是人是鬼 Are You A Man Or A Ghost
娘娘一聞此言，戰兢兢，髮似神揪；虛怯怯，心如杵築。淚汪汪的道：「你如今是人是鬼？」行者道：「我也不是人，我也不是鬼，如今變作個蒼蠅兒在此。你休怕，快去請那妖王也。」娘娘一闻此言，战兢兢，发似神揪；虚怯怯，心如杵筑。泪汪汪的道：「你如今是人是鬼？」行者道：「我也不是人，我也不是鬼，如今变作个苍蝇儿在此。你休怕，快去请那妖王也。」
逐句解 Line by line
The moment the Queen heard this she shook and trembled, her hair as though some spirit had it by the roots; she went weak and faint, her heart like a pestle pounding.
A voice out of nowhere, and this is the reaction. The source cuts the sentence at a semicolon, but the two halves are built to the same pattern — a doubled three-character word, then a four-character comparison — so they are one sentence and stay one segment. Only the first half names her; the second simply carries on. 似 is sì, like or as.
Streaming with tears, she said, "Are you a man now, or a ghost?"
Her first words are a question about what kind of thing is talking to her. 汪汪 is a doubled word for eyes brimming over — the same shape as 淚滴滴 in the next passage. 的 is the neutral de, hooking the description onto the verb.
Pilgrim said, "I am not a man either, and I am not a ghost either. I have turned myself into a fly, and here I am.
He answers by rejecting both options and then supplying a third, which is not obviously more comforting. 兒 is ér, a full syllable in this text rather than the swallowed suffix of modern speech.
"Do not be frightened. Go quickly and invite the fiend king in."
Ten characters, and both halves are orders. 休 is the vernacular prohibitive, the everyday do-not of the period. 那 is nà, pointing at a figure they both know.
Terror first, questions second. The passage opens with her whole body reacting — shaking, hair, weakness, heartbeat — before she gets a word out, and the wording of it is deliberately physical: 髮似神揪 has a spirit yanking her hair by the roots, 心如杵築 has her heart being pounded like grain under a pestle. Then, having been reduced to that, she asks a perfectly practical question.
是人是鬼 is not a figure of speech. In this world both answers are live options, and she is asking which sort of thing has got into her bedroom. Pilgrim's reply denies both and offers a third, and if you were hoping the third would be reassuring, it is a fly.
The last ten characters are the whole plot in miniature. He tells her not to be frightened and, in the same breath, orders her to go and fetch the monster who has been holding her for three years. Nothing about her comfort is being considered here. She is the way in.