第五十七回 · 辨真邪 Telling True from False — Journey to the West

原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition 含詞賦 With rhapsody

辨真邪 Telling True from False

這zhè大dà聖shèng聞wén言yán，即jí與yǔ沙shā僧sēng辭cí了le菩pú薩sà。這zhè一yí去qù，到dào那nà：这zhè大dà圣shèng闻wén言yán，即jí与yǔ沙shā僧sēng辞cí了le菩pú萨sà。这zhè一yí去qù，到dào那nà：

花huā果guǒ山shān前qián分fēn皂zào白bái，水shuǐ簾lián洞dòng口kǒu辨biàn真zhēn邪xié。花huā果guǒ山shān前qián分fēn皂zào白bái，水shuǐ帘lián洞dòng口kǒu辨biàn真zhēn邪xié。

逐句解 Line by line

這zhè大dà聖shèng聞wén言yán，即jí與yǔ沙shā僧sēng辭cí了le菩pú薩sà。这zhè大dà圣shèng闻wén言yán，即jí与yǔ沙shā僧sēng辞cí了le菩pú萨sà。

The Great Sage heard her, and took leave of the Bodhisattva together with Sha Monk.

The two of them leave together for the first time since the expulsion -- the real Pilgrim and the disciple who tried to brain him a page ago.

這zhè一yí去qù，到dào那nà：这zhè一yí去qù，到dào那nà：

And on this journey, where they were bound was:

這一去, 到那 is the closing tag, and it opens the chapter's smallest set-piece: a single couplet. 到那 is the pointing 那, nà, aimed forward at the place the verse is about to name.

Before the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, the black shall be parted from the white; at the mouth of the Water-Curtain Cave, the true shall be told from the false.

The chapter ends on the word it began with. 分皂白 -- sorting the black from the white -- was Wukong's complaint at Potalaka, where he wept that his master 更不察皂白之苦, never once looked into which was which; the Bodhisattva then took the phrase off him and used it to rule against him. It comes back here as the thing the next chapter has to do. The matching line answers it with 辨真邪: telling the true from the false.

總評 Commentary

A single couplet, and the chapter's smallest set-piece. The two lines are built to match -- place, then act -- and the two acts are one act said twice: 分皂白, part the black from the white, and 辨真邪, tell the true from the false.

皂白 has governed the chapter from the start. Wukong wept at Potalaka that his master would not look into which was black and which was white; the Bodhisattva took the word off him and used it to find against him; and the narrative used it again in reporting the quarrel to her. Every appearance so far has been about moral discrimination -- telling a right act from a wrong one. Here, in the last line of the chapter's verse, the same phrase turns into a question about identity.

That is the chapter's whole movement in two lines. It began as a dispute over whether killing bandits was justified, and it ends with nobody able to say which of two identical monkeys is the real one. The moral question has not been answered. It has been replaced.