Canonical Classics ← 第四十一回
第四十一回
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The Mind-Ape Suffers Defeat by Fire · The Wood-Mother Is Seized by the Demon

賢姪莫弄虛頭
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原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

賢姪莫弄虛頭 Worthy Nephew, No Tricks

hóngháiérguàichūdeménláigāojiàodào:「shìshénmerénzàizhèyāo!」xíngzhějìnqiánxiàodào:「xiánzhínòngtóujīnzǎozàishānpánggāodiàozàisōngshùshāotóushìbānshòuqièqièdehuángbìngháiérhǒngleshīdàohǎotuózhejiùnòngfēngershīshèjiāngláijīnyòunòngzhèyàngzirènchènzǎosòngchūshīyàobáilemiànshīleqīnqíngkǒnglìngzūnzhīdàoguàilǎosūnzhǎngyòuxiàngyàng。」hóngháiérguàichūdeménláigāojiàodào:「shìshénmerénzàizhèyāo!」xíngzhějìnqiánxiàodào:「xiánzhínòngtóujīnzǎozàishānpánggāodiàozàisōngshùshāotóushìbānshòuqièqièdehuángbìngháiérhǒngleshīdàohǎotuózhejiùnòngfēngershīshèjiāngláijīnyòunòngzhèyàngzirènchènzǎosòngchūshīyàobáilemiànshīleqīnqíngkǒnglìngzūnzhīdàoguàilǎosūnzhǎngyòuxiàngyàng。」


逐句解 Line by line

hóngháiérguàichūdeménláigāojiàodào:「shìshénmerénzàizhèyāo!」 hóngháiérguàichūdeménláigāojiàodào:「shìshénmerénzàizhèyāo!」

The Red Boy demon came out at the gate and cried aloud: ‘Who is it bawling here at my door?’

紅孩兒: the here is a full syllable, ér, because 孩兒 is simply the word for "child" -- not the light unstressed ending that turns other nouns into diminutives. 出得門來 uses in its light linking sound de, joining the verb to where it got to. 吆喝 is to bawl or holler; the demon has come out to find who is making the racket.

xíngzhějìnqiánxiàodào:「xiánzhínòngtóu xíngzhějìnqiánxiàodào:「xiánzhínòngtóu

The Pilgrim stepped up and said with a smile: ‘Worthy nephew, play me no tricks.

The whole scene turns on this word. 賢姪 means "worthy nephew" -- Wukong greeting a demon he has never met as family, on the strength of an old sworn brotherhood with the boy's father. 弄虛頭 is to put on a false front, to try it on. He is smiling as he says it, which makes it worse.

jīnzǎozàishānpánggāodiàozàisōngshùshāotóushìbānshòuqièqièdehuángbìngháiérhǒngleshī jīnzǎozàishānpánggāodiàozàisōngshùshāotóushìbānshòuqièqièdehuángbìngháiérhǒngleshī

This morning, beside the mountain path, you hung high in the top of a pine — just such a scrawny, sickly, jaundiced-looking child — and so you gulled my master.

Wukong throws the morning's trick back in the demon's face. Chapter 40 had Red Boy hanging from a pine in the guise of a kidnapped child, and Tripitaka, who never learns, insisted on rescuing him. is páng, beside. 那般 is "that sort of," pointing rather than asking. The string of adjectives -- 瘦怯怯, scrawny and timid, 黃病, jaundiced -- is Wukong doing an impression of the performance.

dàohǎotuózhejiùnòngfēngershīshèjiānglái dàohǎotuózhejiùnòngfēngershīshèjiānglái

I, out of pure goodwill, carried you on my back; and you straightway raised a wind and snatched my master clean away.

我倒好意: is dào, the "and yet, on the contrary" sound, not the dǎo that means to topple over. 馱著 is carrying on the back, with as zhe showing it going on. Then 弄風兒 -- and here the is the light diminutive ending, a little puff of wind, in contrast with the full ér two lines above. Same character, two jobs, close enough together to compare.

jīnyòunòngzhèyàngzirèn jīnyòunòngzhèyàngzirèn

Now here you are got up in this guise again — do you suppose I would not know you?

認得 is to recognise, and its is , the full sound meaning to attain or manage -- recognising is something you succeed at. That puts it with 記得, "remember," rather than with the light de of 出得門來 a moment ago. 豈不 takes before the falling tone of .

chènzǎosòngchūshīyàobáilemiànshīleqīnqíngkǒnglìngzūnzhīdàoguàilǎosūnzhǎngyòuxiàngyàng。」 chènzǎosòngchūshīyàobáilemiànshīleqīnqíngkǒnglìngzūnzhīdàoguàilǎosūnzhǎngyòuxiàngyàng。」

Send out my master at once; do not lose face and forfeit the family bond, lest your honoured father hear of it and blame old Sun for bullying the young from seniority — an unseemly business.’

The threat, dressed as concern for the family reputation. Send my master out, do not lose face over it, and think what your father would say. 以長欺幼 is bullying the young from the strength of seniority, with as zhǎn, elder. 令尊 is the courteous way to say "your father," and the father in question is 牛魔王, the Bull Demon King. 不象模樣 means unseemly, not the proper look of a thing.


總評 Commentary

Wukong's entire tactic is the kinship claim. He calls the child-demon 賢姪, worthy nephew, because he once swore brotherhood with the boy's father. The claim is true as far as it goes, and it is also a manoeuvre: if the demon accepts the relationship, he cannot decently keep the hostage, and if he refuses it, he looks like a boy disowning his father's friends.

Folded into the speech is a recap of Chapter 40 -- the child hanging in the pine, the wind, the vanished master. Wukong is not just claiming family, he is pointing out that he has already seen through one disguise today. Neither argument is going to work, and some of the pleasure of the scene is watching him spend so much charm on a target that has no intention of being charmed.