Canonical Classics ← 第八十回
第八十回
chàyángqiúpèiǒu
xīnyuánzhǔshíyāoxié

The Fair Girl, Nursing the Yang, Seeks a Mate · The Mind-Ape, Guarding His Master, Knows a Fiend

不分好歹
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

不分好歹 Cut Her Down and Save Her

shāsēngzhēnhuízhuǎnjiùchùqiānletiāoledànzhìgēnqiánjiào:「shīzěnmeshuō?」tángsēngyòngshǒuzhǐdìngshùshàngjiào:「jièjiěxiàláijiùmìng。」dāizifēnhǎodǎijiùdòngshǒushāsēngzhēnhuízhuǎnjiùchùqiānletiāoledànzhìgēnqiánjiào:「shīzěnmeshuō?」tángsēngyòngshǒuzhǐdìngshùshàngjiào:「jièjiěxiàláijiùmìng。」dāizifēnhǎodǎijiùdòngshǒu


逐句解 Line by line

shāsēngzhēnhuízhuǎnjiùchùqiānletiāoledànzhìgēnqiánjiào:「shīzěnmeshuō?」 shāsēngzhēnhuízhuǎnjiùchùqiānletiāoledànzhìgēnqiánjiào:「shīzěnmeshuō?」

Sha Monk did indeed go back to where they had been, led out the horse, shouldered the load, and came up saying, "Master, what is it?"

The is dàn, the load itself — the same baggage Bajie was handed at the foot of the mountain, back on Sha Monk's shoulder again without a word about it.

tángsēngyòngshǒuzhǐdìngshùshàngjiào:「jièjiěxiàláijiùmìng。」 tángsēngyòngshǒuzhǐdìngshùshàngjiào:「jièjiěxiàláijiùmìng。」

The Tang Monk pointed up at the tree and said, "Bajie, cut that Lady Bodhisattva down and save her life."

He is still calling her a bodhisattva, and he now says it as an instruction to somebody else. The courtesy has become an official description.

dāizifēnhǎodǎijiùdòngshǒu dāizifēnhǎodǎijiùdòngshǒu

The Idiot, without stopping to sort good from bad, went straight to work.

不分好歹 — not telling good from bad — is still current Chinese for acting without judging the situation, and it is aimed squarely at Bajie here. It is also, in a chapter about a monk who cannot tell a demon from a girl, a phrase with more than one target.


總評 Commentary

The order is given and obeyed in a single breath. Tripitaka has heard one speech, asked no follow-up question, and is now directing a rescue.

The phrase about not sorting good from bad is thrown at Bajie, who is being blamed for doing as he is told. That is a little unfair, and the unfairness is the point: the person who has genuinely failed to sort good from bad is the one giving the instruction.

The chapter has been building to this since the pine-wood rhapsody warned about old foxes dressed as pretty women. Bajie has his hands on the ropes. What stops him is going to arrive from the sky, at speed, and be extremely unwelcome.