第八十五回 · 把腰一躬 He Bent His Waist and Rose — Journey to the West

原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

把腰一躬 He Bent His Waist and Rose

好hǎo大dà聖shèng，把bǎ腰yāo一yì躬gōng，就jiù到dào半bàn空kōng。用yòng手shǒu搭dā在zài眉méi上shàng，圓yuán睜zhēng火huǒ眼yǎn，向xiàng下xià觀guān之zhī，果guǒ見jiàn那nà懸xuán巖yán邊biān坐zuò著zhe一yí個gè妖yāo精jīng。好hǎo大dà圣shèng，把bǎ腰yāo一yì躬gōng，就jiù到dào半bàn空kōng。用yòng手shǒu搭dā在zài眉méi上shàng，圆yuán睁zhēng火huǒ眼yǎn，向xiàng下xià观guān之zhī，果guǒ见jiàn那nà悬xuán岩yán边biān坐zuò着zhe一yí个gè妖yāo精jīng。

逐句解 Line by line

好hǎo大dà聖shèng，把bǎ腰yāo一yì躬gōng，就jiù到dào半bàn空kōng。好hǎo大dà圣shèng，把bǎ腰yāo一yì躬gōng，就jiù到dào半bàn空kōng。

Fine Great Sage. He gave his waist a bend and was up in mid-air.

好大聖 is the storyteller's cue of admiration, dropped in before a display of power — the spoken equivalent of leaning forward. The flight takes four characters, because Pilgrim getting into the sky is the one thing this book never bothers to describe.

用yòng手shǒu搭dā在zài眉méi上shàng，圓yuán睜zhēng火huǒ眼yǎn，向xiàng下xià觀guān之zhī，果guǒ見jiàn那nà懸xuán巖yán邊biān坐zuò著zhe一yí個gè妖yāo精jīng。用yòng手shǒu搭dā在zài眉méi上shàng，圆yuán睁zhēng火huǒ眼yǎn，向xiàng下xià观guān之zhī，果guǒ见jiàn那nà悬xuán岩yán边biān坐zuò着zhe一yí个gè妖yāo精jīng。

Shading his eyes with a hand, he opened his fiery eyes wide, looked down, and sure enough there on the edge of a hanging crag sat a fiend.

火眼 are the fiery eyes he got from being smelted in Laozi's furnace, and their one gift is that they see through disguises. 果 — sure enough — is the narrator conceding the point his master made and his master was argued out of. 著 is zhe: sitting, and going on sitting.

總評 Commentary

Two segments to overturn three passages of argument. Pilgrim explained at length that wind comes off the ground and there was nothing to worry about, and the first thing he does after winning that argument is fly up and find a demon.

The hand shading the eyes is worth noticing. He is a creature who can see through stone and he still puts a hand up against the light, which is how the novel keeps him a monkey rather than an instrument.