原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
大黑蓮蓬 Like A Black Lotus Pod
大聖卻飛起來看處，那獃子四肢朝上，掘著嘴，半浮半沉，嘴裡呼呼的，著然好笑：倒像八九月經霜落了子兒的一個大黑蓮蓬。大圣却飞起来看处，那呆子四肢朝上，掘着嘴，半浮半沉，嘴里呼呼的，着然好笑：倒像八九月经霜落了子儿的一个大黑莲蓬。
逐句解 Line by line
大聖卻飛起來看處，那獃子四肢朝上，掘著嘴，半浮半沉，嘴裡呼呼的，著然好笑：倒像八九月經霜落了子兒的一個大黑蓮蓬。
大圣却飞起来看处，那呆子四肢朝上，掘着嘴，半浮半沉，嘴里呼呼的，着然好笑：倒像八九月经霜落了子儿的一个大黑莲蓬。
The Great Sage flew up to look, and there was the fool with all four limbs in the air, snout thrust out, half floating and half sinking, snorting through his mouth — truly a funny sight. He was for all the world like a big black lotus pod in the eighth or ninth month, frosted and dropping its seeds.
著 reads zhe, the snout held out. 著 in 著然 reads zhuó — the band meaning really, in fact. 落 keeps luò, to fall.
This is one of the best images in the chapter and it repays unpacking. A lotus seed-head is a fat dark disc pierced with holes, and after the first frosts it sits blackened on the water shedding its seeds. Bajie, bound and bobbing snout-up in a pond, looks exactly like one.
What makes it work is the precision. Not a lotus pod but a big black one, in the eighth or ninth month, after frost, losing its seeds — four qualifications, each narrowing the picture. The narrator is not reaching for a comparison; he is describing a specific thing anyone who had walked past a pond in autumn would have seen.
And the register is worth noticing. Bajie has just been costed out as bacon and shoved under, and the narrator's response is to find him funny. The novel keeps doing this, holding real danger and low comedy in the same sentence, and it is a large part of why it does not read like an allegory even though it is one.