原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
疑心暗鬼
A Suspicious Heart
那獃子只得爬起來又去。你看他奔上大路，疑心生暗鬼，步步只疑是行者變化了跟住他，故見一物，即疑是行者。走有七八里，見一隻老虎從山坡上跑過，他也不怕，舉著釘鈀道：「師兄來聽說謊的？這遭不編了。」那呆子只得爬起来又去。你看他奔上大路，疑心生暗鬼，步步只疑是行者变化了跟住他，故见一物，即疑是行者。走有七八里，见一只老虎从山坡上跑过，他也不怕，举著钉钯道：「师兄来听说谎的？这遭不编了。」
逐句解 Line by line
那獃子只得爬起來又去。
那呆子只得爬起来又去。
The blockhead could only pick himself up and go off again.
只得 (zhǐ dé), "could only." 那 nà; 得 dé.
你看他奔上大路，疑心生暗鬼，步步只疑是行者變化了跟住他，故見一物，即疑是行者。
你看他奔上大路，疑心生暗鬼，步步只疑是行者变化了跟住他，故见一物，即疑是行者。
See him now, striding up the high road, his suspicious heart breeding phantoms: at every step he fancied Pilgrim had transformed and was dogging him, so that at the sight of any thing he took it for Pilgrim.
疑心生暗鬼 (yíxīn shēng àn guǐ), "the suspicious heart breeds phantoms." 變化了, "had transformed."
走有七八里，見一隻老虎從山坡上跑過，他也不怕，舉著釘鈀道：「師兄來聽說謊的？這遭不編了。」
走有七八里，见一只老虎从山坡上跑过，他也不怕，举著钉钯道：「师兄来听说谎的？这遭不编了。」
After seven or eight li, he saw a tiger come running across the hillside; and, unafraid, he brandished his rake and said: “Elder Brother, have you come to listen for my lies? This time I’ll make up none.”
舉著釘鈀 (jǔ zhe dīng pá), "brandishing the rake" — 著 zhe, 鈀 pá. 這遭, "this time."
總評 Commentary
Sent back to the task he shirked, Eight Rules now suffers the exact reversal of his earlier confidence: where before he never suspected the disguised Pilgrim at his ear, he now suspects Pilgrim in everything. The narrator names the condition precisely — 疑心生暗鬼, “the suspicious heart breeds phantoms” — and the comedy inverts: the pig who could not see his tormentor when present now sees him everywhere he is absent.
The running joke is built in three escalating beats, of which the tiger is the first. Confronting a real tiger with total unconcern — because he takes it for Pilgrim come to catch him lying — Eight Rules addresses it as “Elder Brother” and vows to tell no more lies. The obtuseness that made him a victim now makes him absurdly, and luckily, fearless.