三擊暗謎 The Riddle of the Platter
祖師聞言，咄的一聲，跳下高臺，手持戒尺，指定悟空道：「你這猢猻，這般不學，那般不學，卻待怎麼？」走上前，將悟空頭上打了三下。倒背著手，走入裡面，將中門關了，撇下大眾而去。諕得那一班聽講的人人驚懼，皆怨悟空道：「你這潑猴，十分無狀。師父傳你道法，如何不學，卻與師父頂嘴？這番衝撞了他，不知幾時才出來呵！」此時俱甚報怨他，又鄙賤嫌惡他。悟空一些兒也不惱，只是滿臉陪笑。原來那猴王已打破盤中之謎，暗暗在心，所以不與眾人爭競，只是忍耐無言。祖師打他三下者，教他三更時分存心；倒背著手走入裡面，將中門關上者，教他從後門進步，秘處傳他道也。祖师闻言，咄的一声，跳下高台，手持戒尺，指定悟空道：「你这猢狲，这般不学，那般不学，却待怎么？」走上前，将悟空头上打了三下。倒背着手，走入里面，将中门关了，撇下大众而去。諕得那一班听讲的人人惊惧，皆怨悟空道：「你这泼猴，十分无状。师父传你道法，如何不学，却与师父顶嘴？这番冲撞了他，不知几时才出来呵！」此时俱甚报怨他，又鄙贱嫌恶他。悟空一些儿也不恼，只是满脸陪笑。原来那猴王已打破盘中之谜，暗暗在心，所以不与众人争竞，只是忍耐无言。祖师打他三下者，教他三更时分存心；倒背着手走入里面，将中门关上者，教他从后门进步，秘处传他道也。
逐句解 Line by line
At these words the Patriarch, with a "Bah!", leapt down from the high dais, ferule in hand, and pointing straight at Wukong said: "You wretched ape — this you won't learn, that you won't learn; just what is it you're after?"
The master snaps. 咄 (duō) is a bark of anger or reproof, roughly "Bah!" A 戒尺 (jiè chǐ) is a flat wooden rod that schoolmasters and Buddhist teachers used to keep order or beat time — a ferule, not a measuring stick, despite the 尺. And 猢猻 (hú sūn), macaque, is the very word the master carved the surname 孫 out of at the end of the last chapter; he now throws the whole thing back as an insult. 卻待怎麼 is "what is it you're after, then?" (待 dài, to intend); 那 here is nà, "that." (一聲 is yì shēng; 不學 keeps bù.)
He stepped forward and struck Wukong three times on the head.
Three strokes on the head, 下 (xià) being the measure word for blows. Remember the number. It is the first half of a coded message, and the passage will decode it before the end.
Then, clasping his hands behind his back, he walked off inside, shut the middle door, and left the whole assembly standing there.
The second half of the message: hands clasped behind the back, retreat inside, middle gate shut. Three readings sit close together here — 倒 is dào, inverted or backward, not dǎo, to fall; 背 is bèi, the back, not bēi, to carry on the back; and 著 is zhe, marking the posture as something still held. 撇下 (piē xià) is to cast aside, to walk out on.
This so frightened the class of listeners that every one of them was terrified, and they all blamed Wukong: "You insolent monkey! What outrageous manners! The master was handing you the methods of the Way — how could you refuse to learn them and talk back to him besides? Now you've offended him, and who knows when he'll come out again, ah!"
諕 (xià) is a vernacular way of writing 嚇, to frighten, so 諕得 is "scared so badly that." 無狀 (wú zhuàng) is outrageous, past all propriety. The class turns on him, and their reading of the scene is the obvious one: he was offered the Way, refused it, talked back, and got everybody shut out. They are wrong about every part of it. 傳 is chuán, to transmit, not zhuàn, a biography; 衝 in 衝撞 is chōng; 幾 in 幾時 is jǐ. The closing 呵 is an exclamation read a, near enough to 啊 — the 世德堂本 writes the Ming-vernacular 呵 where the 中華傳世 edition prints 啊. (一班 is yì bān.)
