平平息焰 The Flames Lie Down
孫大聖執著扇子,行近山邊,盡氣力揮了一扇,那火焰山平平息焰,寂寂除光。行者喜喜歡歡,又搧一扇,只聞得習習瀟瀟,清風微動。第三扇,滿天雲漠漠,細雨落霏霏。孙大圣执着扇子,行近山边,尽气力挥了一扇,那火焰山平平息焰,寂寂除光。行者喜喜欢欢,又搧一扇,只闻得习习潇潇,清风微动。第三扇,满天云漠漠,细雨落霏霏。
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage, with the fan in his hand, went up to the edge of the mountain and swung it once with all his strength; and the Mountain of Flames put its fire down level and still, and its glare was quietly gone.
Eight characters answer the whole chapter, and the doubled words make the fire go out gradually rather than at a stroke. 盡 holds at jìn. (一扇 counts one act of fanning, so 一 is a numeral and shifts to yí before the falling tone of 扇.)
Pilgrim, delighted, fanned once more, and there was only a soft rustling and whispering, and a clear breeze faintly stirring.
習習瀟瀟 is two doubled words for the sound of a light wind, and 微動 keeps it faint. The strict split between 搧 shān, the verb, and 扇 shàn, the object, runs through the chapter's last sentences exactly as it ran through its first.
At the third stroke the sky filled with spreading cloud, and a fine rain came drifting down.
Thirteen characters of consequence with no verb of agency at all: the subject of the sentence is the weather. 落 holds at luò. Three strokes of the fan put out a fire that has burned for centuries, and the novel spends four characters on each.
Three strokes of the fan, four characters each, and the thing that has organised three chapters is over. 平平息焰,寂寂除光 — the fire is put down level and its glare quietly removed, and the doubled words make the going out gradual rather than sudden.
The second stroke brings wind and the third brings rain, and the grammar lets the weather take over: 滿天雲漠漠,細雨落霏霏 has no agent in it at all. After a chapter in which every event was somebody's doing, the ending happens to the sky.
The Great Sage's part in it is 喜喜歡歡 — delighted, doubled, the same cheerful carelessness that lost him the fan in the opening passage. He has learned nothing, and it no longer matters, which is its own kind of comment.