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

又養了精神
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

又養了精神 The Strength Kept Up Besides

guǎdào:「hǎorénhǎorényòushīleyòuyǎnglejīngshén。」jiào:「táijìnjiàoziláiyàoqǐng。」zhòngchīlejiǔfànshōulejiāhuǒdōusànguǎdào:「hǎorénhǎorényòushīleyòuyǎnglejīngshén。」jiào:「táijìn轿jiàoziláiyàoqǐng。」zhòngchīlejiǔfànshōulejiāhuǒdōusàn


逐句解 Line by line

guǎdào:「hǎorénhǎorényòushīleyòuyǎnglejīngshén。」 guǎdào:「hǎorénhǎorényòushīleyòuyǎnglejīngshén。」

The widow said: "Good men, good men — no harm done to good feeling, and the strength kept up besides."

和氣 is harmony, good feeling between people, and it is the thing a landlady most wants preserved. 養了精神 is to have nursed one's vigour — and it is a delicate joke, because the strength she means them to save is exactly the strength the girls would have cost them.

jiào:「táijìnjiàoziláiyàoqǐng。」 jiào:「táijìn轿jiàoziláiyàoqǐng。」

She called: "Bring the chair back in. Don't go fetching them."

The order countermands her own from a few lines before. The chair goes out and comes straight back, which is the only thing that actually happens in the whole exchange.

zhòngchīlejiǔfànshōulejiāhuǒdōusàn zhòngchīlejiǔfànshōulejiāhuǒdōusàn

The four of them ate and drank, the things were cleared away, and everyone went off.

散訖 is dispersed and done with, a slightly formal way of closing a scene. Thirteen characters end the longest social episode in the chapter.


總評 Commentary

She approves of them for declining the girls, which is the last piece of misreading in a whole evening of it. She thinks she has honest, temperate merchants; she has four monks in stolen clothes.

Her joke about saving their strength is the closest the chapter comes to bawdy, and it lands on Tripitaka, who has spent the evening silent at a table where prostitutes were discussed twice as an item of expenditure.