今宵出醜 Shamed On This Of All Nights
娘娘見了,含忖道:「大王,想是襯衣髒了,久不曾漿洗,故生此物耳。」妖王慚愧道:「我從來不生此物,可可的今宵出醜。」娘娘见了,含忖道:「大王,想是衬衣脏了,久不曾浆洗,故生此物耳。」妖王惭愧道:「我从来不生此物,可可的今宵出丑。」
逐句解 Line by line
Seeing it, the Queen said, half musing, "Great King, your under-robe must be dirty.
She helps him to an explanation, and the explanation is insulting. 含忖 is to speak with the thought still half held in — she is pretending to work it out as she says it.
"It has not been starched and washed in a long time, and that is why these things have bred."
漿洗 is to wash and starch, a laundry word. 耳 is the classical that-is-all, which puts a neat little full stop on the diagnosis.
The fiend king said in shame, "I have never bred such things. It would be tonight, of all nights, that I am disgraced."
可可的 is the vernacular for just so happens to be — of all the nights it could have been. 不 keeps bù before the level tone of 生.
The queen's line is a small masterpiece of cruelty disguised as help. She does not accuse him of anything; she suggests his underwear is filthy and has not been laundered in a long time. It is the most humiliating possible reading of the situation and she offers it kindly, as though sparing him something worse.
慚愧 is the word that matters. The fiend is not angry, or suspicious, or frightened — he is embarrassed, in front of a woman he wants to impress, on the night he thinks is finally his. 可可的今宵 has the exact tone of a man saying it would happen tonight.
出醜 appears twice in ten characters, once from him and once thrown back by her in the next breath. He supplies the word for his own disgrace and she picks it up and uses it to talk him out of his clothes.