五更夢醒，四句頌子 The Farmstead Vanishes, and a Gāthā on a Slip of Paper
不覺又是五更將曉。行者抹抹臉，睜開眼道：「果然好藥，比常更有百分光明。」卻轉頭後邊望望，呀！那裡得甚房舍窗門，但只見些老槐高柳，兄弟們都睡在那綠莎茵上。那八戒醒來道：「哥哥，你嚷怎的？」行者道：「你睜開眼睛看看。」獃子忽擡頭，見沒了人家，慌得一轂轆爬將起來道：「我的馬哩？」行者道：「樹上拴的不是？」「行李呢？」行者道：「你頭邊放的不是？」八戒道：「這家子也憊懶，他搬了，怎麼就不叫我們一聲？通得老豬知道，也好與你送些茶果。想是躲門戶的，恐怕里長曉得，卻就連夜搬了。──噫！我們也忒睡得死，怎麼他家拆房子，響也不聽見響響？」行者吸吸的笑道：「獃子，不要亂嚷。你看那樹上是個甚麼紙帖兒？」八戒走上前，用手揭了，原來上面四句頌子云：不觉又是五更将晓。行者抹抹脸，睁开眼道：「果然好药，比常更有百分光明。」却转头后边望望，呀！那里得甚房舍窗门，但只见些老槐高柳，兄弟们都睡在那绿莎茵上。那八戒醒来道：「哥哥，你嚷怎的？」行者道：「你睁开眼睛看看。」呆子忽抬头，见没了人家，慌得一毂辘爬将起来道：「我的马哩？」行者道：「树上拴的不是？」「行李呢？」行者道：「你头边放的不是？」八戒道：「这家子也惫懒，他搬了，怎么就不叫我们一声？通得老猪知道，也好与你送些茶果。想是躲门户的，恐怕里长晓得，却就连夜搬了。──噫！我们也忒睡得死，怎么他家拆房子，响也不听见响响？」行者吸吸的笑道：「呆子，不要乱嚷。你看那树上是个甚么纸帖儿？」八戒走上前，用手揭了，原来上面四句颂子云：
逐句解 Line by line
Before he knew it, the fifth watch was drawing toward dawn. The Pilgrim rubbed his face, opened his eyes, and said, "Good medicine indeed! I see a hundredfold more brightly than before."
Two readings of 更 inside one line, so this site needs a positional fixspec: 五更 is gēng, the fifth night-watch, roughly three to five in the morning, while 比常更有 is the adverb gèng, "the more." 將曉 takes 將 as jiāng, "about to."
But when he turned his head and looked behind him — why! Where were the house and the rooms and the windows? He saw nothing but old locust trees and tall willows, and his brothers asleep on the green turf.
In 那裡得甚房舍窗門 the first 那 is the questioning nǎ ("where on earth"), the second is the pointing nà; 得 is the "able to" dé, and 甚 is shén, "any." 綠莎茵 is a mat of green sedge. The 呀！ is the Pilgrim's own — and an empty hillside is the first thing he sees with his mended eyes.
Bajie woke and said, "Brother, what are you shouting about?" Said the Pilgrim, "Open your eyes and look."
The Pilgrim has his sight back and says nothing about it. Four words: open your eyes and look. The economy belongs to the author rather than to the character.
The Idiot lifted his head of a sudden, saw no house at all, and scrambled up in a fright, rolling over as he went. "And where is my horse?" he cried.
一轂轆 is an onomatopoeic vernacular adverb, "head over heels, in a roll" — compare 一骨魯 in chapter 16, the same noise written differently. 爬將起來 takes 將 as the direction-marker jiāng. Note the order of Bajie's panic: the horse first, then the baggage, and only later his master.
Said the Pilgrim, "Is that not it tied to the tree?" "And the baggage?" Said the Pilgrim, "Is that not it, lying at your head?"
Three short speeches, and the Pilgrim has to tell him where his own possessions are. The novel is very patient with Bajie in this chapter, and very exact about him.
Said Bajie, "This family is a shabby lot. They have moved, and never so much as called out to us.
憊懶, "shabby, good-for-nothing." Bajie has arrived at the only explanation available to a man with his assumptions, and he is now going to defend it at length.
Had they let old Hog know, I would have sent you off with a few cakes and some tea. They must have been running from the tax-rolls, and were afraid the headman would find them out, and so they moved by night.
This is the funniest thing Bajie does in the chapter, and it needs a footnote to land. Two readings of 得 here — 通得老豬知道 is the "able to" dé, 曉得 the result-hanging de. 躲門戶 is to abscond from the tax and labour registers, and the 里長 (zhǎng) was the local headman legally answerable for reporting who had gone. Bajie has constructed, out of an empty field, a complete and entirely plausible piece of Ming rural crime.
— Ah! And we slept too dead. How could they pull the house down and we never hear so much as a sound of it?"
噫 is a sigh of dawning realisation. 忒睡得死: 忒 (tè) is the intensifier, 得 hangs the result. And the one possibility Bajie will not entertain is that the house was never there in the first place.
The Pilgrim laughed through his teeth. "Idiot, do not carry on so. Look — what is that paper slip on the tree?"
吸吸的笑 — a laugh drawn in through the teeth. 紙帖兒: 帖 reads tiě, a written slip, and it ends in the small er suffix.
Bajie went up, pulled it off with his hand, and there upon it were four lines of a gāthā, which said:
四句頌子云： is an explicit announcement of verse, and it names the form as well as counting it: 頌 renders the Sanskrit gāthā, a verse in a Buddhist text, and 四句 says there are four lines. So the quatrain that follows is verse and carries the flag, while the announcement stays with the prose. The identical formula turns up again on the old man's slip of paper later in this chapter.
This dwelling was no dwelling of ordinary men: / the dharma-guarding Saṃghārāma raised the hut by transformation.
伽藍 reads qié lán, a standing fix — the Sanskrit saṃghārāma, properly the monastery building itself and by extension the eighteen spirits who guard it. 點化 is the technical verb for raising something into being by transformation. And note the word chosen for what they raised: 廬 is the humblest word for a dwelling there is, a hut. They built a mansion and called it a shack.
The excellent medicine was given to heal your eyes; / bend your whole heart to subduing the fiend, and do not hesitate.
盡心 takes 盡 as jìn, "to exhaust, to give the whole of." 降怪 takes 降 as xiáng, "to subdue." 莫躊躇 — do not dither. Heaven has healed his eyes and expects him back at work this morning.
The novel has run this trick before — the lodging that vanishes, the note left on the tree — but never with this much comic patience. Bajie wakes up houseless and does not conclude that spirits were at work. He concludes that his hosts were tax-dodgers who dismantled their own farm and crept off in the dark, and that they were rude not to say goodbye. On the evidence available to him he is being perfectly reasonable, and he is completely wrong.
The verse settles it in twenty-eight characters. 護法伽藍 — the guardian spirits assigned to the pilgrims by Guanyin back in chapter 15 — built the hut, and the ointment was theirs. Look at the last line: 盡心降怪莫躊躇, bend your whole heart to subduing the fiend and do not dither. Heaven is not offering consolation here. It is telling him to get on with it.