Canonical Classics ← 第八十四回
第八十四回
nánmièchíyuánjué
wángchéngzhèngtiānrán

Hard to Extinguish, the Sustaining Power Perfects the Great Awakening · The Dharma King Attains the True Body, Natural and Whole

骨頭輕
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition 含詞賦 With rhapsody

骨頭輕 His Bones Are Lighter

hǎoshènghuàjiāngshēnzòngshàodetiàozàikōngzhōngguàizāihǎoshènghuàjiāngshēnzòngshàodetiàozàikōngzhōngguàizāi

shàngmiànshéngchěxiàtóuméigùnchēngshàngmiànshéngchěxiàtóuméigùnchēng
bāntóng便biàntóuqīngbāntóng便biàntóuqīng

逐句解 Line by line

hǎoshènghuàjiāngshēnzòngshàodetiàozàikōngzhōng hǎoshènghuàjiāngshēnzòngshàodetiàozàikōngzhōng

Fine Great Sage! The words were hardly out of his mouth before he gave his body a heave and shot up whistling into the air.

好大聖 is the storyteller's applause line, dropped in before a display of power — it belongs to the teller, not to any character. 唿哨 is a whistle through the fingers, and it is the sound Wukong makes when he takes off.

guàizāi guàizāi

A marvel:

Two characters and a colon, and the verse follows. The novel sets off anything it wants read as a set piece this way.

shàngmiànshéngchěxiàtóuméigùnchēng shàngmiànshéngchěxiàtóuméigùnchēng

Nothing above pulling him up on a rope; nothing below propping him with a pole.

The joke is that the verse describes what sounds like stage machinery and then tells you there is none of it. A listener picturing an acrobat on a rope is being corrected in advance.

bāntóng便biàntóuqīng bāntóng便biàntóuqīng

Born of the same parents as anyone else, and his bones are simply lighter.

一般同父母 is the flat vernacular for made the same way as everybody else. Then the punchline: 骨頭輕, light-boned. It is a phrase still used of someone who cannot sit still or keep their dignity, so the line manages a physical explanation and a character sketch at once.


總評 Commentary

Four lines that explain how Wukong flies by refusing to explain it. No rope, no pole, same parents as anyone — and lighter bones. It is not a reason, it is a shrug, and the shrug is funnier than a reason would be.

Light bones do real work in the sentence. Said of a person the phrase means flighty, unweighted, incapable of gravity in either sense — which is a fair summary of Wukong from Tripitaka's point of view, delivered as though it were anatomy.