Canonical Classics ← 第三十回
第三十回
xiéqīnzhèng
xīnyuán

The Evil Demon Assaults the True Dharma · The Horse of the Will Recalls the Monkey of the Heart

叮嚀仔細
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

叮嚀仔細 The Princess Coaches the Demon

gōngzhǔjiànleshífēnhuānyāoxiàodào:「húnjiāshìbiàndehǎome?」gōngzhǔdào:「biàndehǎobiàndehǎozhèjìncháoawángshìqīnmièdìngzhuówénduōguānliúyǐnyàntǎngchījiǔzhōngjiānqiānqiānwànwànxiǎoxīnquèyàoxiànchūyuánzuǐliǎnláichūjiǎozǒulefēngxùnjiùwénle。」lǎoyāodào:「xiāofēnfuyǒudào。」gōngzhǔjiànleshífēnhuānyāoxiàodào:「húnjiāshìbiàndehǎome?」gōngzhǔdào:「biàndehǎobiàndehǎozhèjìncháoawángshìqīnmièdìngzhuówénduōguānliúyǐnyàntǎngchījiǔzhōngjiānqiānqiānwànwànxiǎoxīnquèyàoxiànchūyuánzuǐliǎnláichūjiǎozǒulefēngxùnjiùwénle。」lǎoyāodào:「xiāofēnfuyǒudào。」


逐句解 Line by line

gōngzhǔjiànleshífēnhuān gōngzhǔjiànleshífēnhuān

Seeing this, the princess was greatly pleased.

十分, "fully, entirely." What delights her is how complete the disguise is — which is to say, how thoroughly her husband can stop looking like himself.

yāoxiàodào:「húnjiāshìbiàndehǎome?」 yāoxiàodào:「húnjiāshìbiàndehǎome?」

The demon laughed: "Well, wife — is the change not well done?"

He wants to be told. 變得好 takes the structural as de; 渾家 is once more the homely everyday "wife."

gōngzhǔdào:「biàndehǎobiàndehǎo gōngzhǔdào:「biàndehǎobiàndehǎo

The princess said: "Well done, well done.

The doubled 變得好 — both instances of read de — is her hurrying to reassure him.

zhèjìncháoawángshìqīnmièdìngzhuówénduōguānliúyǐnyàn zhèjìncháoawángshìqīnmièdìngzhuówénduōguānliúyǐnyàn

Once you have gone in to court — for a father's kinship is never extinguished — my royal father will surely have the civil and military officials keep you for a feast.

進朝, to go in to court, takes as cháo. In 一定著文武多官 the causative is zhuó, "will have them do it." 親不滅: the bond of kin is never extinguished. She is briefing him on her own father's likely behaviour, which is a strange thing to be doing.

tǎngchījiǔzhōngjiānqiānqiānwànwànxiǎoxīn tǎngchījiǔzhōngjiānqiānqiānwànwànxiǎoxīn

But in the midst of the drinking, be a thousand times careful and ten thousand times on your guard;

中間 takes as zhōng; 仔細, careful, attentive, takes as . The paired 千千 and 萬萬, a thousand thousand and ten thousand ten thousand, pile the caution up.

quèyàoxiànchūyuánzuǐliǎnláichūjiǎozǒulefēngxùnjiùwénle。」 quèyàoxiànchūyuánzuǐliǎnláichūjiǎozǒulefēngxùnjiùwénle。」

do not let your true face show, do not let the horse's hoof slip out and give the game away, or all your refinement is undone."

Here is the chapter forecasting its own turn, in the form of wifely advice. 露出馬腳 — "to let the horse's leg show" — is one of the most durable idioms in the language for giving yourself away, and it is still in daily use; the picture behind it is a stage horse with a real foot poking out from under the costume. 走了風汛 is the chapter's leak idiom, back for the second of its three appearances. 斯文 is cultivated refinement. She has just listed, in order, every way the disguise is going to fail.

lǎoyāodào:「xiāofēnfuyǒudào。」 lǎoyāodào:「xiāofēnfuyǒudào。」

The old fiend said: "No need to instruct me — I have my own way of it."

不消吩咐: "no need to give me instructions." The last line before a fall usually sounds like this.


總評 Commentary

The coaching cuts both ways. Out of self-preservation, and some remnant of marital feeling, she helps him perfect the disguise — and her warnings, 現出原嘴臉, 露出馬腳, 走了風汛, catalogue precisely how it will come apart. The chapter's leakage theme returns here disguised as advice.

露出馬腳 is worth knowing on its own account: it is what Chinese still reaches for when somebody's cover slips, and its literal image will be answered with some grimness when the demon, deep in drink, stops being able to hold his shape. His breezy 不消吩咐 is the overconfidence that goes before it.