Kieu in Dactyls, maybe Trochees

Up until this point I've hid behind the excuse that translating the Tale of Kieu in its original meter and with the original rhyming scheme was too difficult. I'm going to finally give it a shot. I did some research and discovered that the Tale of Kieu is actually apart of a larger tradition of Vietnamese lyric poetry going back a thousand years. The Tale of Kieu is actually a very long ca dao. Ca dao are Vietnamese folk poems that were meant to be sung. They had a strict meter and rhyming scheme so they would be easier to remember. So similar to the Illiad the Tale of Kieu was meant to be memorized and recited.
The poetry in Kieu is broken up into 6-8 syllable couplets with an interesting rhyming scheme. For example:

Thương tình con trẻ thơ ngây,                                 6

Gặp cơn vạ gió tai bay bất kỳ.                                8

Đau lòng tư biết sinh ly,                                          6

Thân còn chẳng tiếc, tiếc gì đến duyên?                  8

The interesting thing about the rhyming scheme is that it is not in line with the couplets; the bottom 8 syllable couplet rhymes with the next top 6 syllable couplet. The rhyming threads the couplets together, holding the whole poem together.

Aside from meter and rhyming, the next important thing is where the stressed and unstressed syllables fall. Unlike English, Vietnamese is a tonal language but that doesn't mean it is a fundamentally different system. This reminds me of when I was talking to a Vietnamese guy and he told me that English had tones like Vietnamese. I was skeptical at first but he explained to me something which should have been obvious to an English teacher like myself. After you learn the pronunciation, vowel and constant sounds, you have to learn which syllable is stressed. This is not something I have to think about, but for someone learning English it is very important. So according to my friend, stressed and unstressed syllables in English words are similar to the Vietnamese system of tones. I would agree with him to a certain extent but I would say the tones in Vietnamese are more complicated.

I've been reading a book of translations of  ca dao by John Balaban. According to his research the stress pattern of ca dao is the second, sixth, and eighth syllable must be "even tones" (flat or falling) and the fourth syllable must be a "sharp tone" (any of the other tones). To translate this to English I decided that "even tones" were most like unstressed syllables and the "sharp tones" were most like stressed syllables. Take a look at the same example:

Thương tình con trẻ thơ ngây,                                

Gặp cơn vạ gió tai bay bất kỳ.                                

Đau lòng tư biết sinh ly,                                          

Thân còn chẳng tiếc, tiếc gì đến duyên?                  

Those are all the "even tones" and the following shows the "sharp tones":

Thương tình con trẻ thơ ngây,                                

Gặp cơn vạ gió tai bay bất kỳ.                                

Đau lòng tư biết sinh ly,                                          

Thân còn chẳng tiếc, tiếc gì đến duyên?                  

I'm still experimenting but I tried to adjust English poetic conventions to the rules of ca dao, and my idea at the moment is to maintain the 6-8 syllable couplet structure along with the rhyming scheme. As for the stress patterns, I used two dactyls (Stress-Unstressed-Unstressed) for the six syllable line, and two dactyls plus a trochee (Stressed-Unstressed) for the 8 syllable line. I thought this best maintained the rules spelled out to me by Mr. Balaban. This is my first shot at translating this way. I couldn't keep the same number of lines but I did my best to keep the translation true to the original. As Nguyễn Khắc Viện said about translating ca dao: "...like drawing a bucket of water from a well where the moon is mirrored and unavoidable losing the silvery shine of her light." (also from Balaban).

Here is the Vietnamese:

615-620 

Thương tình con trẻ thơ ngây,

Gặp cơn vạ gió tai bay bất kỳ,

Đau lòng tư biết sinh ly,

Thân còn chẳng tiếc, tiếc gì đến duyên?

Hạt mưa sá nghĩ phận hèn,

Liệu đem tấc cỏ quyết đền ba xuân.

Here is my new translation followed by my old translation:

Pity the young, alas...

Gusts of wind bring calamity.

Her heart bleeds insanity,

Kim, so far away, feels like death.

Kieu’s life fades in a breath,

Pain and regret, she must accept.

Drops of rain, haven’t yet wept

O’er the short life they encompass.

Grateful are blades of grass,

For the three beautiful spring months.

There can only be sympathy for the innocence of youth,

The winds of calamity blow so unexpectedly.

Separation from Kim tortured Kieu’s heart like a death in the family,

Can she still live without regret, even consider an amorous future?

A drop of rain doesn't dwell on its humble fate,

A blade of grass is grateful for the three months of spring.