Canonical Classics ← 第三回
第三回
hǎiqiānshānjiēgǒng
jiǔyōushílèijìnchúmíng

The four seas and a thousand mountains all submit in homage · The nine dark regions and ten categories are struck from the rolls

群妖來伏
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

群妖來伏 The Seventy-Two Caves

jiùpáiyíngkōnghuìqúnhóuyǒuwànqiānkǒuzǎojīngdòng滿mǎnshānguàishòudōushìxiēlángchóngbàojīngzhāng𤜱huānshīxiàngsuānxīngxīngxióng鹿shǐshānniúlíngyángqīngjiǎoershénáo……yàngyāowánggòngyǒushíèrdòngdōuláicānbàihóuwángwéizūnměiniánxiàngòngshídiǎnmǎoyǒusuíbāncāoyǎndeyǒusuíjiézhēngliángdezhěngzhěngzuòhuāguǒshānzàodetiětǒngjīnchéngyāowángyòuyǒujìnjīnjìncǎijìnkuījiǎdefēnfēnrǎngrǎngzhújiāxīngshījiùpáiyíngkōnghuìqúnhóuyǒuwànqiānkǒuzǎojīngdòngmǎnshānguàishòudōushìxiēlángchóngbàojīngzhāng𤜱huānshīxiàngsuānxīngxīngxióng鹿shǐshānniúlíngyángqīngjiǎoershénáo……yàngyāowánggòngyǒushíèrdòngdōuláicānbàihóuwángwéizūnměiniánxiàngòngshídiǎnmǎoyǒusuíbāncāoyǎndeyǒusuíjiézhēngliángdezhěngzhěngzuòhuāguǒshānzàodetiětǒngjīnchéngyāowángyòuyǒujìnjīnjìncǎijìnkuījiǎdefēnfēnrǎngrǎngzhújiāxīngshī


逐句解 Line by line

jiùpáiyíng jiùpáiyíng

The next day they drew up their ranks as before.

次日 = "the following day"; 依舊 = "as before, as usual"; 排營 = "to form up the camp and ranks." A brisk turn from the previous day's holiday romp to an organized muster.

kōnghuìqúnhóuyǒuwànqiānkǒu kōnghuìqúnhóuyǒuwànqiānkǒu

Wukong mustered the whole troop of monkeys, and they came to over forty-seven thousand head.

會聚 — "to assemble, gather together"; 會 reads huì, not kuài. 計有 = "numbering, amounting to." 口 is the classifier "head" (literally "mouths") for the count. The sudden census-precision (四萬七千餘) is part of the joke: the monkey rabble is tallied like a state's standing army.

zǎojīngdòng滿mǎnshānguàishòudōushìxiēlángchóngbàojīngzhāng𤜱huānshīxiàngsuānxīngxīngxióng鹿shǐshānniúlíngyángqīngjiǎoershénáo…… zǎojīngdòngmǎnshānguàishòudōushìxiēlángchóngbàojīngzhāng𤜱huānshīxiàngsuānxīngxīngxióng鹿shǐshānniúlíngyángqīngjiǎoershénáo……

Soon every wild beast on the mountain was roused — wolves and serpents, tigers and leopards; the jīng-deer, muntjac, and water-deer; the bā-sow; foxes, wildcats, badgers, and raccoon-dogs; lions and elephants, the lion-like suānní, orangutans, bears, deer, wild boar, mountain-oxen, antelopes, the blue-grey rhino-ox, the jiǎo-beast, and the divine mastiff — and more besides;

A formulaic bestiary mixing real fauna with creatures of the 山海經 tradition. Glosses: 麖 (jīng) a large deer; 麂 () the muntjac; 獐 (zhāng) the water-deer; 𤜱 () a wild sow — a female wild boar; an astral-plane graph (U+24731) with the 犬 radical, the 世德堂 reading kept verbatim; 狢 (, variant of 貉) the raccoon-dog; 狻猊 (suān-ní) a lion-like mythical beast; 兕 () a one-horned rhino-ox; 狡 (jiǎo) a leopard-marked dog-beast of the 山海經; 獒 (áo) a great mastiff. The 兒 of 狡兒 is the diminutive er-suffix.

yàngyāowánggòngyǒushíèrdòngdōuláicānbàihóuwángwéizūn yàngyāowánggòngyǒushíèrdòngdōuláicānbàihóuwángwéizūn

demon-kings of every sort, seventy-two caves in all, who came to do homage and honor the Monkey King as their sovereign.

