Canonical Classics ← 第七十回
第七十回
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The Fiend's Treasure Looses Smoke, Sand and Fire · Wukong by Stratagem Steals the Purple-Gold Bells

再不離身
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拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

再不離身 Never Off His Body

quèzhīdelíngérfàngzàichù?」niángniangdào:「kěnfàngxiàzhǐshìdàizàiyāojiānxíngzhùzuòzàishēn。」quèzhīdelíngérfàngzàichù?」niángniangdào:「kěnfàngxiàzhǐshìdàizàiyāojiānxíngzhùzuòzàishēn。」


逐句解 Line by line

quèzhīdelíngérfàngzàichù?」 quèzhīdelíngérfàngzàichù?」

"But I do not know where he keeps those bells of his."

The question the entire visit was for, and it arrives eleven characters long at the end of a remark about sneezing. 鈴兒 takes the suffix at ér.

niángniangdào:「kěnfàngxià niángniangdào:「kěnfàngxià

The queen said: "How would he ever put them down?

is again, the second rhetorical use in this short scene. She answers a question about place with a question about likelihood — which is a way of saying the answer is worse than he expects.

zhǐshìdàizàiyāojiānxíngzhùzuòzàishēn。」 zhǐshìdàizàiyāojiānxíngzhùzuòzàishēn。」

"He wears them at his waist, and walking, standing, sitting or lying he never has them off his body."

行住坐臥 — walking, standing, sitting, lying — is a Buddhist formula for the four postures of the body, used to mean at every moment of the day. It is monastic vocabulary, and it turns up here in a demon's bedchamber. is xíng.


總評 Commentary

Two questions and two answers, and the second answer shuts the door the first one opened. Where does he keep them? He does not keep them — he wears them. Walking, standing, sitting, lying: the formula covers the whole of a life and leaves no interval to steal in.

This is where the plan has to change. Wukong came for a location and has been told there is no location, only a body with the things strapped to it. Everything he proposes next follows from that one sentence.