原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
含詞賦 With rhapsody
塔邊惡境
The Fair-Seeming Cliff
噫！長老一時晦氣到了。你看他拽開步，竟至塔邊。但見那：噫！长老一时晦气到了。你看他拽开步，竟至塔边。但见那：
石崖高萬丈，山大接青霄。石崖高万丈，山大接青霄。
根連地厚，峰插天高。根连地厚，峰插天高。
兩邊雜樹數千棵，前後藤纏百餘里。两边杂树数千棵，前后藤缠百余里。
花映草梢風有影，水流雲竇月無根。花映草梢风有影，水流云窦月无根。
倒木橫擔深澗，枯藤結掛光峰。倒木横担深涧，枯藤结挂光峰。
石橋下，流滾滾清泉；臺座上，長明明白粉。石桥下，流滚滚清泉；台座上，长明明白粉。
遠觀一似三島天堂，近看有如蓬萊勝境。远观一似三岛天堂，近看有如蓬莱胜境。
香松紫竹遶山溪，鴉鵲猿猴穿峻嶺。香松紫竹遶山溪，鸦鹊猿猴穿峻岭。
洞門外，有一來一往的走獸成行；樹林裡，有或出或入的飛禽作隊。洞门外，有一来一往的走兽成行；树林里，有或出或入的飞禽作队。
青青香草秀，艷艷野花開。青青香草秀，艳艳野花开。
這所在分明是惡境，那長老晦氣撞將來。这所在分明是恶境，那长老晦气撞将来。
逐句解 Line by line
噫！長老一時晦氣到了。你看他拽開步，竟至塔邊。但見那：
噫！长老一时晦气到了。你看他拽开步，竟至塔边。但见那：
Alas! The elder's hour of ill luck had come. Watch him stride out and go straight up to the pagoda. And there he saw:
長老 zhǎng; 那 nà. The narrator's sigh marks the threshold of disaster; the descriptive fu follows.
石崖高萬丈，山大接青霄。
石崖高万丈，山大接青霄。
The stone cliff rose ten thousand zhàng; the mountain, vast, touched the blue empyrean.
萬丈 rendered as zhàng. The fu opens on false grandeur — a sublimity that masks a demon's den.
根連地厚，峰插天高。
根连地厚，峰插天高。
Its roots joined the thickness of the earth; its peaks pierced the height of heaven.
Root-and-peak antithesis: the cliff spans earth’s depth and heaven’s height.
兩邊雜樹數千棵，前後藤纏百餘里。
两边杂树数千棵，前后藤缠百余里。
On either side, some thousands of mingled trees; before and behind, vines twining a hundred li and more.
两邊/前後 spatial parallelism enlarging the scene on every axis.
花映草梢風有影，水流雲竇月無根。
花映草梢风有影，水流云窦月无根。
Flowers lit the grass-tips — the wind cast shadows; water ran through cloud-hollows — the moon had no root.
月無根 the reflected moon, rootless on the moving water — an image of beautiful unreality.
倒木橫擔深澗，枯藤結掛光峰。
倒木横担深涧，枯藤结挂光峰。
Fallen trees lay athwart the deep ravine; withered vines hung knotted on the bare peak.
倒木 dǎo (“fallen”); 橫擔 dān (“lie athwart / span,” verb) — contrast 百十擔 dàn (load).
石橋下，流滾滾清泉；臺座上，長明明白粉。
石桥下，流滚滚清泉；台座上，长明明白粉。
Below the stone bridge ran the tumbling clear spring; upon the terrace-seat spread the bright, bright white bloom.
長 zhǎng (“grows,” verb, parallel to 流 “flows”); 明明白粉 the gleaming mineral efflorescence on the stone.
遠觀一似三島天堂，近看有如蓬萊勝境。
远观一似三岛天堂，近看有如蓬莱胜境。
Seen from afar, it seemed the paradise of the Three Isles; seen close to, it had the look of Penglai's fairest scene.
似 sì. 三島 / 蓬萊 the isles of the immortals — the fu's crowning deception, holiness counterfeited.
香松紫竹遶山溪，鴉鵲猿猴穿峻嶺。
香松紫竹遶山溪，鸦鹊猿猴穿峻岭。
Fragrant pines and purple bamboo ringed the mountain stream; crows and magpies, gibbons and monkeys, threaded the steep ranges.
The fauna-and-flora couplet sustains the paradisal illusion.
洞門外，有一來一往的走獸成行；樹林裡，有或出或入的飛禽作隊。
洞门外，有一来一往的走兽成行；树林里，有或出或入的飞禽作队。
Outside the cave-mouth, beasts came and went in rows; within the wood, birds flew out and in by flocks.
走獸成行 háng (“in rows”) — the chapter's first legitimate 行|háng reading. 洞門 — the tell: this “pagoda-temple” has a demon's cave-mouth.
青青香草秀，艷艷野花開。
青青香草秀，艳艳野花开。
Green, green, the fragrant grasses flourished; bright, bright, the wild flowers bloomed.
Reduplicative 青青/艷艷 — the last note of counterfeit springtime before the verdict.
這所在分明是惡境，那長老晦氣撞將來。
这所在分明是恶境，那长老晦气撞将来。
This place, plain to see, was an evil ground — and the luckless elder came blundering straight in.
分明 fēn; 那長老 nà / zhǎng; 撞將 jiāng. The fu drops its mask in the closing couplet.
總評 Commentary
This landscape-fu is built on a single sustained irony: every line offers a marker of the holy or the sublime — cliffs touching heaven, the paradise of the Three Isles, the fairyland of Penglai, fragrant pines and purple bamboo — and every one of them is false. The narrator has already told us the golden “pagoda” is only sun on gilt, and the fu now elaborates the deception at length, seducing the reader with the same beauty that seduces Tripitaka.
The tell is placed with care: amid the immortals' isles and blooming flowers sits a 洞門, a cave-mouth, with beasts filing in and out — the unmistakable architecture of a demon's den, not a temple. The set-piece thus works on two audiences at once. Tripitaka reads paradise; the reader, trained by a hundred such fu, reads the cave-mouth and the omen-laden “evil ground” of the final couplet.
The closing line collapses the whole edifice with deliberate bathos — after the grandeur of Penglai, the plain verdict “this place, plain to see, was an evil ground,” and the luckless master “blundering straight in.” The fu's beauty is not undone but weaponized: it has done to the reader, briefly, exactly what the demon's illusion does to Tripitaka.