相貌醜陋 A Face Of Knuckled Bone
那老者見了他相貌醜陋,便也擰住口,驚嘬嘬的硬著膽,喝了一聲,用藜杖指定道:「你這廝骨撾臉,磕額頭,塌鼻子,凹頡腮,毛眼毛睛,癆病鬼,不知高低,尖著個嘴,敢來衝撞我老人家?」那老者见了他相貌丑陋,便也拧住口,惊嘬嘬的硬着胆,喝了一声,用藜杖指定道:「你这厮骨挝脸,磕额头,塌鼻子,凹颉腮,毛眼毛睛,痨病鬼,不知高低,尖着个嘴,敢来冲撞我老人家?」
逐句解 Line by line
The old man, seeing how ugly he was, screwed his mouth shut, steadied his nerve though he was shaking, gave a shout, and pointed at him with his goosefoot staff. "You knuckle-boned thing, with your knobbed brow and your caved-in nose, your hollow jaw and your hairy eyes and hairy pupils — a consumptive ghost that cannot tell high from low, poking out that snout of yours and daring to jostle an old man like me!"
The best insult in the chapter, and it is delivered by a terrified man. 撾 is zhuā, to strike or grip: the 1716 dictionary glosses the spelling that yields zhuā by using this very character as its own pronunciation key, and the same spelling is given for it in three other Ming and Tang phonetic glossaries. The alternative wō belongs only to a modern transliteration of a foreign place name and cannot apply here. 嘬 is chuài. Both appearances of 著 are the unstressed marker zhe, the one that hangs an action in progress.
The insult is a catalogue and it works down the face in order: the face itself, then brow, nose, jaw, eyes, and last the mouth, which is the part currently causing the offence. Five of the eight items run to three characters and three to four, so the whole thing has the rhythm of a list being ticked off.
What makes it funny is the stage business in front of it. He screws his mouth shut, has to work himself up to it, is visibly shaking while he does — and then produces eight items of abuse without pausing for breath. Frightened and insulting at the same time.
The old man was himself inventoried eight passages back — staff, shoes, headcloth, gown — item by item and without a word of judgement. That was a catalogue of clothes and this is one of a face, but the technique is identical. Here it has been turned into a weapon.