一個告字 A Quarrel Over One Word
好大聖，撥回觔斗，那消一個時辰，早至南洋大海。住下祥光，直至落伽山上，撞入紫竹林中，忽見木叉行者迎面作禮道：「大聖何往？」行者道：「要見菩薩。」木叉即引行者至潮音洞口，又見善財童子作禮道：「大聖何來？」行者道：「有事要告菩薩。」善財聽見一個「告」字，笑道：「好刁嘴猴兒，還像當時我拿住唐僧被你欺哩。我菩薩是個大慈大悲、大願大乘、救苦救難、無邊無量的聖善菩薩，有甚不是處，你要告他？」行者滿懷悶氣，一聞此言，心中怒發，咄的一聲，把善財童子喝了個倒退，道：「這個背義忘恩的小畜生，著實愚魯！你那時節作怪成精，我請菩薩收了你，皈正迦持，如今得這等極樂長生，自在逍遙，與天同壽，還不拜謝老孫，轉倒這般侮慢。我是有事來告求菩薩，卻怎麼說我刁嘴要告菩薩？」善財陪笑道：「還是個急猴子。我與你作笑耍子，你怎麼就變臉了？」好大圣，拨回觔斗，那消一个时辰，早至南洋大海。住下祥光，直至落伽山上，撞入紫竹林中，忽见木叉行者迎面作礼道：「大圣何往？」行者道：「要见菩萨。」木叉即引行者至潮音洞口，又见善财童子作礼道：「大圣何来？」行者道：「有事要告菩萨。」善财听见一个「告」字，笑道：「好刁嘴猴儿，还像当时我拿住唐僧被你欺哩。我菩萨是个大慈大悲、大愿大乘、救苦救难、无边无量的圣善菩萨，有甚不是处，你要告他？」行者满怀闷气，一闻此言，心中怒发，咄的一声，把善财童子喝了个倒退，道：「这个背义忘恩的小畜生，着实愚鲁！你那时节作怪成精，我请菩萨收了你，皈正迦持，如今得这等极乐长生，自在逍遥，与天同寿，还不拜谢老孙，转倒这般侮慢。我是有事来告求菩萨，却怎么说我刁嘴要告菩萨？」善财陪笑道：「还是个急猴子。我与你作笑耍子，你怎么就变脸了？」
逐句解 Line by line
Fine Great Sage! He wheeled his somersault about, and in less than an hour had reached the great sea of the southern ocean.
An hour's flight across the world, and the novel spends nine characters on it. 那消 is the rhetorical 那, nǎ -- "how should it take even as much as..." -- not the pointing nà; it belongs with the family of questions-that-are-not-questions this chapter is full of. 好 is the exclamation mark of Chinese storytelling, hǎo, and it keeps that job every time it appears in this stretch: not "a good Great Sage" but "what a Great Sage!"
He set down his auspicious light, went straight up to Mount Potalaka, and pushed into the Purple Bamboo Grove, where he suddenly saw Mokṣa the Pilgrim coming to meet him, who made a bow and said: “Great Sage, where are you bound?”
Potalaka, the Bodhisattva's mountain. 落伽 is the tail end of 補陀落伽, a Chinese spelling-out of the Sanskrit name, and 伽 takes the reading reserved for Buddhist transcriptions, qié, the same as in 伽藍 and 楞伽. An automatic reading gives gā, which belongs only to modern scientific coinages; all three of the chapter's occurrences were affected, and the name stands in the chapter title too. Fixing the reading on the whole phrase leaves 伽 free to read jiā in 瑜伽 elsewhere.
Pilgrim said: “I want to see the Bodhisattva.”
Four words, and the whole of Wukong's purpose. He does not say why.
Mokṣa led Pilgrim at once to the mouth of the Tide-Sound Cave, where the Boy Sudhana also made a bow and said: “Great Sage, what brings you?”
The second doorkeeper. 童子 takes 子 as the full word for a person, zǐ -- a boy, not a suffix. 潮音洞, the Tide-Sound Cave, is the Bodhisattva's own dwelling on Potalaka, named for the noise of the sea against the rock.
Pilgrim said: “I have a matter to lodge with the Bodhisattva.”
Here is the joke the whole passage is built on, and it turns on one character. 告 means both to tell somebody something and to bring a charge against them -- lay before, and lay a complaint. Sudhana is about to seize on the second meaning. English has no single word that carries both, so the translation uses "lodge" all through the passage as a stand-in: you lodge a matter with someone, and you also lodge a complaint. That double sense is manufactured in the English; the Chinese has it for free.
