Thế Lữ

Gnawing upon our resentment, we stretch out in an iron cage,
Watching the slow passage of days and months.
How we despise the insolent crowd outside,
Standing there foolishy, with tiny eyes bulging,
As they mock the stately spirit of the deep jungle.
Here by misfortune, shamefully caged,
We are no more than a novel sight to amuse them, some plaything...
O stately soul, heroic land,
Vast domain where yesteryear we freely roamed,
We see you no more.
But do you know that during our days of frustration
We follow a great dream, letting our souls race to be near you,
O formidable jungle of ours!

Thế Lữ (6 October 1907 – 3 June 1989; birth name: Nguyễn Thứ Lễ) was a Vietnamese poet.

Quotes

• Gnawing upon our resentment, we stretch out in an iron cage,
  Watching the slow passage of days and months.
  How we despise the insolent crowd outside,
  Standing there foolishy, with tiny eyes bulging,
  As they mock the stately spirit of the deep jungle.
  Here by misfortune, shamefully caged,
  We are no more than a novel sight to amuse them, some plaything...
  O stately soul, heroic land,
  Vast domain where yesteryear we freely roamed,
  We see you no more.
  But do you know that during our days of frustration
  We follow a great dream, letting our souls race to be near you,
  O formidable jungle of ours!
  • "Remembering the Jungle: The Words of the Tiger in the Zoo", in Understanding Vietnam by Neil L. Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), ISBN 978-0520916586, pp. 159–160

• The muse lends me a lyre of myriad tunes,
  her brush of myriad tints—I want to play
  a wizard working wonders, magic tricks
  with all the sounds and colors of the earth.
  • In: An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems, trans. Huỳnh Sanh Thông (Yale University Press, 1996), ISBN 978-0300064100

External links

• Encyclopedic article on vi:Thế Lữ on Wikipedia