強人攔路 Thirty Men Bar the Road
正走處，忽聽得一棒鑼聲，路兩邊閃出三十多人，一個個槍刀棍棒，攔住路口道：「和尚，那裡走？」諕得個唐僧戰兢兢，坐不穩，跌下馬來，蹲在路傍草科裡，只叫：「大王饒命，大王饒命。」那為頭的兩個大漢道：「不打你，只是有盤纏留下。」長老方才省悟，知他是一夥強人，卻欠身擡頭觀看。但見他：正走处，忽听得一棒锣声，路两边闪出三十多人，一个个枪刀棍棒，拦住路口道：「和尚，那里走？」諕得个唐僧战兢兢，坐不稳，跌下马来，蹲在路傍草科里，只叫：「大王饶命，大王饶命。」那为头的两个大汉道：「不打你，只是有盘缠留下。」长老方才省悟，知他是一伙强人，却欠身抬头观看。但见他：
逐句解 Line by line
He was going along when all at once he heard a single stroke on a gong, and out from both sides of the road flashed thirty men and more, every one of them with spear or sabre, cudgel or staff, who blocked the way and shouted: “Monk! Where do you think you are going?”
正走處 uses 處 for a moment rather than a place — at the point of walking on — so it takes chù. 那裡走 is the standard highwayman's challenge, and the 那 is the questioning nǎ, where, not the pointing nà. This chapter will make you keep track of that distinction more than twenty times.
The Tang Priest was so terrified that he shook from head to foot, could not keep his seat, and came tumbling down from the horse; and crouching in the scrub at the roadside he could only cry out, “Spare my life, Great Kings! Spare my life!”
諕 is read xià, to frighten — not háo, the wailing reading the character also carries. The 得 of 諕得 is the neutral de that hooks a verb to its result, not the dé of getting something, which is the reading the same character carried in 忽聽得 in the sentence immediately before. Same character, consecutive sentences, opposite readings.
The two big fellows at their head said, “We will not beat you. Only leave your travelling money behind.”
為頭的 uses 為 in its linking sense — to be at the head of — so wéi, not the wèi of doing something for a purpose. 盤纏 is money for the road, and it is the word the whole chapter turns on.
Only then did the elder come to himself and understand that these were a band of brigands; and he raised himself up and lifted his head to look at them.
省悟 is xǐng, to come to one's senses — not the shěng of economising. 強人 is the Ming vernacular for a highway robber and keeps qiáng. Watch where the realisation falls: he only works out that these are men, not monsters, after they mention money.
Behold them:
但見他, behold them, is the third of the chapter's seven handover formulae — and the only one whose subject is a pair of human beings rather than a season or a landscape. Everything the reader has been trained to expect after such a formula is about to be delivered, and then withheld.
One, green of face and jutting of fang, put the Year Star to shame; one, with bulging pupils and round staring eyes, outdid the Star of Mourning.
Two of the almanac's nastiest spirits, invoked as a benchmark. 太歲 is the Year Star, the invisible counter-orbiting twin of Jupiter — the one you were warned never to build, dig or marry against, and still the thing Chinese means by offending fate. 喪門 is the Star of Mourning. The couplet does not say the robbers are these spirits. It says they look worse.
At their temples, red hair like flying fire; below their chins, yellow whiskers like set needles.
如 and 似 give the couplet its matched pair of similes — hair like flying fire, whiskers like set needles. 似 keeps sì.
The two of them wore tiger-skin patterned headwraps on their heads, and girded at the waist were battle-skirts of many colours trimmed with sable.
花磕腦 is a patterned cloth wound round the head. 繫 is read xì here, the literary reading that belongs to descriptive verse and pairs properly with 戴, to wear on the head, rather than the everyday jì you would use for tying a knot.
One held in his hand a wolf-tooth club; one bore crosswise on his shoulder a knotted rattan staff.
The two guarded characters in this line pull opposite ways. In 執著 the 著 is zhe, an action under way — holding. In 橫擔 the 擔 is a verb, to carry across the shoulder, so dān and not the noun dàn of a shoulder-pole load. 扢撻 is another noise word and keeps its ordinary readings.
In truth they yielded nothing to the tigers of Ba Mountain; indeed they were as dragons come up out of the water.
巴山虎 — the tigers of Ba, in eastern Sichuan, proverbially the fiercest going. The closing couplet is pure hyperbole, and the reader is meant to notice that these dragons and tigers are two men with sticks.
The description is doing something the chapter needs and cannot say out loud. Every set-piece of this kind in the novel so far has introduced a demon, and the machinery here is identical: the handover formula, the paired 一個…一個, the baleful star-spirits, the closing tiger-and-dragon flourish. A reader who has come this far is being invited, by shape alone, to expect a monster.
But nothing in the description is actually supernatural. A green face, jutting teeth, red hair and yellow whiskers are stage make-up; the headwraps, the sable-trimmed skirts and the two weapons are costume and props. 欺太歲 only says they look worse than the death-stars, and 不亞巴山虎 that they are no less fierce than tigers. The whole piece insists on comparison rather than identity, and that distinction turns out to matter more than anything else in the chapter.
Tripitaka's own sequence is worth following. He is terrified, falls off the horse, crouches in the grass and begs for his life — and only once the robbers mention money does he 省悟, come to himself, and realise they are men. The description is therefore placed exactly where his understanding changes. He is looking up at them for the first time as somebody who has just stopped believing he is about to be eaten.