自家名字 Their Own Names At Last
國王道：「既取了供，如何不供自家名字？」那怪道：「我喚做奔波兒灞，他喚做灞波兒奔。奔波兒灞是個鮎魚怪，灞波兒奔是個黑魚精。」国王道：「既取了供，如何不供自家名字？」那怪道：「我唤做奔波儿灞，他唤做灞波儿奔。奔波儿灞是个鲇鱼怪，灞波儿奔是个黑鱼精。」
逐句解 Line by line
The king said, "Since the deposition has been taken, how is it you have not deposed your own names?"
供 stands twice in this one sentence, and both are the testimony reading gòng, a falling tone — which is what lifts the 不 in front of the second one to bú. Read the character as the gōng of supplying, a level tone, and the 不 would stay down at bù and the whole clause would sound different.
The fiends said, "I am called Benbo'erba, and he is called Babo'erben.
The palindrome comes round a third time in the chapter, and a second time from the creatures themselves. 兒 is part of a name at every occurrence and takes the full ér.
"Benbo'erba is a catfish spirit, and Babo'erben is a black-fish sprite."
The same four-part figure was set as a single line earlier in the chapter, because the 世德堂本 printed a semicolon between its halves. Here it prints a full stop, a real sentence end, so the halves stand apart. The novel gives the identical information twice and punctuates it differently, and the setting follows the printing rather than the sense.
The king notices the one thing missing from a deposition that answered every other question he put. The creatures gave him the dragon king, the pool, the mountain, the daughter, the consort and the date, and left out who they themselves were. It is a small piece of good examining.
What they supply is the pair of names that have been going round the chapter since the twelfth storey: one palindrome split between two fish. They have now been said by the fiends on the roof, repeated by Pilgrim to Eight Rules, and deposed in open court.