At that moment they all resented him bitterly and looked on him with contempt and disgust.
報怨 (bào yuàn) is doing the work of 抱怨 here, to bear a grudge. 嫌惡 (xián wù) is to detest — 惡 is wù, to hate, not è, evil, nor ě, nauseous.
But Wukong was not the least put out; his whole face was wreathed in an ingratiating smile.
And here is the tell. Reviled by the entire school, he is not the least put out; his face is one wide ingratiating grin (陪笑, péi xiào). Compare his answer in the last chapter when the master asked his surname and he heard "temper" — 我無性, I haven't got one. This is the first time we see the boast made good. 一些兒 carries the 兒 suffix, er. (一些 is yì xiē; 不惱 keeps bù before the third tone of 惱.)
For the truth was that the Monkey King had already cracked the riddle of the platter, and kept it secret in his heart — which was why he would not wrangle with the others, but only bore it in silence.
盤中之謎 (pán zhōng zhī mí), "the riddle within the platter," is the standing idiom for a hidden meaning that has to be decoded — and the monkey has decoded it. 爭競 (zhēng jìng) is to wrangle. He lets the whole room go on believing he has disgraced himself. (不與 keeps bù before the third tone of 與.)
The master's striking him three times was to have him fix his mind on the third watch; and the clasping of hands and walking off inside, the shutting of the middle door, was to have him come in by the back door, that the Way might be passed to him in secret.
The solution, spelled out. Three blows means 三更 (sān gēng), the third night-watch, roughly eleven at night to one in the morning — 更 is gēng, a watch of the night, not gèng, "more." Hands behind the back and the middle gate shut means: come round by the back door. 存心 is to fix a thing in mind; 進步 here is simply to step in, not the modern "progress"; 秘處 is in secret, with 秘 as mì, not bì as in 秘魯, Peru. And note 教: it is jiào here, the causative "to have him do," not the jiāo, "to teach," that ran through the four gates. The blows were not instruction. They were an appointment.
This is the famous scene of the 盤中之謎, the riddle within the platter. To the whole assembly the master's explosion looks like the disgracing of an insolent pupil — the shout, the ferule, three blows on the head, the retreat behind a shut door — and they react accordingly, rounding on Wukong with contempt. Then the narrator pulls the curtain back at once: the rage was a cipher. Three strokes mean the third watch, 三更. The hands clasped behind the back, the walk inward, the deliberately unbarred rear gate mean come to me in secret by the back door. The master has delivered an appointment in the one form that hides it from everybody not ready to read it.
The device belongs to a long tradition of mind-to-mind transmission. Its nearest ancestor is the founding legend of Chan, in which the Buddha, instead of preaching, simply holds up a flower, and out of the whole assembly only Mahākāśyapa smiles — the wordless 心傳 passing outside doctrine and scripture altogether. The novel has been preparing for this since the lecture-verse a few passages back, where the entire sublime teaching was said to resolve into 開明一字, the laying bare of a single word. Here the promise is kept, but in private and by riddle rather than from the dais. The point — dear to Chan and to the inner-alchemy lineages alike — is that the highest teaching cannot be handed over like the four gateways just refused. It can only be recognised, by a mind already fit to recognise it.
So the scene is above all a test of mind, which is fitting for a hero the novel keeps calling the 心猿, the mind-monkey. Wukong's gift here is not strength but speed of wit: while the conventional disciples see an outburst and panic, he alone reads the figure, locks it away, and answers their abuse with an ingratiating grin — the comedy of somebody who knows the secret the whole room has missed. The appointed hour carries its own weight in the alchemical key. 三更, the dead of night around 子時, is the moment of 一陽來復, the first stirring of yang within deepest yin, the canonical instant at which the work of cultivation begins. The monkey who could not count his own years has just proved he can read the one sign that matters.