the exploration of possibilities that could not be imagined on the "outside." In what
is perhaps his most famous couplet, Dao Duy Tiu features the distinctive combination
of sea and mountain that composed the "inside"; I translate these lines in a surface
style to emphasize the sense of energy and conviction that they carry in Vietnamese:
Mountains green green, water blue blue;
Have mountains, have water, only then both clear.
(My translation from Duiong Tu Quan 1944, 115; Dinh Gia Khanh 1962, 602;
Tran Thi Lien 1992, 51)
The poet rests his joy in a sense of clarity, simplicity, transparency, and purity
that is associated with the breathtaking natural scenery of the southern coastlands,
which becomes a metaphor of escape from all that is complicated, opaque, and corrupt
out north.