葫蘆來歷 The Provenance of the Gourd
那魔見了，大驚道：「他葫蘆是那裡來的？怎麼就與我的一般？縱是一根藤上結的，也有個大小不同，偏正不一，卻怎麼一般無二？」他便正色叫道：「行者孫，你那葫蘆是那裡來的？」行者委的不知來歷，接過口來，就問他一句道：「你那葫蘆是那裡來的？」那魔不知是個見識，只道是句老實言語，就將根本從頭說出道：「我這葫蘆是混沌初分，天開地闢，有一位太上老祖，解化女媧之名，煉石補天，普救閻浮世界。補到乾宮缺地，見一座崑崙山腳下，有一縷仙藤，上結著這個紫金紅葫蘆，卻便是老君留下到如今。」那魔见了，大惊道：「他葫芦是那里来的？怎么就与我的一般？纵是一根藤上结的，也有个大小不同，偏正不一，却怎么一般无二？」他便正色叫道：「行者孙，你那葫芦是那里来的？」行者委的不知来历，接过口来，就问他一句道：「你那葫芦是那里来的？」那魔不知是个见识，只道是句老实言语，就将根本从头说出道：「我这葫芦是混沌初分，天开地辟，有一位太上老祖，解化女娲之名，炼石补天，普救阎浮世界。补到干宫缺地，见一座昆仑山脚下，有一缕仙藤，上结著这个紫金红葫芦，却便是老君留下到如今。」
逐句解 Line by line
When the fiend saw it he started in great alarm: “Where did his gourd come from?”
The deictic and the interrogative stand side by side: 那魔 (nà, "that fiend") but 那裡來的 (nǎ, "come from where"). What unsettles the demon is a gourd identical to his own.
“How is it exactly like mine?”
一般 (yìbān) — "the same, alike."
“Even had they grown on a single vine, there would be some difference in size, some unevenness of slant and set — yet how are these two without the least distinction?”
偏正不一 (piān zhèng bù yī) — "the tilted and the true are not uniform." Note the reading of the second 一: in 不一 ("not alike") it is phrase-final and takes its citation tone yī, not the yí that the following 卻 would otherwise induce across the comma. 一般無二 = "identical, without a second."
Composing his face, he called out: “Xingzhe Sun — where did that gourd of yours come from?”
正色 (zhèngsè) — "with a grave set to the features." (Here 行 is forced to xíng over a spurious default.) Again 那 deictic — 你那葫蘆 (nà) — then interrogative, 那裡 (nǎ).
Pilgrim truly did not know its history, so he caught up the question and turned it back: “And where did that gourd of yours come from?”
委的 (wěi de) — colloquial "truly, indeed." 接過口來, "taking up [the demon’s] words": having no answer, Wukong simply echoes the question, the oldest deflection there is.
The fiend, not seeing this for a stratagem, took it for an honest question and told the whole root of the matter from the start: “This gourd of mine dates from when chaos first divided, when Heaven opened and Earth split apart. There was a Most High Ancient Patriarch who, transforming under the name of Nüwa, smelted stones to mend the sky and gave broad succour to the world of Jambudvīpa.”
不知是個見識 — "did not realize it was a ploy" (here 見識 = a shrewd trick seen through). 解化 (jiěhuà) — "to transform, take another form"; 女媧 (Nǜwā) is the creator-goddess who mended heaven with molten stone; 閻浮 (Yánfú) is Jambudvīpa, the human continent of Buddhist cosmology. The syncretic conceit — the Daoist patriarch "becoming" Nüwa — is the demon’s own.
“When the mending reached the quarter of Qian, where the ground was wanting, he saw at the foot of Mount Kunlun a single strand of immortal vine, and on it hung this purple-gold red gourd — left there by Lord Lao, and here it has stayed to this day.”
乾宮 (qián gōng) — the Qian quarter, the heaven-trigram’s northwest. 崑崙 (Kūnlún) is the axial holy mountain; the gourd hangs on an 仙藤, an immortal vine, a relic of 老君 (Lord Lao, the deified Laozi). The demon is, unwittingly, handing Wukong the very script the Sage will parody.
The contest shifts from names to origins. Rattled by a perfect twin of his own treasure, the fiend demands where it came from — and Wukong, who genuinely has no idea, deflects with the oldest trick of all, catching up the question and turning it back. The comedy here is of misdirection: the demon cannot tell an honest query from a stratagem.
His guileless answer is a small cosmogony, and a revealing one. It folds the Daoist 太上老祖 into the figure of Nüwa mending the sky, and roots the gourd in the mythic geography of Kunlun and the relics of Lord Lao — the syncretic weave Plaks reads throughout the novel. The dramatic irony is exact: in telling the treasure’s provenance, the fiend supplies Wukong the script he is about to improvise upon.