芭蕉標井 The Plantain Marks the Well
八戒道：「且嘆他做甚？快幹我們的買賣去來。」行者雖然感慨，卻留心想起唐僧的夢來，說芭蕉樹下方是井。正行走，果見一株芭蕉，生得茂盛，比眾花木不同。真是：八戒道：「且叹他做甚？快干我们的买卖去来。」行者虽然感慨，却留心想起唐僧的梦来，说芭蕉树下方是井。正行走，果见一株芭蕉，生得茂盛，比众花木不同。真是：
逐句解 Line by line
Bajie said: 'And what's the good of sighing over it?'
且嘆他做甚: 'what's the use of sighing over it?' — Bajie, impatient. 甚 = shén ('what').
'Let's get on with our business.'
買賣: their 'business,' i.e. the errand. 快幹…去來: 'let's get on with it.'
The Pilgrim, though moved, kept his wits about him and recalled the Tang Monk's dream, which said that the well lay beneath the plantain tree.
留心: kept alert. 唐僧的夢: the Tang Monk's dream (from Ch.37), locating the well beneath the plantain. 行 = xíng.
As they walked on, sure enough they saw a plantain, grown lush and thriving, unlike all the other plants and trees.
一株芭蕉: a single plantain (banana) tree. 生得茂盛: grown lush (得 = de). The distinctive plant marks the well's site.
Truly it was:
真是: the verse-tag introducing the display poem on the plantain (a regulated 排律).
A single numinous shoot, gracefully fair, / by nature born with a hollow, empty core.
一種靈苗秀: 'a numinous shoot, fair'; 天生體性空: 'by nature hollow within' — the plantain's pithless stalk, a stock emblem of Buddhist emptiness (空).
Stalk after stalk unfurls a sheet like paper; / leaf after leaf rolls up its fragrant cluster.
抽片紙…捲芳叢: the broad leaves compared to sheets of paper and rolled clusters — the plantain leaf was proverbially used as writing material.
A thousand kingfisher-green threads, fine and slender; / one cinnabar heart, a single point of red.
翠縷…丹心: green threads (the leaf-veins) and a red heart (the unfurling bud) — a painter's palette.
Forlorn, it grieves in the night rain; / wan and worn, it shrinks from the autumn wind.
The plantain personified as forlorn and frail before rain and autumn wind.
Its nurture owes to primal, sturdy strength; / its planting, to the craft of Creation itself.
長養: to nurture, foster (長 = zhǎng). 造化工: the workmanship of Creation.
Sealed in letters, it serves a wondrous use; / brushed and splashed, it works a marvelous art.
緘書…揮灑: 'sealed in letters' and 'brushed and splashed' — again the leaf as writing surface, put to 'wondrous use' by the calligrapher.
How could the phoenix-plume be its equal? / The simurgh's tail is far from its like.
鳳翎…鸞尾: phoenix-plume and simurgh-tail — even these fabled beauties cannot match the plantain leaf. 得 = dé; 相 = xiāng (相同).
Thin dew drips in glistening beads; / light mist enfolds it, faint and pale.
薄露…輕煙: thin dew and light mist (薄 = bó, 'thin/faint'). 瀼瀼: dripping abundantly.
Its green shade curtains the window and door; / its jade shadow climbs the blind and lattice.
遮戶牖…上簾櫳: its shade screens the windows, its shadow climbs the lattice.
It will not let the wild geese roost; / how could it serve to tether a jade-piebald steed?
不許棲鴻雁: too frail to bear roosting geese; 何堪繫玉驄: still less to tether a piebald horse (繫 = jì, 'to tie'). 不 = bù.
Under frost-skies its form is withered; / on moonlit nights its hue is dim and blurred.
槁悴…朦朧: withered under frost, blurred in moonlight — its melancholy aspect.
It serves but to dispel the summer's heat, / and is fit still to shelter from the sun's glare.
Its modest utility: to cool the summer and shade against the sun.
Ashamed to lack the peach's and plum's bright color, / it stands neglected east of the whitewashed wall.
愧無桃李色: 'ashamed to lack the peach's and plum's color' — the plantain, flowerless and plain, stands neglected by the wall, a figure of unshowy worth.
Bajie's brisk 'what's the use of sighing?' snaps the pilgrims back to business, and Wukong, recalling the drowned king's dream, locates the well beneath a single lush plantain — the marker the ghost had named. The plant occasions a set-piece regulated poem (排律), a genre-appropriate pause that lavishes attention on the banana tree just as the plot tightens toward the corpse beneath it.
The poem is a virtuoso 'object-poem' (詠物詩) on the plantain, working through its every attribute: the hollow, pithless stalk (an emblem of Buddhist emptiness), the broad leaves likened to sheets of writing-paper, the green veins and red bud, its frailty before wind and frost, its modest use as summer shade. The plantain is personified throughout as forlorn and unshowy, 'ashamed to lack the peach's and plum's color.'
Placed here, the plantain poem quietly rhymes with the chapter's concerns. Its hollowness (空) invokes the emptiness at the heart of things that the Buddhist frame keeps in view; its neglected, flowerless endurance beside the ruined garden figures a plain worth overlooked in a realm gone false. The lyric interlude also heightens, by contrast, the grim comedy to come — for it is directly beneath this delicate, much-praised plant that the king's body lies.