蟒蛇綽魂 The Python-Sprite Snatches Souls
三藏依言，策馬又進。行不上一里之遙，又聽得叫聲：「救人！」長老道：「徒弟，這個叫聲不是鬼魅妖邪。若是鬼魅妖邪，但有出聲，無有回聲。你聽他叫一聲，又叫一聲，想必是個有難之人。我們可去救他一救。」行者道：「師父，今日且把這慈悲心略收起收起，待過了此山，再發慈悲罷。這去處兇多吉少。你知道那倚草附木之說，是物可以成精。諸般還可，只有一般蟒蛇，但修得年遠日深，成了精魅，善能知人小名兒。他若在草科裡，或山凹中，叫人一聲，人不答應還可；若答應一聲，他就把人元神綽去，當夜跟來，斷然傷人性命。且走，且走。古人云：『脫得去，謝神明。』切不可聽他。」長老只得依他，又加鞭催馬而去。三藏依言，策马又进。行不上一里之遥，又听得叫声：「救人！」长老道：「徒弟，这个叫声不是鬼魅妖邪。若是鬼魅妖邪，但有出声，无有回声。你听他叫一声，又叫一声，想必是个有难之人。我们可去救他一救。」行者道：「师父，今日且把这慈悲心略收起收起，待过了此山，再发慈悲罢。这去处凶多吉少。你知道那倚草附木之说，是物可以成精。诸般还可，只有一般蟒蛇，但修得年远日深，成了精魅，善能知人小名儿。他若在草科里，或山凹中，叫人一声，人不答应还可；若答应一声，他就把人元神绰去，当夜跟来，断然伤人性命。且走，且走。古人云：『脱得去，谢神明。』切不可听他。」长老只得依他，又加鞭催马而去。
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka, complying with his words, whipped up the horse and pressed on.
藏 is zàng. He complies, for now.
They had not gone a full li's distance when again they heard the voice calling: "Save me!"
Not even a 里 — a Chinese mile, about half a kilometre — before the voice comes again. 行 is xíng; 不 lifts to bú before the falling tone of 上. 又聽得 takes the full-weight 得, dé.
The elder said: "Disciple, this crying voice is no ghost or demon-sprite.
The Master starts reasoning, which is worse for Wukong than if he had simply insisted. 長 is zhǎng; 不 lifts to bú before 是.
Were it a ghost or demon-sprite, there would be an outgoing voice but no echo in reply.
A genuine piece of folk belief, and the Master deploys it like evidence: a ghost's cry goes out and nothing answers it, so a voice that calls twice must belong to something alive. It is sound reasoning from a false premise, which is the shape of nearly everything Tripitaka does in this chapter.
You hear him call once, and call again — he must surely be a person in distress.
Both instances of 一 shift to yì before the level tone of 聲. In 有難之人, "a person in distress," 難 is nàn, calamity — not the nán that means difficult.
We ought to go and save him."
救他一救 doubles the verb around 一, a construction that makes an action sound small and quick — "just give him a rescue." Here 一 lifts to yí before the falling tone of 救.
Pilgrim said: "Master, for today just fold up this compassionate heart a little and put it away; wait till we're past this mountain, and then show your mercy again.
The line that gives the chapter its theme, and it is phrased as a request to fold something away and put it in a drawer: 略收起收起 this 慈悲心, just till we are past the mountain. The sentence-closing 罷 is the light everyday ba, the sound that softens an instruction into a suggestion — not the bà that means to stop.
This is a place of much peril and little luck.
兇多吉少, "much ill and little good," is still the ordinary Chinese for a situation that looks bad. 這去處 takes 處 as chù.
You know the saying about how things clinging to grass and fastening to trees can become sprites.
倚草附木, "leaning on grass and clinging to trees," names the standard folk theory of how spirits come to be: a thing attaches itself to a plant or an object, waits long enough, and acquires a will. 那 is the pointing nà.
All the rest may pass; only there is one sort — the python — that, once it has cultivated itself over long years and deep days and become a sprite, is well able to know a person's little name.
The python is invented on the spot, and the detail Wukong chooses is inspired — it learns your pet name. 還可 has 還 as hái; 一般 shifts 一 to yì; 修得 takes the full-weight 得, dé. In 小名兒 the 兒 is the weightless curl on the end of a word, er.
If it lies in the grass-thickets or in a hollow of the mountain and calls out to someone, and the person does not answer, all is still well;
The rule is stated carefully, like something out of a manual. 山凹中 takes zhōng; 一 shifts to yì before 聲; 應 is yìng, "to answer"; 還可 takes hái.
but if the person answers so much as once, it will snatch away the person's primal spirit, come following that very night, and unfailingly harm his life.
And here is the sting: answer once and it takes your soul. 應 is yìng again, 一 shifts to yì before 聲. 綽去 has 綽 as chuò, to snatch away. 當夜 takes 當 as dāng, "that very night."
Let's go, let's go.
Two words, twice. Wukong has stopped arguing and started herding.
The ancients say: 'Get yourself away, and give thanks to the gods.'
A proverb, and the printed edition marks it as a quotation, which is why it is set as prose. 脫得去 takes the full-weight 得, dé, "manage to get away." The advice is to run first and give thanks afterwards — never to investigate.
On no account listen to him."
不 keeps the plain bù before the dipping third tone of 可.
The elder, left with no choice but to comply, again plied whip to the horse and rode on.
He gives in, and the whip is the sign of it — not agreement but the end of arguing. 長 is zhǎng; 只得 takes the full-weight 得, dé.
Wukong shifts from evasion to instruction. Unable to talk the Master out of caring, he gives the voice a false identity instead: this is python country, he explains, and a python that has cultivated itself long enough learns a traveller's private name and calls it out to lure a reply. The lore is invented where he stands — there is no python — but it is the sort of demonological warning the pilgrimage has made real often enough that Tripitaka cannot simply wave it away.
The deeper joke is that the fabrication is structurally true. Wukong describes a predator that works by luring compassion into a fatal answer, which is exactly the mechanism of the real demon hanging in the pine ahead. He has diagnosed the trap correctly and merely misnamed the animal. And his prescription — fold up the 慈悲心, the compassionate heart, and put it away until the mountain is behind us — asks of Tripitaka the one thing his nature will not do. He complies for now, whip to horse. The reader has been shown both the truth of the danger and the certainty that the mercy will not stay folded for long.