原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
含詞賦 With rhapsody
善惡之報 Reward of Good and Ill
正是：正是：
人生卻莫把心欺，神鬼昭彰放過誰？人生却莫把心欺，神鬼昭彰放过谁？
善惡到頭終有報，只爭來早與來遲。」善恶到头终有报，只争来早与来迟。」
逐句解 Line by line
正是：
正是：
Truly it is said:
The moralizing tag 正是 introduces a closing couplet-verse to the catalogue of hells.
人生卻莫把心欺，神鬼昭彰放過誰？
人生却莫把心欺，神鬼昭彰放过谁？
In life let no man cheat his own heart; gods and ghosts see all too plainly — whom would they let go free?
昭彰 'manifest, plain to see.' The couplet moralizes the preceding tour: the conscience is under ceaseless supernatural scrutiny.
善惡到頭終有報，只爭來早與來遲。」
善恶到头终有报，只争来早与来迟。」
Good and evil, in the end, are surely requited; it is only a question of coming early or late.
只爭 'the only difference is'; 來早與來遲 'whether it comes soon or late.' A proverbial statement of moral retribution (善惡有報), closing the magistrate's recitation.
The catalogue of hells resolves into a plain moral epigram: retribution is certain, only its timing unsure. The verse renders the lurid tortures of the preceding rhapsody into the folk-Buddhist commonplace of 善惡有報 — that the ledger of conscience is always kept, and always in the end settled.