參拜 (cān bài) = "to pay homage, present oneself before." 為尊 — "as the honored one, as sovereign"; 為 reads wéi ("to be, to take as"). The "seventy-two caves" (七十二洞) of beast-kings is a recurring number, echoing the seventy-two transformations Wukong won in ch.2; the realm now mirrors its master.

měiniánxiàngòngshídiǎnmǎo měiniánxiàngòngshídiǎnmǎo

Each year they offered tribute, and at the four seasons they answered the roll.

點卯 — literally "to be checked at the mǎo hour" (5–7 a.m., the dawn muster of the old yamen), hence "to answer roll-call, report for duty." 四時 = "the four seasons." The diction is again that of state administration, applied to a mountain of beasts.

yǒusuíbāncāoyǎndeyǒusuíjiézhēngliángde yǒusuíbāncāoyǎndeyǒusuíjiézhēngliángde

Some fell in with the ranks for drill, and some came at the appointed times to render their grain.

隨班 = "to fall in by rota, with the ranks"; 隨節 = "according to the season's appointed times." 徵糧 — "to levy / render grain." The paired 的 are nominalizing ("the ones who…"), 的 de.

zhěngzhěngzuòhuāguǒshānzàodetiětǒngjīnchéng zhěngzhěngzuòhuāguǒshānzàodetiětǒngjīnchéng

All in good order, they made the single Mountain of Flowers and Fruit as tight as an iron cask, as strong as a city of metal.

齊齊整整 — "all in trim order." 把 is the object-marker (= 將). 一座 takes (sandhi before fourth-tone 座). 造得 — 得 de marks the resultative complement. 鐵桶金城 ("iron cask, metal rampart") is a stock simile for an impregnable stronghold.

yāowángyòuyǒujìnjīnjìncǎijìnkuījiǎdefēnfēnrǎngrǎngzhújiāxīngshī yāowángyòuyǒujìnjīnjìncǎijìnkuījiǎdefēnfēnrǎngrǎngzhújiāxīngshī

Demon-kings from every quarter, besides, came presenting gongs and drums, presenting bright banners, presenting helmets and armor; in milling throngs, day after day they trained in maneuvers and mustered for war.

進 here = "to present, offer up" (jìn): 進金鼓 / 進彩旗 / 進盔甲. 紛紛攘攘 — "in milling, jostling crowds." 日逐家 — a vernacular adverbial, "day after day, daily"; 家 is the colloquial time-suffix (cf. 終日家), read jiā. 習舞 = "to drill in maneuvers"; 興師 = "to raise troops." The chapter's faint menace returns: monkey-play has hardened into a mountain mobilized for war.


總評 Commentary

The muster of the seventy-two caves is built around one of the novel's set-piece catalogues — a bestiary that runs real Chinese fauna (wolves, tigers, deer, badgers, boars) together with creatures out of the 山海經 and the mythical-zoology tradition (the lion-like 狻猊, the one-horned 兕, the leopard-marked 狡). Such lists are a vernacular-fiction pleasure in their own right, and they do quiet thematic work besides: the mountain's animal population now organizes itself into a polity mirroring its master, the seventy-two caves answering the seventy-two transformations Wukong had mastered under Subodhi.

What is most telling is the relentlessly bureaucratic vocabulary in which monkey-rule is cast. The troop is censused to the head (四萬七千餘口); the beast-kings render annual tribute (獻貢) and answer seasonal roll-call (點卯, the yamen's dawn muster); some drill by rota, some deliver grain-levies (徵糧); gongs, banners, and armor are formally "presented" (進). Plaks reads this proleptically: the celestial bureaucracy that will soon try first to absorb and then to suppress Wukong is here foreshadowed in miniature, with Wukong himself cast — comically — as the sovereign at the center of a fully administered state. The mountain made "as tight as an iron cask" is at once a boast and a warning, and the segment's last clause (日逐家習舞興師, "day after day they mustered for war") completes the arc the chapter's opening anxiety began.

The catalogue also shows the textual texture this edition means to preserve. Among its names stands 𤜱 (, a wild sow), an astral-plane graph that later punctuated editions tend to normalize away; following the project's fidelity rule, the 世德堂 reading is kept verbatim rather than silently replaced. These rare beast-graphs — 麖, 𤜱, 狻猊, 兕 — are part of what makes the 世德堂 witness worth reading in the original: a stratum of Ming orthography and mythical zoology that modernized texts quietly smooth over.