Canonical Classics ← 第七十回
第七十回
yāobǎofàngyānshāhuǒ
kōngdàojīnlíng

The Fiend's Treasure Looses Smoke, Sand and Fire · Wukong by Stratagem Steals the Purple-Gold Bells

妖嬈之態
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

妖嬈之態 She Puts On Her Charms

zhòngshìwényánpáiguǒcàibǎishàngxiēzhāng𤜱tuàn鹿zhīròujiāngzijiǔzhēnláifèngshàngniángniangzuòchūyāoráozhītàihǒngzhejīnglíngzhòngshìwényánpáiguǒcàibǎishàngxiēzhāng𤜱tuàn鹿zhīròujiāngzijiǔzhēnláifèngshàngniángniangzuòchūyāoráozhītàihǒngzhejīnglíng


逐句解 Line by line

zhòngshìwényánpáiguǒcàibǎishàngxiēzhāng𤜱tuàn鹿zhīròujiāngzijiǔzhēnláifèngshàng zhòngshìwényánpáiguǒcàibǎishàngxiēzhāng𤜱tuàn鹿zhīròujiāngzijiǔzhēnláifèngshàng

The waiting-women heard her and laid out fruit and greens at once, set on flesh of roe and of wild pig, of deer and of hare, and poured out the coconut wine to offer him.

is again, to lay out. The second beast in the list is written with a character so rare that most fonts will show a box instead of it, and it reads tuàn. That reading, and the rendering as a wild pig, both rest on the character's own shape rather than on any dictionary entry: the 1716 dictionary does not carry it on either of the dog-radical pages available, so the sound is taken from the element inside it, which is read tuàn, and the animal from the oldest dictionary's gloss of that same element as a pig. Both are inferences, and are flagged here as inferences.

niángniangzuòchūyāoráozhītàihǒngzhejīnglíng niángniangzuòchūyāoráozhītàihǒngzhejīnglíng

The queen put on her enchanting airs and coaxed the creature along.

妖嬈 is the same two characters the earlier poem used of her, where they described what she was; here they describe what she is doing. 哄著 takes the zhe of an action held, and 精靈, goblin, is a colder word for him than any she has used to his face.


總評 Commentary

Thirteen characters close the passage and change the register completely. Through the whole scene she has been a woman making an argument; the last sentence calls what she has been doing putting on airs, and calls him a goblin. The narrator has been letting her performance stand as speech, and now names it.

It is the second time the chapter has used that word of her. The earlier poem used it to praise a face she could not be bothered to make up; now she has made it up on purpose. The word has not changed and everything about its application has.