聞名膽落 The Name That Frightens Him
行者暗喜道：「那怪卻也老實，不用動刑，就供得這等明白。既有了地方、姓名，不管怎的也拿住他。」行者道：「他要請法師來拿你哩。」那怪笑道：「睡著，睡著，莫睬他。我有天罡數的變化，九齒的釘鈀，怕甚麼法師、和尚、道士？就是你老子有虔心，請下九天蕩魔祖師下界，我也曾與他做過相識，他也不敢怎的我。」行者道：「他說請一個五百年前大鬧天宮姓孫的齊天大聖，要來拿你哩。」那怪聞得這個名頭，就有三分害怕道：「既是這等說，我去了罷，兩口子做不成了。」行者道：「你怎的就去？」那怪道：「你不知道，那鬧天宮的弼馬溫有些本事，只恐我弄他不過，低了名頭，不像模樣。」行者暗喜道：「那怪却也老实，不用动刑，就供得这等明白。既有了地方、姓名，不管怎的也拿住他。」行者道：「他要请法师来拿你哩。」那怪笑道：「睡着，睡着，莫睬他。我有天罡数的变化，九齿的钉钯，怕甚么法师、和尚、道士？就是你老子有虔心，请下九天荡魔祖师下界，我也曾与他做过相识，他也不敢怎的我。」行者道：「他说请一个五百年前大闹天宫姓孙的齐天大圣，要来拿你哩。」那怪闻得这个名头，就有三分害怕道：「既是这等说，我去了罢，两口子做不成了。」行者道：「你怎的就去？」那怪道：「你不知道，那闹天宫的弼马温有些本事，只恐我弄他不过，低了名头，不像模样。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Pilgrim rejoiced privately. "The monster is honest enough," he thought. "No need of the rack — he has confessed it all as plain as this.
動刑 is to apply torture, the routine accompaniment of a magistrate taking a statement; the Pilgrim is thinking of himself as a court. 供得這等明白: 供 is gòng, to confess, and 得 the unstressed de.
Now that I have the place and the name, I shall take him however it may be."
不管怎的 is no matter how. The Pilgrim now has exactly what a warrant needs: an address and a name.
The Pilgrim said, "They mean to fetch an exorcist to catch you." The monster laughed. "Sleep on, sleep on, and pay them no mind.
睡著，睡著 uses 著 as an imperative — sleep on, keep sleeping. That is a state to be maintained, and so zhe, not the zháo of 睡著了, fell asleep, where the target is actually reached. 莫睬 is pay no heed.
I have the transformations of the Thirty-Six Constellations and a nine-toothed muckrake. What have I to fear from exorcists, monks or Daoists?
天罡數 is the count of the Heavenly Ladle stars, thirty-six — so his repertoire of shapes stands at thirty-six against Sun Wukong's seventy-two. He is boasting with the smaller number and does not know it. 九齒的釘鈀: 鈀 is pá, a rake, not bǎ. The nine-toothed muckrake is named here for the first time in the novel.
Even if that father of yours were pious enough to call down the Patriarch of the Nine Heavens who Sweeps the Demons,
你老子, that father of yours, takes 子 as the unstressed suffix. 九天蕩魔祖師 is Zhenwu, the Perfected Warrior of the north — chief demon-queller of the Daoist heaven, and about the biggest name available to drop.
why, he and I have been acquainted; he would not dare do anything to me."
做過相識 takes 相 as xiāng: we have been acquainted. The boast is thrown away casually and is, as the reader will learn, very likely true. Zhu was Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds before his fall, and would have known the northern gods by sight.
The Pilgrim said, "They say they will fetch that Great Sage Equal to Heaven, surnamed Sun, who made the great uproar in Heaven five hundred years ago."
The name is dropped with perfect timing — buried at the tail of a seventeen-character noun phrase, inside a sentence reporting what somebody else said. 大鬧天宮 and 齊天大聖 are titles rather than descriptions, and the monster has plainly heard them before.
At the sound of that name the monster took three parts of a fright.
聞得 takes 得 as the unstressed de. 三分害怕 is three parts frightened out of ten. The narrator measures fear the way he measures everything else in this chapter: in fractions.
"If that is so," he said, "I shall be off. There is an end of our being man and wife."
兩口子, two mouths, is a married couple — still the ordinary word for it. 做不成了: the marriage cannot be carried on. And note that he does not offer to fight. He offers to leave.
The Pilgrim said, "How is it you must go?" The monster said, "You do not know:
怎的就去 — why must you go? The Pilgrim, still wearing the wife's shape, presses the point, and the monster answers him as he would answer a wife.
that Protector of the Horses who made the uproar in Heaven has some skill in him. I fear I should get no good of him, and should lose my name, and look a poor figure."
弼馬溫, Protector of the Horses, is the stable-groom's title Heaven fobbed Sun Wukong off with in chapter four, and the one insult that reliably enrages him. The monster produces it in bed, in the dark, to the man it belongs to. 弄他不過 is to get no good of him. 不像模樣 takes 模 as mú: to cut a poor figure. What he fears is not death but embarrassment.
The monster is not afraid of exorcists, of monks, of Daoists, or of the chief demon-queller of the Daoist heaven, whom he claims as an old acquaintance. He is afraid of a stable-groom. 弼馬溫 — the derisive office Heaven fobbed Sun Wukong off with in chapter four, and the one insult that reliably enrages him — is the word Zhu Ganglie himself chooses, in bed, in the dark, in front of the man it belongs to.
What frightens him is stated with unusual precision: 只恐我弄他不過，低了名頭，不像模樣. Not death, not capture — a loss of standing, a diminished name, cutting a poor figure. It is exactly the anxiety of the household he married into, and the reader has by now heard it from Squire Gao, from Gao Cai and from the monster himself, in the same vocabulary each time. The subject of this chapter is not exorcism. It is shame.