夢斬龍身 The Dragon Beheaded In A Dream
逐句解 Line by line
Now it fell out that north of the capital there was a monstrous dragon spirit of the waters who cut short the sweet rain, and for that had forfeited his life.
長 is cháng in the capital's name, against the zhǎng of the elder who is speaking — both readings within a few lines. 應 is yīng in 應該, ought to, which is the other reading from the yìng of the provisions sent to the guest house. And 刻減 is to dock or short-change: the offence is not withholding the rain but delivering less of it than was ordered.
By night he sent a dream, begging the king to save him from his straits.
迍 is a rare character meaning stuck fast in difficulty, and it is here because the rhyme wants a level-tone syllable of exactly this shape.
The king's word granted pardon, and early he summoned the worthy minister.
准赦 is to allow a remission of sentence. The king answers a dream with a piece of administration.
He kept him lingering within the hall, slowly turning the chess.
款留 is to keep a guest by hospitality rather than by order, which is precisely the method here: the minister is not forbidden to leave, he is played at chess.
But when noon came, that worthy minister beheaded the dragon in his sleep."
當 is dāng, marking the hour as it arrives. The line runs to eleven characters against the eight of nearly every other in the piece, and the three extra fall on the beheading.
茲因 turns the whole recital. Everything before it was history recited to a foreign king; from here the monk is answering the question that was actually asked, which was how the Tang emperor came to die and return.
The story is told with the names withheld. The dragon is a monstrous water-spirit, the minister is twice only 賢臣, a worthy officer, and the king is simply 王. The verse gives ranks and offences but no identities — partly because a four-character line has no room for names, and partly because of the shape of the tale: what matters is that a death sentence was passed, a pardon promised, and the pardon failed.
The failure is the cruellest part, and the verse does not dwell on it. The king does everything right — hears the plea, grants the remission, keeps the executioner beside him at the chessboard all morning — and the minister carries out the sentence anyway, asleep at the table. Nothing the king did was wrong and none of it worked.