原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
含詞賦 With rhapsody
慈航赴難 The Compassionate One Sets Forth
那菩薩：那菩萨：
逍遙欣喜下蓮臺，雲步香飄上石崖。逍遥欣喜下莲台，云步香飘上石崖。
只為聖僧遭障害，要降妖怪救回來。只为圣僧遭障害，要降妖怪救回来。
逐句解 Line by line
那菩薩：
那菩萨：
That Bodhisattva —
Two characters and a colon: the storyteller's way of saying "and now, a poem." 那 points, so nà.
逍遙欣喜下蓮臺，雲步香飄上石崖。
逍遥欣喜下莲台，云步香飘上石崖。
In ease and gladness she comes down from the lotus throne; / on cloud-steps, trailing fragrance, she mounts the stone crag.
She comes down from the lotus seat gladly, which is the point — this is not a duty grudgingly taken up. 石 in 上石崖 is shí, the stone crag.
只為聖僧遭障害，要降妖怪救回來。
只为圣僧遭障害，要降妖怪救回来。
Only because the holy monk has met with harm, / she would subdue the fiend and bring him back to safety.
And the motive, stated without ornament: the holy monk is in trouble. 為 in 只為聖僧 is wèi, for the sake of, the purposive reading — distinct from the wéi of 為當 a few lines earlier, which meant "serving as." 降 in 要降妖怪 is xiáng, to subdue.
This short showcase-couplet marks the turn from persuasion to action. Guanyin, talked round at last, comes down from her lotus throne in ease and gladness, and the verse states her sole motive plainly: only because the holy monk has met with harm would she go and subdue the fiend and bring him home. The couplet is compact and unadorned beside the tortoise-riddle a few passages back, and deliberately so. Where that poem heaped up cosmological grandeur, this one fixes the Bodhisattva's compassion as pure purpose — the still point from which the whole rescue proceeds.
Its placement matters too. The couplet falls between the haggling over a single hair and the farce of the lotus petal, so the chapter's one moment of undivided seriousness is framed on both sides by comedy. The book does this repeatedly: the sacred is not set apart from the ridiculous but seated right beside it, and the reader is trusted to feel the change of footing without being told.