無藥可醫 No Medicine to Be Had
三藏哼著道：「婆婆啊，你這裡可有醫家？教我徒弟去買一貼墮胎藥吃了，打下胎來罷。」那婆子道：「就有藥也不濟事。只是我們這正南街上有一座解陽山，山中有一個破兒洞，洞裡有一眼落胎泉。須得那泉裡水吃一口，方才解了胎氣。卻如今取不得水了。向年來了一個道人，稱名如意真仙，把那破兒洞改作聚仙庵，護住落胎泉水，不肯善賜與人。但欲求水者，須要花紅表禮，羊酒果盤，志誠奉獻，只拜求得他一碗兒水哩。你們這行腳僧，怎麼得許多錢財買辦？但只可挨命，待時而生產罷了。」行者聞得此言，滿心歡喜道：「婆婆，你這裡到那解陽山有幾多路程？」婆婆道：「有三十里。」行者道：「好了，好了。師父放心，待老孫取些水來你吃。」三藏哼着道：「婆婆啊，你这里可有医家？教我徒弟去买一贴堕胎药吃了，打下胎来罢。」那婆子道：「就有药也不济事。只是我们这正南街上有一座解阳山，山中有一个破儿洞，洞里有一眼落胎泉。须得那泉里水吃一口，方才解了胎气。却如今取不得水了。向年来了一个道人，称名如意真仙，把那破儿洞改作聚仙庵，护住落胎泉水，不肯善赐与人。但欲求水者，须要花红表礼，羊酒果盘，志诚奉献，只拜求得他一碗儿水哩。你们这行脚僧，怎么得许多钱财买办？但只可挨命，待时而生产罢了。」行者闻得此言，满心欢喜道：「婆婆，你这里到那解阳山有几多路程？」婆婆道：「有三十里。」行者道：「好了，好了。师父放心，待老孙取些水来你吃。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka groaned, "Grandmother, is there a physician hereabouts?
哼著 has 著 as zhe, marking the groaning as continuous. He asks for a doctor before he has accepted what is wrong with him, which is characteristic: the remedy is wanted before the diagnosis is.
Let my disciple go and buy a dose of abortive medicine to take, and bring the thing down and be done."
教 is jiào, to have somebody do a thing. 罷 here is the soft closing ba of a suggestion, not the verb bà of the line before. Note what is actually being proposed, and how briskly: the holiest man in the party asks for an abortion in eighteen characters, and the novel does not comment.
The old woman said, "Medicine would be no use even if we had any.
就有…也 is the concessive frame — even granting you the premise, the conclusion still fails. She dismisses the entire medical approach in eleven characters.
It is only that away to the south of us there is a Mount Dissolving-Yang, and in that mountain a Child-Destroying Cave, and in the cave a spring of Fetus-Dissolving Water.
解陽 is jiě, to loosen or dissolve: the mountain undoes the very yang that the guesthouse was named for welcoming. 破兒洞 takes 兒 as ér, child. The three names nest inside one another — mountain, then cave, then spring — and the sentence's own grammar reproduces the nesting.
One must get a mouthful of that spring's water to drink, and only then is the fetal humour dissolved.
須得 takes 得 as dé, to obtain, governing the phrase that follows. 胎氣 is the breath or force of conception rather than a fetus as such, which is why it can be dissolved rather than expelled.
But nowadays the water is not to be got.
取不得 asks whether the thing can be done, so 得 is the light de. Eight characters, and the shape of the rest of the chapter is in them.
Some years back there came a Daoist, styling himself the True Immortal As-You-Will, who turned that Child-Destroying Cave into a Convent of Assembled Immortals, took the Fetus-Dissolving Spring under his protection, and will not bestow the water freely.
如意 means as one wishes, and it is the name of the wish-granting sceptre carried in Chinese art by gods and abbots. As a title here it is pointed: he has taken a spring that answered other people's wishes and made it answer only his own. 稱 is chēng, to style oneself. 善賜 is to give without exacting a return.
Any who would seek the water must have silk and red cloth for a presentation gift, mutton and wine and platters of fruit, offered with perfect sincerity — and only by prostrating and begging do they get one bowl of water from him.
求得 takes 得 as dé, obtained by asking. 碗兒 takes the little suffix er; 哩 is li. The list of required offerings is the language of formal ceremonial presentation, and that is exactly what makes the arrangement extortion rather than piety.
You mendicant monks — how are you to come by so much money to purchase it?
行腳僧 is a monk who travels on foot and owns nothing — the point of her question. 得 is again dé, to come by.
You can only bear it out, and wait for the time, and give birth, and there's an end."
挨命 takes 挨 as āi, to endure through something. 罷了 closes with the verb bà: and there is an end of it. Her counsel is resignation, which is the one thing this particular party has never accepted from anybody.
Pilgrim, hearing this, was filled with delight and said, "Grandmother, how far is it from here to that Mount Dissolving-Yang?"
滿心歡喜 is the hinge of the whole passage. Everybody else has just heard an impossibility; Wukong has heard an address. 聞得 takes 得 as dé.
The old woman said, "It is thirty li."
里 is a Chinese road-measure, romanised lǐ rather than converted, since English has no borrowed name for it; a Ming lǐ ran to something under six hundred metres, so thirty of them is about ten miles. The same policy covers 丈, 尺 and 寸 elsewhere in the corpus. To a somersaulting cloud it is no distance at all, which is why the next line is cheerful.
Pilgrim said, "Good, good.
Both 了 are the light le marking a thing settled. The doubled 好了 answers the old woman's doubled 好耍子 two passages back — her amusement met by his.
Set your mind at rest, Master; wait while Old Monkey fetches you some water."
待老孫 — wait while Old Monkey — is the third-person way Wukong refers to himself whenever he is about to do something impressive. He does it the way a boxer refers to himself by his ring name.
The old woman's second speech turns the chapter from a predicament into a quest, and it does so by supplying three things in order: a cure, an obstacle, and a distance. The cure is a spring; the obstacle is a Daoist who has fenced it off; the distance is thirty lǐ. Only the third is of the slightest interest to Wukong, and the narrative gives his reaction — 滿心歡喜 — in the same breath as the information.
The naming continues the pattern set at the Child-and-Mother River. 解陽山 dissolves the yang that 迎陽館 welcomed; 破兒洞 destroys the child that 照胎泉 confirmed. The country's place-names are a closed system in which conception and its undoing are both public facilities sited a few hours apart, and the novel lays it out with the flatness of a gazetteer.
What has changed is that the chapter now has an antagonist, and the form he takes is worth noticing. 如意真仙 has committed no violence and abducted nobody. He has enclosed a spring and set a tariff on it — silk, mutton, wine, fruit, and a prostration — for water that used to be free. The offerings he demands are the ordinary furniture of respectful petition, and that is precisely what makes the arrangement extortion rather than piety. He has taken the outward forms of reverence and bolted them onto a monopoly.
Her closing advice is the only genuinely bleak note in the chapter. What she tells the poor is to endure, wait, and give birth, because the toll is beyond them: 你們這行腳僧，怎麼得許多錢財買辦？ The remedy exists, it is thirty lǐ away, and it is priced out of reach. That the pilgrims will simply take it by force does not answer her point. It only distinguishes them from her neighbours, who cannot.