Canonical Classics ← 第八十五回
第八十五回
xīnyuán
zhǔtūnchán

The Mind-Ape Envies the Wood Mother · The Fiend Lord Plots to Swallow the Chan

獅駝洞
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

獅駝洞 I Came From Lion Camel Cave

xiǎoyāodào:「dāngchūzàishītuólǐngshītuódòngwángzhùwángzhīhǎodǎiyàochītángsēngbèisūnxíngzhě使shǐtiáojīnbàngjìnménláiliánjiùdefànlepáimíngdōuduànyāojuéliù』。xiǎoyāodào:「dāngchūzàishītuólǐngshītuódòngwángzhùwángzhīhǎodǎiyàochītángsēngbèisūnxíngzhě使shǐtiáojīnbàngjìnménláiliánjiùdefànlepáimíngdōuduànyāojuéliù』。


逐句解 Line by line

xiǎoyāodào:「dāngchūzàishītuólǐngshītuódòngwángzhùwángzhīhǎodǎiyàochītángsēngbèisūnxíngzhě使shǐtiáojīnbàngjìnménláiliánjiùdefànlepáimíngdōuduànyāojuéliù』。 xiǎoyāodào:「dāngchūzàishītuólǐngshītuódòngwángzhùwángzhīhǎodǎiyàochītángsēngbèisūnxíngzhě使shǐtiáojīnbàngjìnménláiliánjiùdefànlepáimíngdōuduànyāojuéliù』。

The imp said, "I lived once at Lion Camel Cave on Lion Camel Ridge with the great king there. That king could not tell good from bad and wanted to eat the Tang Monk, and Sun Wukong took his gold-hooped rod and came beating in at the door — and the poor souls got beaten into a domino name, every one of them: broken ones and cut sixes.

is yāo, the one-pip on a domino — the gaming reading, and the line names it as a 骨牌名, a domino term, which is the clue. 斷么絕六 is a combination in the game, borrowed as a grim joke: the ones broken off and the sixes cut away, meaning wiped out entire. is de, hanging the result on the verb.


總評 Commentary

The imp is a refugee, and where he is a refugee from is the point. Lion Camel Ridge is one of the worst places in the book, and he is the survivor of what happened there.

The joke he makes about it is a gaming term. His entire household was killed and he describes it with a domino hand, which is either a hard man's humour or the only way he can say it at all.