Canonical Classics ← 第四十八回
第四十八回
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The Fiend Stirs a Cold Wind and Sends Down Great Snow · The Monk, Set on Worshipping the Buddha, Treads the Layered Ice

家常相待
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

家常相待 Entertained as of the House

zhǐjiàntóngyòuqǐngjìnzǎozhāidàotīngshàngchīduōshíyòuzhāixiāngérjìnsānzàngjiànpǐnfēngshèngzàiāndào:「méngjiànliúzhǐjiāchángxiāngdài。」chénlǎodào:「lǎogǎnméngjiùmìngzhīēnsuīzhúshèyánfèngkuǎnnánchóunánxiè。」zhǐjiàntóngyòuqǐngjìnzǎozhāidàotīngshàngchīduōshíyòuzhāixiāngérjìnsānzàngjiànpǐnfēngshèngzàiāndào:「méngjiànliúzhǐjiāchángxiāngdài。」chénlǎodào:「lǎogǎnméngjiùmìngzhīēnsuīzhúshèyánfèngkuǎnnánchóunánxiè。」


逐句解 Line by line

zhǐjiàntóngyòuqǐngjìnzǎozhāi zhǐjiàntóngyòuqǐngjìnzǎozhāi

Then a boy came to invite them in to the early meal.

早齋 is the morning meal of a religious house. The Chens are keeping monastic hours for their guests.

dàotīngshàngchī dàotīngshàngchī

They went to the hall and finished it.

Four characters of narrative dispatch. The novel is marking time on purpose.

duōshíyòuzhāixiāngérjìn duōshíyòuzhāixiāngérjìn

They had not talked long before the midday meal followed on after it.

相繼: is xiāng, one thing following another — not xiàng, "appearance."

sānzàngjiànpǐnfēngshèngzàiāndào:「méngjiànliúzhǐjiāchángxiāngdài。」 sānzàngjiànpǐnfēngshèngzàiāndào:「méngjiànliúzhǐjiāchángxiāngdài。」

Tripitaka, seeing the dishes so lavish, was uneasy over and over, and said: 「Since you are good enough to keep us, plain household fare would serve.」

家常相待: is xiāng again, standing in front of the verb — to treat a man as one of the household. 再四, over and over.

chénlǎodào:「lǎogǎnméngjiùmìngzhīēnsuīzhúshèyánfèngkuǎnnánchóunánxiè。」 chénlǎodào:「lǎogǎnméngjiùmìngzhīēnsuīzhúshèyánfèngkuǎnnánchóunánxiè。」

Old Chen said: 「Your reverence, for the kindness of standing in our stead at the sacrifice and saving those two lives, though we set out a banquet every day of our lives we could never repay nor thank you enough.」

難酬難謝: is nán, "hard to," twice. 替祭 is to sacrifice in another's place, and it is the phrase that names exactly what Wukong and Eight Rules did on that altar.


總評 Commentary

A short interval of meals, doing structural work. The days are passing, the river is freezing, the pilgrims are being fed. Old Chen's phrase for what he owes them — 替祭救命之恩, the kindness of sacrificing in our stead and saving lives — sets down the whole moral account of the Chen Village episode in six characters, and it is why the household will not let them leave quietly.

Tripitaka's discomfort at the lavishness is in character and, in the circumstances, faintly ironic. He asks to be treated 家常, as one of the household, while growing more frantic by the day to be gone from it.