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

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

染博士出身
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

染博士出身 You Were Trained as a Dyer

jièdào:「nièchùyuánláishìrǎnshìchūshēn。」yāojīngdào:「zěnmeshìrǎnshì?」jièdào:「shìrǎnshìzěnmehuì使shǐbàngchuí?」jièdào:「nièchùyuánláishìrǎnshìchūshēn。」yāojīngdào:「zěnmeshìrǎnshì?」jièdào:「shìrǎnshìzěnmehuì使shǐbàngchuí?」


逐句解 Line by line

jièdào:「nièchùyuánláishìrǎnshìchūshēn。」 jièdào:「nièchùyuánláishìrǎnshìchūshēn。」

Bajie said, "You wicked beast, you must have started out as a master dyer."

染博士 is a dyer — 博士 was an honorific for a skilled tradesman as well as a court scholar, so it lands somewhere near calling a man a doctor of dyeing. Bajie has set up a joke and is waiting to be asked.

yāojīngdào:「zěnmeshìrǎnshì?」 yāojīngdào:「zěnmeshìrǎnshì?」

The fiend said, "How am I a master dyer?"

He asks. Of course he asks. The straight line is delivered with complete seriousness by a creature holding an iron pestle.

jièdào:「shìrǎnshìzěnmehuì使shǐbàngchuí?」 jièdào:「shìrǎnshìzěnmehuì使shǐbàngchuí?」

Bajie said, "If you were no dyer, how would you know how to work a pounding stick?"

棒槌 is the wooden club used to beat cloth in a dyeing yard or at a laundry stone. The joke is that the fiend's weapon is a workman's tool, which is rather rich from a man fighting with a rake.


總評 Commentary

Three segments of pure music-hall in the middle of a fight. Bajie sets it up, the fiend feeds him the line, and the punch is that his enemy's terrible pestle is laundry equipment.

It is also a fair fight in miniature. Rake against pestle, farm against dye-yard — two creatures beating each other with implements, and only one of them has noticed how funny that is.