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The female poet Ho Xuan Huong is one of the prominent names in Vietnamese poetry. Among the many works she left behind, the main creative style is the portrayal of the circumstances of love. Most of Ho Xuan Huong’s poems speak about the virtues, the sacrifices, and the fragile fate of women in harsh feudal society. Among them, Tu Tinh is also one of the typical works for this dominant style.

The poem not only reflects the emotions of women in general but also captures the varying emotional states of the author herself. The first two lines of the poem both describe the scene and simultaneously depict the image of a woman empty and lonely in the stillness of the night.

“In the late night, the drum of the watch resounds far and near”

“A lonely beauty facing the lands and waters”

The author uses the word "faintly" to describe a sound that is both clear and vague, directionless but increasingly perceptible. The temporal setting of the poem is "late night" – a time when people easily fall into indescribable emotional states. Amidst that "late night," there is a woman still awake, pondering her life amidst the faint sound of the drum in the distance.

The woman in the poem is described as "a beauty," a person with looks, but those looks are "lonely amidst the lands and waters." One can feel the solitary, isolated fate and the indefinable emptiness in the heart of that "beauty." To alleviate her feelings, she turns to a glass of strong wine:

“A glass of wine perfumes the air, then sobers again”

“The moon wanes yet remains incomplete”

Borrowing wine to drown her sorrows under the moon is a familiar image in poetry, a beautifully poetic image. Unfortunately, those who borrow wine to drown their sorrows cannot use the strong aroma to dispel their feelings. The more one wants to be drunk to forget everything, the more the fragrance of the strong wine seems to make the mind clearer.

The woman’s emotions are even more vividly portrayed. The waning moon seems to intensify the loneliness, desolation in the poem manifold. That image is similar to a talented and beautiful woman, but her youth quietly passes by without perfect happiness.

“Mosses spread across the earth sideways”

“Piercing the clouds with rugged stones”

The image of moss in the poem displays the deep implications of the female poet. What she wants to express here is a metaphor comparing women to moss, small yet with strong vitality, able to thrive in any harsh condition. The phrase "spread across the earth" also makes readers envision the strong resistance of the subject against greater forces.

Following that powerful resistance are small stones that contain great strength, able to "tear through the clouds." In the vast heavens and earth, the seemingly tiny stones are not trivial at all. Regrettably, despite strong opposition, the woman cannot escape the binding fate of being a concubine.

“Weary of spring passing, spring returning again”

“A small shared piece of love”

The nature's spring goes away and comes back, but human "spring" is not like that. Youth comes only once, gone and never returns. Therefore, the woman feels even sadder, more pitiful when her youth passes in endless waiting, in the circumstance of sharing her husband’s love. The word "weary" is used to express boredom, but also as the author’s cry for women of such unfortunate fate, forced to be concubines under old policies, without voice, without respect.

Tu Tinh is a representative work of Ho Xuan Huong’s style and dominant ideology, showcasing her unique and bold perspective on issues revolving around the fate of women in old policies.