三家刑剋 The Three Houses In Conflict
孫大聖舉棒相幫，這一場在那裡好殺：孙大圣举棒相帮，这一场在那里好杀：
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage raised his rod to help, and this bout, there, was a fine fight:
The tag has narrative fused into it — the Great Sage lifting his rod is action, not announcement — so the whole line opens the showcase rather than a bare cue standing alone, as 那兩個在那半空中這一場好殺 did earlier. 那裡 is the pointing one here, nà, "there", the place already established. 幫 is bāng.
A hog turned spirit, a bull turned monstrous, and with them an ape who stole from heaven and got the Way.
The three fighters are named by their animals rather than their titles, and the shift is the first sign that this poem will read the fight as an allegory. 豕 is the literary word for a pig, against the 豬 of Eight Rules' ordinary nickname. 得道 takes 得 at dé.
The nature of Chan has always been able to fight and refine; but earth must be used to bring the source together.
Here is the register, announced outright. 禪性 and 元由 are the vocabulary of inner alchemy — the Daoist discipline that treats the body as a laboratory, in which the disciples stand for the Five Phases and a fight is a chemical operation. 用土 is the Yellow Dame, earth, the phase that mediates between metal and wood — and this chapter's local god is literally a 土地, an earth-spirit. 當 is dāng.
The rake's nine teeth are pointed and keen besides; the precious sword's twin edges are quick and supple too.
Each half concedes a further quality to the opposing weapon. 還 is hái, "besides, still", and 更 is gèng. 鈀 holds at pá throughout this edition.
The iron rod, furling and unfurling, is the chief reliance; the earth-god lends his strength, and the head of the elixir is formed.
丹頭 is a technical word of the alchemists: the seed or starter from which the elixir takes. 土神助力 puts the chapter title's own phrase into the verse and hands it to the earth rather than to Eight Rules — the allegory correcting the narrative. 為 is wéi, "is", not the wèi meaning "for the sake of".
The three houses in mutual restraint contend together; each unfolds his powers and would lay his plans.
三家 are the three families of the alchemical scheme, and 刑剋 is the cycle in which each phase overcomes another. The line does double duty: it describes a three-way fight and it names the reason such a fight is productive rather than merely destructive. 相 is xiāng, "each other".
Catch the ox and plough the ground, and the golden coin grows; call the hog back to the furnace, and the wood-breath is gathered in.
金 and 木 are metal and wood, the phases the Great Sage and Eight Rules carry through the whole novel, and the ox is the earth they have to be worked upon. 長 is zhǎng, to grow, and it is the one site of three in these passages that takes that reading: 長嘴大耳 and 七長八短 further on are both cháng.
If the heart is not present, how shall the Way be made? Let the spirit keep to its dwelling, and the ape must be tethered.
Two proverbs, both turned positive. 心不在焉, the absent heart, comes from the Great Learning; 神常守舍 inverts 神不守舍, the spirit wandering out of its house. 拴猴 names the mind-ape and its remedy in three characters. 舍 is shè, a dwelling, not the shě of letting go. (不 rises to bú before the falling tone of 在.)
Wild shouting, bitter entreaty, and three sorts of weapon whistling.
苦相求 is bitter entreaty, with 相 at xiāng aiming the verb at the other party — not the xiàng of 相貌, appearance. The slip is easy to miss because it yields a phrase that is not quite ungrammatical. 嚷 holds at rǎng.
Rake pounding, sword wounding, and no good will in either; the gold-banded rod goes up, and there is cause for it.
有因由 answers 無好意 across the break, and the asymmetry is deliberate: the first half denies good intention to both weapons, and the second grants the rod alone a reason. This poem is not neutral between the parties in the way the earlier one was.
They fought until the stars gave no light and the moon no brightness, and a whole sky of cold mist hung black and long.
殺得 takes the light linking de: the fight did not merely continue, it produced the darkness. 兮 is the archaic breathing-space syllable of the old rhapsody tradition, and its appearance here lifts the tone at the close. (Both 不 stay bù, before the level tone of 光 and the dipping tone of 皎.)
This is the chapter's second showcase and it does something the first did not. The 好殺 of the aerial duel described a fight; this one interprets one. From the opening line, which names the fighters as hog, bull and ape rather than by their titles, the poem is reading the battle as an operation of inner alchemy — the Daoist discipline in which the body is a laboratory and the Five Phases are its reagents.
The technical vocabulary is unmixed: 禪性, 元由, 丹頭, 三家刑剋, and the phases spread across the field — metal grown by ploughing, wood gathered back to the furnace, earth mediating between them. That last is the neatest stroke, because the mediating earth of the alchemical scheme is here a literal 土地, an earth-god who has been standing on the battlefield for two passages. 土神助力結丹頭 puts the chapter title's own phrase into the verse and reassigns it.
The middle couplet is the doctrinal centre and it is severe. 心不在焉何作道 asks what Way can be made by an absent heart, and 神常守舍要拴猴 answers in the novel's oldest allegory: the mind-ape must be tied up. The Great Sage lost the fan in the opening passage through exactly the inattention these two lines name, and the poem is quietly telling him so while he fights.
It ends on darkness rather than on a result. 星不光兮月不皎 borrows the archaic 兮 of the old rhapsodies to raise the tone at the close, and the last image is a whole sky of cold mist. Nothing has been decided, and the poem declines to pretend otherwise.