烏雞荒歉 Famine in the Black-Rooster Land
三藏道：「叫做甚麼地名？」那人道：「不瞞師父說，便是朕當時創立家邦，改號烏雞國。」三藏道：「陛下這等驚慌，卻因甚事至此？」那人道：「師父啊，我這裡五年前，天年乾旱，草子不生，民皆饑死，甚是傷情。」三藏聞言，點頭笑道：「陛下啊，古人云：『國正天心順。』想必是你不慈恤萬民，既遭荒歉，怎麼就躲離城郭？且去開了倉庫，賑濟黎民，悔過前非，重興今善，放赦了那枉法冤人，自然天心和合，雨順風調。」三藏道：「叫做甚么地名？」那人道：「不瞒师父说，便是朕当时创立家邦，改号乌鸡国。」三藏道：「陛下这等惊慌，却因甚事至此？」那人道：「师父啊，我这里五年前，天年干旱，草子不生，民皆饥死，甚是伤情。」三藏闻言，点头笑道：「陛下啊，古人云：『国正天心顺。』想必是你不慈恤万民，既遭荒歉，怎么就躲离城郭？且去开了仓库，赈济黎民，悔过前非，重兴今善，放赦了那枉法冤人，自然天心和合，雨顺风调。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka said, “And what is the place called?”
The plain question, asked before the terrible one. 甚麼 shén me is "what."
The man said, “I will not deceive you, Master: it is the very realm I once founded and established, which I renamed the Kingdom of the Black Rooster.”
He names his kingdom and the chapter gets its title. 烏雞國 is the Kingdom of the Black Rooster — a bird associated in popular practice with driving off evil, which is quietly funny given how little good it does him. 朕 is the imperial "we," used only by an emperor. 當時 has 當 as dāng, "at that time"; 改號 is to change the official title; 那 is the pointing nà.
Tripitaka said, “Your Majesty being so alarmed and distraught — for what matter have you come to this pass?”
"What brought you to this?" 因甚事 — 甚 here is shén, the question word.
The man said, “Master, five years ago here the seasons brought a drought; the grass and its seed would not grow, the people all starved to death — a most grievous thing.”
The drought that starts everything. Note the second 甚 in the line is a different word: 甚是 shèn shì means "exceedingly," an intensifier, against the interrogative shén of the line before. 乾旱 has 乾 as gān, dry, not qián, the trigram; 草子 "grass-seed" ends in the light zi.
Hearing this, Tripitaka nodded and said with a smile, “Your Majesty, the ancients said: ‘When the realm is upright, the mind of Heaven is compliant.’
Tripitaka answers a murder story with a proverb, and smiles while he does it. 國正天心順 — "when the realm is upright, Heaven's own mind falls in with it" — is the standard Confucian formula: bad weather implies bad government. The edition sets the quotation inside its own citation brackets 『』.
It must be that you failed to cherish and relieve your myriad people; and having met with dearth and famine, how could you then slink away and abandon your city walls?
The accusation, delivered gently: you must have failed your people. 慈恤 is to cherish and relieve; 荒歉 huāng qiàn is dearth and crop-failure; 城郭 is the city and its outer wall — the thing a ruler is not supposed to abandon.
Rather go and open your granaries, relieve the black-haired folk, repent your former wrongs and revive present good; pardon those wronged by the perversion of law, and of itself the mind of Heaven will be brought into accord, with rains timely and winds temperate.”
The textbook remedy, in five brisk clauses: open the granaries, feed the people, repent, pardon. 黎民 lí mín is "the black-haired folk," an old and rather beautiful term for the common people. 重興 has 重 as chóng, "again." And the payoff is the phrase everybody still knows: 雨順風調 — timely rains and temperate winds, the four-character shorthand for a well-run world. 調 is tiáo, tuned or temperate, not diào. It will come back in the prince's mouth much later, and it will be a lie when it does.
Tripitaka hears a story about a lost throne and diagnoses misgovernment. He quotes the maxim that an upright realm secures Heaven's compliance, and prescribes the standard programme of virtuous rule: open the granaries, relieve the people, pardon those wronged by the courts. The advice is sincere, competent, and completely beside the point — this king was murdered, not deposed — and the monk delivers it with a nod and a smile.
The drought is the hinge of the whole deception. It is the kingdom's desperation for rain that will shortly make a rain-summoning Daoist irresistible, and everything that follows runs through that one opening. The renaming of the land to the Kingdom of the Black Rooster fixes the setting for the arc that begins here and runs on past this chapter's close.