二次念咒 The Second Recitation
唐僧一見,驚下馬來,睡在路傍,更無二話,只是把緊箍兒咒顛倒足足念了二十遍。可憐把個行者頭勒得似個亞腰兒葫蘆,十分疼痛難忍,滾將來哀告道:「師父莫念了,有甚話說了罷。」唐僧一见,惊下马来,睡在路傍,更无二话,只是把紧箍儿咒颠倒足足念了二十遍。可怜把个行者头勒得似个亚腰儿葫芦,十分疼痛难忍,滚将来哀告道:「师父莫念了,有甚话说了罢。」
逐句解 Line by line
At the sight of it the Tang Monk toppled from his horse and lay in the road, and without another word he took the Tight-Fillet Spell and recited it, over and over, a full twenty times.
He does not get down from the horse; he falls off it. And then 更無二話, without a second word — twenty recitations, 足足, the full count. He had threatened exactly this, and he delivers exactly this. Whatever else has changed since the first blow, the hesitation is gone. (顛倒 is the whole thing through, over and over, with 倒 as dào; the 兒 of 緊箍兒咒 is the small toneless tag.)
Pitiable! — Pilgrim's head was squeezed till it looked like a pinch-waisted gourd, the pain past all bearing; and rolling over to plead, he cried, "Master, stop reciting! If you have something to say, then say it, and be done."
亞腰兒葫蘆 is a bottle gourd — the sort with a narrow waist pinched in between two bulges — and it is one of the best images in the chapter, because it tells you exactly what shape the band is forcing his skull into. He cannot stand up. He rolls. And what he asks for, even now, is a hearing: say what you have to say and be done. (勒得 takes the toneless de; 將 marks direction; 甚 is shén.)
The second recitation escalates the first with deliberate excess: twenty times, the whole thing through. The elder who had threatened twenty for any further wrongdoing now delivers them in full, and the mercy that was so easily moved to pardon an hour ago has hardened, under Bajie's influence, into something readier and colder. The cycle is repeating, but the terms are getting worse.
The narrator's grotesque figure — the Great Sage's head squeezed into the shape of a waisted gourd — makes the fillet's power physical. The creature who overturned Heaven is rolling in the road, begging for it to stop. Every turn of this scene drives home the chapter's central inversion: absolute strength held helpless by the recitation of a gentle, deceived old man.