淨瓶盛海 The Pure Vase Holds a Sea
那龜馱著淨瓶，爬上崖邊，對菩薩點頭二十四點，權為二十四拜。行者見了，暗笑道：「原來是看瓶的。想是不見瓶，就問他要。」菩薩道：「悟空，你在下面說甚麼？」行者道：「沒說甚麼。」菩薩教：「拿上瓶來。」這行者即去拿瓶。唉！莫想拿得他動。好便似蜻蜓撼石柱，怎生搖得半分毫？行者上前跪下道：「菩薩，弟子拿不動。」菩薩道：「你這猴頭，只會說嘴。瓶兒你也拿不動，怎麼去降妖縛怪？」行者道：「不瞞菩薩說。平日拿得動，今日拿不動。想是吃了妖精虧，觔力弱了。」菩薩道：「常時是個空瓶；如今是淨瓶拋下海去，這一時間，轉過了三江五湖、八海四瀆、溪源潭洞之間，共借了一海水在裡面。你那裡有架海的斤量？此所以拿不動也。」行者合掌道：「是，弟子不知。」那龟驮着净瓶，爬上崖边，对菩萨点头二十四点，权为二十四拜。行者见了，暗笑道：「原来是看瓶的。想是不见瓶，就问他要。」菩萨道：「悟空，你在下面说甚么？」行者道：「没说甚么。」菩萨教：「拿上瓶来。」这行者即去拿瓶。唉！莫想拿得他动。好便似蜻蜓撼石柱，怎生摇得半分毫？行者上前跪下道：「菩萨，弟子拿不动。」菩萨道：「你这猴头，只会说嘴。瓶儿你也拿不动，怎么去降妖缚怪？」行者道：「不瞒菩萨说。平日拿得动，今日拿不动。想是吃了妖精亏，觔力弱了。」菩萨道：「常时是个空瓶；如今是净瓶抛下海去，这一时间，转过了三江五湖、八海四渎、溪源潭洞之间，共借了一海水在里面。你那里有架海的斤量？此所以拿不动也。」行者合掌道：「是，弟子不知。」
逐句解 Line by line
The tortoise, bearing the pure vase, crawled up to the cliff's edge and nodded its head to the Bodhisattva twenty-four times — this taken, provisionally, for twenty-four bows.
Twenty-four nods, counted as twenty-four bows — a tortoise doing its formal best. 為 in 權為二十四拜 is wéi, taken as or counted as; 那 in 那龜 points, so nà; 著 in 馱著 is zhe.
Pilgrim, seeing it, laughed to himself: "So it's the keeper of the vase.
Wukong makes a guess, and it is wrong in a way he will pay for shortly. 看 in 看瓶的 is kān, to mind or keep watch over something — the vase-keeper — not kàn, to look at.
I suppose that, not seeing the vase, she'll just ask him for it."
His theory: she has lost the vase and will have to ask for it back.
The Bodhisattva said: "Wukong, what are you saying down there?"
Caught muttering. 甚 in 說甚麼 is shén.
Pilgrim said: "I said nothing."
Nothing at all, Bodhisattva. 沒 is méi; 甚 is shén.
The Bodhisattva bade him: "Bring the vase up."
And she calls his bluff by simply giving him a job. 教 is jiào, bade him.
This Pilgrim went at once to take the vase.
He goes to it without the least misgiving, which is the whole joke.
Ah!
One character, and the scene turns on it. 唉 is the storyteller's hinge: it stands outside anyone's speech, between an action just completed and the outcome that undoes it. The novel uses it at only one other place — where a party of scheming monks send for firewood to burn the pilgrims alive, and the same breath introduces the couplet announcing that the fire will kill their own abbot and reduce their monastery to dust. There the reversal is a catastrophe and here it is a joke, which is the measure of how little sorrow the word itself carries. Its oldest dictionary sense is a cry of response — ah, I have it — and that is the reading baked here.
There was no hope of budging it.
Not a hope. 得 in 拿得他動 is the light de of what can or cannot be managed: get it to move.
It was just as if a dragonfly were shaking a stone pillar — however could he stir it a hair's breadth?
A dragonfly shoving at a stone pillar — the image is perfect, and its comedy is the scale of the mismatch, given who is doing the shoving. The two halves balance like a couplet, but the 世德堂本 sets the line in running prose with no verse marking, so it is kept as prose here. 似 in 便似 is sì, just like; 石 in 石柱 is shí; 得 in 搖得 is the light de.
Pilgrim came forward and knelt: "Bodhisattva, your disciple cannot lift it."
The Great Sage admits defeat by a bottle. 子 in 弟子 is zǐ, disciple.
The Bodhisattva said: "You monkey-head — all you can do is brag.
說嘴 is to brag, to talk big — she is calling him all mouth.
A mere vase you cannot even lift — how will you go to subdue demons and bind fiends?"
The taunt has a sting: you cannot lift a vase, and you propose to subdue demons? 兒 in 瓶兒 is the light er ending; 降 in 降妖縛怪 is xiáng, to subdue.
Pilgrim said: "I'll not deceive the Bodhisattva.
He decides on honesty.
Ordinarily I could lift it; today I cannot.
The puzzle stated: ordinarily he could. 得 in 拿得動 is the light de.
It's likely I've suffered at the fiend's hands, and my strength has grown weak."
His own diagnosis — the fire has sapped him. 觔 is a variant way of writing 筋, sinew, so 觔力 is muscular strength.
The Bodhisattva said: "In ordinary times it is an empty vase;
And she gives him the real answer.
but now the pure vase, cast down into the sea, has in this one instant passed through the Three Rivers and Five Lakes, the Eight Seas and Four Watercourses, and all the streams, springs, pools, and grottoes between — and has borrowed a whole sea of water into itself.
The vase went into the sea and came back with the sea inside it. 三江五湖 and 八海四瀆 are set phrases sweeping up all the world's water — three rivers, five lakes, eight seas and the four great watercourses — and to these the line adds the streams, springs, pools and grottoes between. 間 is jiān in both 一時間, in an instant, and 之間, among.
Where would you get the weight to shoulder a sea?
Where would you get the weight to carry a sea? 那 in 你那裡 is the questioning nǎ; 量 in 斤量 is liàng, weight.
That is why you cannot lift it."
Which is why.
Pilgrim, pressing his palms together, said: "Yes — your disciple did not know."
Palms together, and no argument. 子 in 弟子 is zǐ.
What looked to Wukong like a fit of temper turns out to be a demonstration and a rebuke at once. The pure vase, cast into the sea, has drawn the waters of the whole world into itself in an instant — three rivers, five lakes, eight seas, four watercourses — so that the Great Sage, who fears no army in Heaven, cannot so much as lift it, no more than a dragonfly could shake a stone pillar. The image is exact, and the humbling is deliberate: a bottle defeats the self-styled binder of demons.
The small marvel displays the order of power the whole chapter turns on: the same compassion that will quench the Samādhi fire can pour a sea into a bottle. Wukong's chastened admission that he did not know restores the proper relation — force giving way to a wisdom it cannot measure — and the borrowed sea he cannot lift will become, in the Bodhisattva's hands, the very instrument of the demon's defeat.