The ''Chinh phụ ngâm'' ("Lament of the soldier's wife", 征婦吟) is a poem in classical Chinese written by the Vietnamese author Đặng Trần Côn (1710-1745). It is also called the ''Chinh phụ ngâm khúc'' (征婦吟曲), with the additional -khúc ("tune", 曲) emphasizing that it can be performed as a musical piece not just read as a plain "lament" (ngâm, 吟). The Chinese-language poem was translated into vernacular

chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ; ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters (''Chữ Hán'') to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represen ...

by several translators including

Phan Huy Ích Phan Huy Ích (chữ Hán: 潘輝益; 1751–1822) was a Vietnamese poet. Phan Huy Ich served two dynasties, both the Lê dynasty, Le dynasty then the Tay Son uprising. About the time of the collapse of the Tay Son dynasty he wrote the preface to ...

and Đoàn Thị Điểm. It was also translated into Japanese, English, French and Korean languages. The first eight lines of the poem along with the music composed by Professor Võ Văn Lúa were adopted as the national anthem of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina from 1946 to 1949. Chinh phụ ngâm

References

Vietnamese poems Lê dynasty literature Chinese-language literature of Vietnam Works about wars {{poem-stub