九間朝殿 Nine Chambers Underground
國王道:「此間便是。這底下有三丈多深,穵成的九間朝殿。內有四個大缸,缸內滿注清油,點著燈火,晝夜不息。寡人聽得風響,就入裡邊躲避,外面著人蓋上石板。」国王道:「此间便是。这底下有三丈多深,穵成的九间朝殿。内有四个大缸,缸内满注清油,点着灯火,昼夜不息。寡人听得风响,就入里边躲避,外面着人盖上石板。」
逐句解 Line by line
The king said, "This is the place.
Delivered without the faintest sense that an explanation is owed. 間 is jiān.
"Below this it goes more than three zhàng down, dug out into nine bays of audience hall.
A 丈 (zhàng) is ten 尺 (chǐ), so this is a pit some thirty 尺 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.
"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. 著 marks the burning as ongoing.
"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 dé. 著 here is zhuó, setting somebody to a task — a different reading from the zhe of the burning lamps one line up.
"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.