原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
廣施仁義
A Monkey Given To Mercy
老魔道：「兄弟，你說那裡話？孫行者是個廣施仁義的猴頭：他先在我肚裡，若肯害我性命，一千個也被他弄殺了；卻才揪住你鼻子，若是扯了去不放回，只捏破你的鼻子頭兒，卻也惶恐。老魔道：「兄弟，你说那里话？孙行者是个广施仁义的猴头：他先在我肚里，若肯害我性命，一千个也被他弄杀了；却才揪住你鼻子，若是扯了去不放回，只捏破你的鼻子头儿，却也惶恐。
逐句解 Line by line
老魔道：「兄弟，你說那裡話？
老魔道：「兄弟，你说那里话？
The old fiend said: "Brother, what a thing to say.
那 reads nǎ — 說那裡話 is a fixed expression of protest, not a question about a place.
孫行者是個廣施仁義的猴頭：他先在我肚裡，若肯害我性命，一千個也被他弄殺了；
孙行者是个广施仁义的猴头：他先在我肚里，若肯害我性命，一千个也被他弄杀了；
Sun Wukong is a monkey who deals out mercy and right on a large scale. When he was in my belly, had he been willing to take my life, he could have destroyed a thousand of me.
廣施仁義 — to hand out humanity and right freely, the vocabulary of a Confucian gentleman applied to a monkey.
卻才揪住你鼻子，若是扯了去不放回，只捏破你的鼻子頭兒，卻也惶恐。
却才揪住你鼻子，若是扯了去不放回，只捏破你的鼻子头儿，却也惶恐。
And just now, when he had your nose in his hand, if he had dragged you off and not let you go, or merely pinched the end of your nose through, that too would have been a fearful thing."
兒 keeps ér. 惶恐 — dread mixed with awe.
總評 Commentary
The old fiend has become Wukong's advocate, and he argues the case better than Wukong ever does. Twice now he has had his life in the monkey's hand and twice been let go, and he draws the obvious conclusion: this creature is not trying to kill us.
The vocabulary he reaches for is Confucian — humanity and right, the two great virtues of the gentleman — and hearing it in a demon's mouth about a monkey is part of the joke. But the assessment is accurate. Wukong could have finished him inside the belly and did not, for reasons the narrator told us at the time: he wanted the journey to move and he liked being deferred to.
The last clause is the one that persuades the room. Not death but the nose: he could simply have pinched it through and left you living. The demons are not weighing mercy against slaughter. They are weighing it against a lifetime of disfigurement, which is the more frightening prospect and the one that ends the argument.