Canonical Classics ← 第六十九回
第六十九回
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The Mind-Lord by Night Compounds the Medicines · The Sovereign at the Banquet Discourses on the Demon

九間朝殿
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

九間朝殿 Nine Chambers Underground

guówángdào:「jiān便biànshìzhèxiàyǒusānzhàngduōshēnchéngdejiǔjiāncháo殿diànnèiyǒugānggāngnèi滿mǎnzhùqīngyóudiǎnzhedēnghuǒzhòuguǎréntīngfēngxiǎngjiùbiānduǒwàimiànzhuóréngàishàngshíbǎn。」guówángdào:「jiān便biànshìzhèxiàyǒusānzhàngduōshēnchéngdejiǔjiāncháo殿diànnèiyǒugānggāngnèimǎnzhùqīngyóudiǎnzhedēnghuǒzhòuguǎréntīngfēngxiǎngjiùbiānduǒwàimiànzhuóréngàishàngshíbǎn。」


逐句解 Line by line

guówángdào:「jiān便biànshì guówángdào:「jiān便biànshì

The king said, "This is the place.

Delivered without the faintest sense that an explanation is owed. is jiān.

zhèxiàyǒusānzhàngduōshēnchéngdejiǔjiāncháo殿diàn zhèxiàyǒusānzhàngduōshēnchéngdejiǔjiāncháo殿diàn

"Below this it goes more than three zhàng down, dug out into nine bays of audience hall.

A (zhàng) is ten (chǐ), so this is a pit some thirty deep — real engineering. 朝殿, audience halls, is a very grand name for what you are now looking at, and he uses it without a trace of irony.

nèiyǒugānggāngnèi滿mǎnzhùqīngyóudiǎnzhedēnghuǒzhòu nèiyǒugānggāngnèimǎnzhùqīngyóudiǎnzhedēnghuǒzhòu

"Inside are four great jars filled with clear oil, and lamps burning in them day and night without cease.

晝夜不息 — ceaselessly, day and night — is word for word what he said of his own brooding when he described the illness. The lamps down there keep the same watch he does. marks the burning as ongoing.

guǎréntīngfēngxiǎngjiùbiānduǒwàimiànzhuóréngàishàngshíbǎn。」 guǎréntīngfēngxiǎngjiùbiānduǒwàimiànzhuóréngàishàngshíbǎn。」

"When We hear the wind we go inside and hide, and men outside put the stone slab over Us."

And there is the clause that matters: he is sealed in from above. 聽得 keeps the full . here is zhuó, setting somebody to a task — a different reading from the zhe of the burning lamps one line up.


總評 Commentary

"This is the place" — and no explanation is offered or, apparently, felt to be owed. What follows is a description of real engineering: some thirty feet down, dug out into nine bays, four great jars of clear oil with lamps burning day and night.

Audience halls is what he calls the chambers. A king who has been sealed under a stone slab at intervals for a year and a half still describes the pit in the vocabulary of a court.

And the lamps burn ceaselessly, day and night — word for word what he said of his own brooding when he described the illness. The lamps down there keep the same watch he does, and the chapter sets the two sentences down without connecting them.