原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
大膽攙越 The Duke Answers In Kind
四老聽畢，俱極讚揚。十八公道：「老拙無能，大膽攙越，也勉和一首。」四老听毕，俱极赞扬。十八公道：「老拙无能，大胆搀越，也勉和一首。」
逐句解 Line by line
四老聽畢，俱極讚揚。
四老听毕，俱极赞扬。
The four old men heard it out and praised it to the skies.
Eight characters of narration, and therefore outside the showcase that follows: a showcase may hold prose that builds its verse, but not prose that tells the story.
十八公道：「老拙無能，大膽攙越，也勉和一首。」
十八公道：「老拙无能，大胆搀越，也勉和一首。」
The Eighteenth Duke said, "This old dullard has no ability, but makes bold to push in ahead and will venture an answering piece of his own."
和 is again hè, to answer a poem in its own rhyme. 攙越 is cutting in out of turn, and the apology is pure form: he is the host and takes the first answer as of right.
Two segments of connective tissue, and they are worth separating out because the first of them is narration. The four old men heard it and praised it: that is the storyteller reporting, not a contributor negotiating, and prose of that kind stays outside a showcase however close it sits to the verse.
The Eighteenth Duke's apology for cutting in ahead of the others is pure form. He is the host, he is the one who carried Tripitaka here, and the answering poems will go round in the same order the first ones did.