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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

三折之肱
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拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

三折之肱 The Thrice Broken Arm

shīshìtángwángtángsānzàngshìsūnkōngyīnguòguódǎohuànguānwénjiànjūnchénchūbǎngzhāoshìshīsānzhézhīgōngxiāngzhībìngzhìhǎolepáiyànxièshīshìtángwángtángsānzàngshìsūnkōngyīnguòguódǎohuànguānwénjiànjūnchénchūbǎngzhāoshìshīsānzhézhīgōngxiāngzhībìngzhìhǎolepáiyànxiè


逐句解 Line by line

shīshìtángwángtángsānzàng shīshìtángwángtángsānzàng

"My master is the Tang emperor's sworn younger brother, Tang Sanzang.

is zàng in the monk's name. 御弟 is the title an emperor confers on a sworn younger brother — so the master is introduced by his relation to a throne, and in the next sentence the disciple is introduced by his relation to the master.

shìsūnkōng shìsūnkōng

"I am his eldest disciple, Sun Wukong.

Nine characters, and the name arrives third in the sequence — errand, then master, then himself. He gave it to the demon's vanguard in the first line of the chapter and has not used it since.

yīnguòguódǎohuànguānwénjiànjūnchénchūbǎngzhāoshìshīsānzhézhīgōngxiāngzhībìngzhìhǎolepáiyànxiè yīnguòguódǎohuànguānwénjiànjūnchénchūbǎngzhāoshìshīsānzhézhīgōngxiāngzhībìngzhìhǎolepáiyànxiè

"Passing through your kingdom to have our travel papers stamped, I saw that your sovereign and his ministers had put out a notice calling for a physician. I brought out the skill of the thrice-broken arm and cured him of his sickness of longing, and he laid on a banquet to thank me.

is dǎo inside 倒換, to exchange one thing for another — getting travel papers stamped. 三折之肱 comes from the proverb that a man who has broken his own arm three times knows how to set one, so the claim is to hard experience rather than to gift. And 相思之病 names the king's illness for the first and only time in the chapter: the sickness of longing.


總評 Commentary

Thirty-seven characters of biography, and the chapter has been withholding all of it. We have known since the second block that the king was ill and that Wukong arrived as a physician; we have not until now been told what the illness was. It was longing — and the man who cured it is explaining that to the woman he was longing for.

The proverb he reaches for is a modest one. Not that he is gifted but that he has broken his own arm three times, so the skill is presented as the residue of accidents. It is the only claim in the whole speech that is not about power.