Canonical Classics ← 第八十一回
第八十一回
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At the Sea-Calming Monastery the Mind-Ape Knows the Fiend · In the Black Pine Wood the Three Seek Their Master

幾分病兒
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

幾分病兒 We Will Leave Tomorrow

sānzàngdào:「sānleduōchéng。」xíngzhědào:「shīsuàndechéngmíngba。」sānzàngdào:「zhèngshìjiùdàifēnbìngérméinài。」sānzàngdào:「sānleduōchéng。」xíngzhědào:「shīsuàndechéngmíngba。」sānzàngdào:「zhèngshìjiùdàifēnbìngérméinài。」


逐句解 Line by line

sānzàngdào:「sānleduōchéng。」 sānzàngdào:「sānleduōchéng。」

Tripitaka said, "Three days have lost us a great deal of road."

Still the schedule. It is the fixed point of this man's anxiety and the novel never lets him off it.

xíngzhědào:「shīsuàndechéngmíngba。」 xíngzhědào:「shīsuàndechéngmíngba。」

Pilgrim said, "Master, it hardly counts as road at all. We will go tomorrow."

is the unstressed de in a cannot-reckon-it construction. is the unstressed ba, the softener that makes an instruction a suggestion — against the full verb that the same character takes for the drums finishing.

sānzàngdào:「zhèngshìjiùdàifēnbìngérméinài。」 sānzàngdào:「zhèngshìjiùdàifēnbìngérméinài。」

Tripitaka said, "Just so. Even carrying a touch of the illness, there is no help for it."

is ér. 沒奈何, there is nothing to be done about it, is the standard formula of resignation.


總評 Commentary

Pilgrim reassures his master by dismissing three days of travel as barely worth counting, which is generous and also true for someone who can cross the continent in a somersault.

The exchange is doing quiet work. It settles that they leave tomorrow, which sets the clock on everything that follows: whatever Pilgrim is going to do about the fiend, he has one night to do it in.

And Tripitaka agreeing to travel while still ill is the first decision he has made all chapter. He has spent it being carried, fed and argued with.