Canonical Classics ← 第七十九回
第七十九回
xúndòngqínyāofénglǎoshòu
dāngcháozhèngzhǔjiùyīngér

Seeking the Cave to Seize the Fiend He Meets the Old Man of Longevity · At Court the True Sovereign Rescues the Infants

遠遠的站定
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

遠遠的站定 Stand Well Back And Wait

xíngzhěfēnfujiè:「qiěyuǎnyuǎndezhàndìngdàijiàokāiménxúnzháoguàigǎnjiāngchūláiquèjiēyìng。」jièwénmìngshùyǒubànyuǎnjìnxiàxíngzhěfēnfujiè:「qiěyuǎnyuǎndezhàndìngdàijiàokāiménxúnzháoguàigǎnjiāngchūláiquèjiēyìng。」jièwénmìngshùyǒubànyuǎnjìnxià


逐句解 Line by line

xíngzhěfēnfujiè:「qiěyuǎnyuǎndezhàndìngdàijiàokāiménxúnzháoguàigǎnjiāngchūláiquèjiēyìng。」 xíngzhěfēnfujiè:「qiěyuǎnyuǎndezhàndìngdàijiàokāiménxúnzháoguàigǎnjiāngchūláiquèjiēyìng。」

Pilgrim gave Bajie his orders: "Stand well back and wait. Let me call the door open, find the creature and drive him out, and you take him as he comes."

尋著 takes zháo, the reading for a search that succeeds — find-and-get, not looking-about. The proof is in the negative: this novel says 尋不著, "cannot manage to find," nine times, and a form like that exists only when the second character is a result rather than a running action. 接應 is a military word — to receive and support an ally driving an enemy toward you — so Wukong is giving Bajie a battle position, not a place to wait. 接應 takes yìng, the answering reading.

jièwénmìngshùyǒubànyuǎnjìnxià jièwénmìngshùyǒubànyuǎnjìnxià

Bajie heard the order and went off to stand about half a from the tree.

Half a Ming is roughly 290 metres. Bajie has been told to stand well back and has interpreted it generously, which the novel reports without comment and the reader may draw their own conclusions from.


總評 Commentary

The plan is sound and Wukong states it in one breath: I go in, I drive him out, you catch him. Every element of it will happen, and none of it in the order he intends.

Bajie's distance is the detail to keep hold of. Two hundred and ninety metres is far enough that he cannot see what is going on, which is precisely why he will spend the fight taking his rake to a tree.