Kỷ niệm thời con gái (Memories of When I Was A Young Woman) - Vinh Sử, Nguyên Thảo (1970)

HABANERA

Kỷ niệm thời con gái xa xôi...

Memories of when I was a young girl are long past...
Buồn vui mình mãi nhớ trong đời.

Both sad and happy, I'll remember them always throughout my life.
Những ngày thân ái Anh Tôi, ân tình em ấp trên môi, tin yêu thời con gái.

Those affectionate days with My Boy, my grateful lips enfolded, the loving trust of when I was a young woman.

Cuộc tình nào không chóng phôi pha?

Is there ever a love that does not quickly fade?
Nụ hoa nào chẳng sắc hương nhoà?

Or a flower whose tint and fragrance don't tarnish?
Có loài tim vỡ như hoa, ngôi tình yêu thoáng bay xa, thôi viết tâm sự bài ca.

There are hearts rent like a flower, love's dignity flies faraway in flash, fine, I'll confide it in a song.

Xưa kia đôi khi vẫn biết yêu đương là chết trong lòng không ít Anh ơi.

Long, long ago, at times I knew that love is a dying in ones heart, not a little, my Dear.
Nên Em không mơ ngày cưới khi Anh bàn tới lo sợ chúng mình lìa đôi.

So I did not dream of a wedding day when You discussed the fear that the two of us would separate.

Kỷ niệm thời con gái băn khoăn.

Memories of when I was worried young woman.
Ngày xưa thường vẫn hỏi Anh rằng:

Long ago I often asked You:
"Nếu một mai sẽ ly tan, ôi buồn Anh trách Em chăng"?

"If tomorrow we break up, oh, will You blame Me for the sadness"? 
Anh nói: "Đâu phải tại nhau".

You said: "Not at all, it's both of us."


nguồn: Vinh Sử & Nguyên Thảo, "Kỷ niệm thời con gái" (Sài Gòn: Ẫn phẩm của NT, 1970).

"Kỷ niệm thời con gái" (Memories of When I Was a Young Woman), recorded by Giao Linh, is credited only to Nguyên Thảo on this record on the Dư Âm label. The record have been released during the summer of 1970. Like his other three songs released on 7 inch vinyl records, this song lists Nguyên Thảo as the co-creator, but Vinh Sử insisted to me that he was the sole author. 

A tale of love lost, it's apparent that she would be unable to live up their hope for a happy life together. The lyrics are rather clichéd, including a paraphrase of a famous line from "Yêu" (Love), Xuân Diệu's famed poem of the 1930s - "Yêu, là chết ở trong lòng một ít" (Love Means Dying Inside A Little). Xuân Diệu himself appropriated this image from the 1891 poem, "Chanson de l'adieu", by Edmond Haroucourt - "Partir, c'est mourir un peu" - "To part is to die a little"). 

Love's fading was unwilled by either of them. Often in Vietnamese poetry the passing of a flower's beauty and fragrance suggests that a woman's youth has passed. Here I think the flower stands for the beauty of a relationship that has had to end. Despite their ardent feelings, during the height of their romance neither of them believed that they could ever marry. Since she asks whether she is to blame, the underlying assumption is that they carried on their relationship knowing that she would be betrothed to another. The reasons for this are unstated -- either her parents had matched her with another partner, or he was of such a low station in life that he could never be considered as a son-in-law.

These are very sad memories, but they are happy to recall as well - "Buồn vui mình mãi nhớ trong đời." They both gave of themselves and received these memories in return. All along they were aware that a break-up was inevitable.