一棒打虎 The Tiger Felled
卻說那孫行者請三藏上馬，他在前邊背著行李，赤條條，拐步而行。不多時，過了兩界山，忽然見一隻猛虎，咆哮剪尾而來。三藏在馬上驚心。行者在路傍歡喜道：「師父莫怕他，他是送衣服與我的。」放下行李，耳朵裡拔出一個針兒，迎著風，幌一幌，原來是個碗來粗細一條鐵棒。他拿在手中，笑道：「這寶貝，五百餘年不曾用著他，今日拿出來掙件衣服兒穿穿。」你看他拽開步，迎著猛虎，道聲：「業畜！那裡去！」那隻虎蹲著身，伏在塵埃，動也不敢動動。卻被他照頭一棒，就打的腦漿迸萬點桃紅，牙齒噴幾珠玉塊。諕得那陳玄奘滾鞍落馬，咬指道聲：「天那！天那！劉太保前日打的斑斕虎，還與他鬥了半日；今日孫悟空不用爭持，把這虎一棒打得稀爛。正是強中更有強中手！」却说那孙行者请三藏上马，他在前边背著行李，赤条条，拐步而行。不多时，过了两界山，忽然见一只猛虎，咆哮剪尾而来。三藏在马上惊心。行者在路傍欢喜道：「师父莫怕他，他是送衣服与我的。」放下行李，耳朵里拔出一个针儿，迎著风，幌一幌，原来是个碗来粗细一条铁棒。他拿在手中，笑道：「这宝贝，五百余年不曾用著他，今日拿出来挣件衣服儿穿穿。」你看他拽开步，迎著猛虎，道声：「业畜！那里去！」那只虎蹲著身，伏在尘埃，动也不敢动动。却被他照头一棒，就打的脑浆迸万点桃红，牙齿喷几珠玉块。諕得那陈玄奘滚鞍落马，咬指道声：「天那！天那！刘太保前日打的斑斓虎，还与他斗了半日；今日孙悟空不用争持，把这虎一棒打得稀烂。正是强中更有强中手！」
逐句解 Line by line
Now we tell how Pilgrim Sun asked Sanzang to mount, while he himself went ahead, the baggage on his back, striding along stark and bare.
The pilgrimage proper begins: the monk rides, the disciple walks ahead with the load. 赤條條 ("stark naked") keeps before us the monkey's still-unclothed state — which the coming episode will remedy. 背著 takes the durative 著 (zhe).
Before long they had passed the Mountain of the Two Frontiers, when all at once a fierce tiger came roaring toward them, lashing its tail.
The tiger's approach — 咆哮剪尾, "roaring, its tail lashing" — is the first danger of the road, and the first chance for the new disciple to prove himself.
Sanzang, on his horse, took fright; but the Pilgrim said gladly from the roadside, "Do not fear him, Master — he has come to bring me clothes."
The contrast of temperaments is instant: the monk quakes, the monkey rejoices. Wukong reads the tiger not as a threat but as a supplier of the clothing he lacks.
He set down the baggage, drew from his ear a tiny needle, met the wind with it, gave it a shake — and it became an iron rod as thick as a bowl.
The famous weapon makes its return. Kept shrunk to a needle behind his ear, it swells at a shake into the great iron rod — the 如意金箍棒, whose full history the next passage recounts.
Holding it in his hand, he laughed: "This treasure has not been used these five hundred years and more; today I bring it out to earn myself a suit of clothes."
His easy laughter and the throwaway aim — a beast killed merely for its hide, to clothe himself — display both his power and his careless ferocity.
See him stride out, meet the fierce tiger head on, and cry, "Cursed beast! Where do you think you are going!"
業畜 ("cursed beast, creature of bad karma") is his contemptuous challenge; 畜 is read chù. In 那裡去 ("where are you going!") 那 is the interrogative, read nǎ.
The tiger crouched down and lay flat in the dust, not daring to stir at all.
The tiger's abject cowering — flat in the dust, not daring to move — shows the sheer authority of the former Great Sage over lesser beasts.
With one blow to the head he struck it, so that its brains burst out in ten thousand points of peach-red and its teeth flew forth like scattered pearls and shards of jade.
The kill is rendered in lurid parallel verse-in-prose: brains like 桃紅 ("peach-red") points, teeth like scattered pearls and jade. The violence is stylised, almost decorative — and utterly casual.
This so terrified Chen Xuanzang that he tumbled from the saddle; biting his finger, he cried,
Sanzang's horror measures the gulf between them. 諕得 ("so frightened that") reads 諕 as xià and 得 as de; the timid monk tumbles from his saddle at the carnage.
"Heavens! Heavens! The other day Grand Guardian Liu killed a striped tiger, but had to fight it half a day;
His exclamation recalls, for contrast, the hunter Boqin's hard-won victory over a tiger in the previous chapter. 天那 ("Heavens!") is an interjection of dismay, the 那 here an exclamatory particle read na. 還 ("even so, still") is read hái.
today Sun Wukong needs no struggle at all — with one blow he has beaten this tiger to a pulp!
Where Boqin needed half a day, Wukong needs a single stroke — a measure of the disciple's more-than-human power, and of the danger his ferocity may pose.
Truly, however strong one is, there is always a stronger hand!"
The proverb 強中更有強中手 ("among the strong there is always a stronger hand") is Sanzang's rueful summing-up; 強 reads qiáng, 更 gèng.
The first hazard of the open road is a tiger, and it becomes the first demonstration of what the new disciple can do. Where the hunter Boqin, in the previous chapter, needed half a day to bring down a tiger, Wukong reads the beast as no threat at all — merely a source of the clothing he still lacks — and dispatches it with a single blow.
The episode reintroduces the iron rod, the 如意金箍棒, kept shrunk to a needle behind his ear; a shake restores it to its full size. The weapon and the effortless kill together re-establish Wukong's more-than-human power for the reader who has been away from him for many chapters.
But the passage is double-edged. The stylised gore of the kill — brains like peach-red points, teeth like scattered jade — and Wukong's careless laughter set his ferocity against the monk's horror. Sanzang tumbles from the saddle in dismay, and his rueful proverb, "among the strong there is always a stronger hand," carries an undertone of unease. The disciple's power is exactly what makes him useful and what will need to be curbed — which is why, a few pages on, Guanyin's fillet arrives.