Canonical Classics ← 第五十一回
第五十一回
xīnyuánkōngyòngqiānbān
shuǐhuǒgōngnánliàn

The Mind-Monkey Spends a Thousand Devices in Vain · Water and Fire Avail Nothing, and the Fiend Is Hard to Refine

覆奏無闕,敕選天將
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

覆奏無闕,敕選天將 The Report Comes Back Empty, and Heaven Orders Him to Choose

hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「滿mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」


逐句解 Line by line

hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「滿mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」 hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」

The True Lord, the Elder of the Han Office, having made his inquiry point by point, reported back to the Jade Emperor: "The stars and mansions of the whole sky are not one short, the divine generals of every quarter are all present, and none has gone down to the world out of a longing for ordinary life."

星宿 takes xiù. 歷歷 means item by item, one after another — the manner of the audit itself. 神將 takes jiàng, rank. In 不少 the stays and is shǎo: "not one short," which is an auditor's own turn of phrase.

wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」 wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」

The Jade Emperor heard the report and said, "Let Sun Wukong pick out a few heavenly generals and go down to the world to seize the fiend."

here is zhuó, the reading that means "have him do it" — not the zhe of an action in progress or the zháo of a blow landing. 挑選 takes tiāo. And the reply is a small masterpiece of office management: the inquiry found nothing, so the complainant is handed the job and shown out.


總評 Commentary

Two segments, and the chapter pivots on them. Wukong came up to lay a charge of slack discipline; the audit clears Heaven completely; and Heaven, having been cleared, hands him troops anyway. From here on, every force sent against the ring gets swallowed by it — and the reader already knows the roll-call came back clean, so the fault cannot be where he is looking.

is zhuó here, and again in the next passage when the Celestial Masters repeat the order to Wukong's face. It is the "have him do it" reading throughout.