence, John Balaban interprets these new words to show that “compassion is spreading throughout the poem.” This all encompassing compassion helps support the ideas of nirvana being present in poem and in the current world.

Throughout the poem, Ho includes images and ideas that stem from Mahayana Buddhism such as “worldly dust” and the images of the vast sea of love and grace. Though Ho followed Buddhist precepts she was not inclined to support organized religion. According to the introduction to Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong, Balaban reveals that Ho “saw corruption in the religious institutions of her time and cast some of her wickedest slurs on venal, lazy or decadent clergy.” This poem is clearly filled with Buddhist ideas and beliefs but intentionally absent from the piece is a traditional clerical guide.

In Mahayana Buddhism, there are members of the community called bodhisattvas who have already achieved nirvana, but remain on earth to guide other followers. As Balaban explains in the endnotes of his translation of Ho’s work, “the bodhisattvas vow to save all sentient beings and [strive] for karuna—kindness or compassion—one of the Buddhist ‘perfections.’” When reading words from lines five and six vertically, the reader learns that compassion is one of the main ideas Ho wants to include in the poem. In addition, if the reader follows the second interpretation of the fourth line, the interpretation that says that heaven is being reflected for the poet, then Ho herself can be seen as someone acting in the manner of a bodhisattva in this poem. She has seen nirvana and now cannot remain passive while others are unaware of the beauty already around them on earth. She is actively making others aware of the heaven and compassion that surround them on earth.

Like a bodhisattva, as the author of the poem she knows where she wants to take her reader. She is the guide for the type of understanding and nirvana the reader will get from her work. Because of her own mixed and critical feelings for organized religion, Ho has taken her own claim to spiritual enlightenment and brought the reader along for the journey. It is a journey absent of organized religion, but not revelation. Ho is a master of word play. One of the greatest strengths of her poems is her use of double entendre to bring multiple meanings to her poems. All the confusion about the fourth line may have been part of an intended ambiguity. The contradiction allows for reflection and possibility. The ability to expand the meaning of her poem through the creation of vertical reading also helps provide the poem with depth and greater understanding. She is intentional about her words, from “dust” to “spring.” She demonstrates enlightenment, both as a poet and as a spiritual guide. All of these various pieces to her poem and poetics only increase the intensity of the epiphany at the end of the poem so that “Nirvana is here nine times out of ten.”

Source: Kate Covintree, Critical Essay on “Spring-Watching Pavilion,” in Poetry for Students, Gale, 2003. Covintree holds a bachelor’s degree in English and is currently pursuing a master of fine arts in writing at Emerson College.