Sudhana caught that one word lodge and laughed: “What a sharp-tongued monkey! Still the same as the time I had hold of the Tang Monk and you got the better of me.
The novel does something it almost never does: it holds a character up with tweezers. The source puts 告 in brackets and counts it -- one 告 character -- so that the word is being named rather than used, which is exactly what licenses the joke. 當時 is the time word, so 當 is dāng. 猴兒 takes the ending er, and 還像 takes 還 at hái, "still".
“Our Bodhisattva is a holy and good Bodhisattva of great mercy and great compassion, of great vows and the Great Vehicle, who rescues from bitterness and rescues from calamity, boundless and immeasurable. What fault is there in her, that you should lodge a complaint against her?”
A wall of epithets, thrown up as a defence. 大乘 is the Great Vehicle, the Mahāyāna, so 乘 reads shèng, the vehicle -- not the chéng of riding. Two contrasts land in one breath: 救難 has 難 as the noun "disaster", nàn, against the nán of 難忍 in the passage before; and 無量 has 量 as the measure itself, liàng, against the liáng of 忖量 in the chapter's opening lines. Both readings of both characters sit inside a few hundred characters of each other. 有甚 is the question word, 甚 at shén.
Pilgrim, his breast already full of pent-up gall, heard these words and felt the anger break out in his heart. With a single bark he shouted the Boy Sudhana back a step, and said: “This little beast, who turns his back on right and forgets a kindness, is stupid indeed!
The dam breaks. 喝 is the shout, hè, not the hē of drinking. 倒退 is backwards-motion, dào -- against the dǎo of 咒倒在地 a passage earlier, where the same character means toppling over. 著實 is 著 at zhuó used as an intensifier: downright, thoroughly. 畜生 keeps its everyday spoken reading, chù sheng.
“In those days you played the monster and had made yourself a spirit, and it was I who begged the Bodhisattva to take you in, so that you might turn to the right and hold to it. Now you have won such bliss and long life, free and at your ease, of an age with Heaven itself — and still you do not bow your thanks to Old Monkey, but turn about and show me insolence like this.
Wukong's counter-charge, and it is an accurate one. 極樂 takes 樂 at lè, the joy of the Pure Land, not the yuè of music. 長生 takes 長 at cháng, long, and this is the first of the chapter's four such readings against sixteen where the same character means "elder" and reads zhǎng. 轉倒 is the "on the contrary" dào again. 得這等 is 得 as attainment, dé -- you have come by all this.
“I came with a matter to lodge and beg of the Bodhisattva; how then do you say I am sharp-tongued and mean to lodge a complaint against her?”
告求 puts the two senses back together in a single word -- to lay a matter before someone and to petition them -- which is Wukong's entire point. He is saying: I came to tell her, not to sue her.
Sudhana laughed to make amends: “Still the same hasty monkey! I was only making sport with you — how is it you change your face so fast?”
Sudhana backs down fast. 猴子 and 耍子 both take 子 as the worn-down ending, zi, against the full zǐ of 童子 and 弟子 earlier. 陪笑 is the particular laugh of somebody who has misjudged the room and is trying to get out of it.
The whole exchange is one pun held up for inspection. 告 covers both laying a matter before someone and lodging an accusation against them, and Sudhana picks the second reading on purpose. The novel flags the manoeuvre in its punctuation: the character is set off in brackets and counted, one 告 character, so that it is named rather than used. This text almost never stops to point at its own words, and doing it here marks the joke as the point of the scene rather than a decoration on it.
The quarrel also settles an old score. Sudhana is the Red Boy of the earlier chapters -- the demon child who tied up Tripitaka and beat Wukong back with fire until Guanyin subdued him and took him into service. His crack about the time he had hold of the Tang Monk is a taunt, and Wukong's reply -- that it was he who asked the Bodhisattva to take the boy in, and this is the thanks he gets -- is a fair summary of the record. Neither of them is wrong about the facts.
What gives the scene its edge is where it falls. Wukong arrives at Potalaka having just been driven off by his master, carrying a grievance he cannot state to anyone below the Bodhisattva herself, and the first thing he meets is a doorkeeper making fun of his choice of words. The rage that breaks out is wildly out of proportion, which is exactly the measure of what he is carrying. Sudhana's quick retreat into 作笑耍子 -- it was only a joke -- is what anyone sensible says after misreading a moment that badly.