一表非凡 A Figure Beyond the Common
不多時，大駕出城，早到迎陽館驛。忽有人報三藏師徒道：「駕到了。」三藏聞言，即與三徒整衣出廳迎駕。女王捲簾下輦道：「那一位是唐朝御弟？」太師指道：「那驛門外香案前穿襴衣者便是。」女王閃鳳目，簇蛾眉，仔細觀看，果然一表非凡。你看他：不多时，大驾出城，早到迎阳馆驿。忽有人报三藏师徒道：「驾到了。」三藏闻言，即与三徒整衣出厅迎驾。女王卷帘下辇道：「那一位是唐朝御弟？」太师指道：「那驿门外香案前穿襕衣者便是。」女王闪凤目，簇蛾眉，仔细观看，果然一表非凡。你看他：
逐句解 Line by line
Before long the great equipage came out of the city and had soon reached the Posthouse of Welcomed Yang.
館驛 is the full compound for a post station. The procession that took a whole rhapsody to describe crosses the distance in thirteen characters.
Suddenly someone came to report to Tripitaka and his disciples: 「The equipage has arrived.」
駕到了 closes on the 了 that marks a thing done. The announcement itself runs to three characters and there is no time to prepare, which is why it sits here.
Hearing this, Tripitaka straightened his robes together with his three disciples and came out of the hall to receive it.
Robes straightened, out of the hall, ready before the carriage stops: 整衣出廳迎駕 is the correct protocol for receiving a sovereign, performed promptly and without complaint. Tripitaka's competence at ceremony has never been in question. It is what he is being destroyed by.
The queen rolled up the blind, came down from her palanquin, and said, 「Which of them is the imperial brother of the Tang?」
She has come out of her capital in state to meet a man she cannot pick out of a group of four. 那一位 takes 那 as nǎ, the question word "which," not the pointing nà; 唐朝 takes 朝 as cháo.
The Grand Preceptor pointed and said, 「The one outside the posthouse gate, before the incense table, in the long-seamed gown — that is he.」
襴衣 is a formal robe with a horizontal seam across the skirt, the dress of a scholar or an official. Tripitaka is identified by his clothes, which is how everyone in this country has been identified since the marketplace.
The queen flashed her phoenix eyes and drew together her moth brows, looked carefully, and found him a figure beyond the common indeed. Look at him:
閃鳳目, 簇蛾眉 gives the queen the appraising look the marketplace crowd gave the pilgrims, now performed by a single pair of eyes. 仔細 is zǐ; 觀看 takes 觀 as guān and both 看 as kàn; in 一表 the 一 shifts to yì before the dipping tone of 表.
His bearing noble and commanding, his countenance lofty and high.
The portrait opens with the same two words the Grand Preceptor used in her private thought back at the posthouse — 相貌軒昂 — so the queen's judgment is being confirmed rather than formed. 相貌 takes 相 as xiàng.
Teeth white as a facing of silver, lips red and the mouth foursquare.
銀砌 is silver laid like masonry. 口四方 — a square mouth — is a mark of rectitude in face-reading, not a description of shape.
Crown level, forehead broad, the heavenly granaries full; eyes fine, brows clear, the earthly chamber long.
Not praise but a reading. 天倉 and 地閣 are technical terms of Chinese face-reading: the temples above and the chin below, taken as the upper and lower limits of the face. A full 天倉 and a long 地閣 predict fortune and long life. 地閣長 takes 長 as cháng, long.
Two ears with rims complete — a man of real distinction; a whole person free of the common — this is a gifted gallant.
兩耳有輪 continues the face-reading: well-formed ear rims are another standard sign of long life and good birth. The queen is assessing a bridegroom by the book. In 一身 the 一 shifts to yì before the flat tone of 身.
What a bright-aged, clever, handsome, dashing fellow — fit to be matched with the fair and modest lady of Western Liang.
窈窕娘 borrows the 窈窕淑女 of the very first poem in the Book of Songs — the fair and modest lady every Chinese reader knows by heart — and applies it to the queen, who is the one doing the choosing. 風流子 takes 子 as zǐ, the noun. The couplet ends the portrait by naming the match, and the voice sliding out of the narrator's and into the queen's is deliberate: by the last line the description has become her thought.
The portrait is a face-reading, not a compliment, and the technical vocabulary is the evidence. 天倉 and 地閣 are the temples and the chin, taken as the upper and lower boundaries of the face; a full granary and a long chamber predict fortune and long life. 兩耳有輪 — ears with well-formed rims — is another standard sign. The queen is not admiring Tripitaka. She is reading him, by the book, for suitability.
That fits everything the chapter has shown of her. Her interest in this man has been about the succession from the first — an omen, a lineage, sons and grandsons, the imperial estate handed down. Here she checks his face against the manual before committing, and the face passes. What looks like the conventional swoon of a lovestruck queen is closer to looking a horse over before you buy it.
The craft is in the voice. The passage opens as narration — the equipage arrives, the monk comes out, the queen asks which one — and the verse begins in the narrator's own manner, repeating 相貌軒昂 from the Grand Preceptor's private thought so the reader knows the judgment is being confirmed rather than formed. By the last couplet the voice has slid entirely into the queen's: 好個, what a fine one, and 堪配, fit to be matched with. The description has become her decision without ever announcing the change.
And Tripitaka, through all of it, does exactly what protocol requires: robes straightened, out of the hall, standing before the incense table in a formal gown. He is pointed at, looked over, assessed and approved without speaking a word. The chapter has been turning him into an object since the marketplace; this is the furthest stage of it, a man reduced entirely to a face.