Canonical Classics ← 第八十六回
第八十六回
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The Wood Mother Lends His Strength to Fight the Monster · The Metal Lord Works His Art to Destroy the Fiend

寬洪海量
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

寬洪海量 Broad as the Sea Itself

lǎoguàibàoyuàndào:「dōushìdìngdeshénmefēnbànfēnbàn』,quèdehuòshìlínménzěnshēngjiéguǒ?」xiānfēngdào:「wángfàngxīnqiěxiūmányuànsūnxíngzhěshìkuānhónghǎiliàngdehóutóusuīshéntōngguǎngquèhǎofèngchénglǎoguàibàoyuàndào:「dōushìdìngdeshénmefēnbànfēnbàn』,quèdehuòshìlínménzěnshēngjiéguǒ?」xiānfēngdào:「wángfàngxīnqiěxiūmányuànsūnxíngzhěshìkuānhónghǎiliàngdehóutóusuīshéntōng广guǎngquèhǎofèngchéng


逐句解 Line by line

lǎoguàibàoyuàndào:「dōushìdìngdeshénmefēnbànfēnbàn』,quèdehuòshìlínménzěnshēngjiéguǒ?」 lǎoguàibàoyuàndào:「dōushìdìngdeshénmefēnbànfēnbàn』,quèdehuòshìlínménzěnshēngjiéguǒ?」

The old fiend rounded on him in complaint: "It is all this Parting the Petals, Parting the Petals of yours, and now the trouble is at our own gate. How is this to end?"

The king blames his strategist, which is what kings in this novel do the moment a plan goes wrong. In 惹得, to provoke something into happening, is de, hanging the consequence off the verb. Notice he cannot even be bothered to say the stratagem's full name — he just repeats the first half of it twice, with audible contempt.

xiānfēngdào:「wángfàngxīnqiěxiūmányuàn xiānfēngdào:「wángfàngxīnqiěxiūmányuàn

The vanguard said, "Set your mind at rest, Great King, and spare me the reproaches.

埋怨 is to grumble at somebody, and the first character is mán — a reading that has nothing to do with the far commoner burial sense the same character carries five other times in this chapter, all of them shortly and grimly relevant.

sūnxíngzhěshìkuānhónghǎiliàngdehóutóusuīshéntōngguǎngquèhǎofèngchéng sūnxíngzhěshìkuānhónghǎiliàngdehóutóusuīshéntōng广guǎngquèhǎofèngchéng

As I recall, Sun the Pilgrim is a monkey head of broad and oceanic capacity. Great as his powers are, he is fond of being flattered.

This is the hinge of the entire first half of the chapter. 寬洪海量 praises somebody as broad-minded and ocean-sized in tolerance, and the vanguard means it as a weakness, not a compliment — a man who thinks well of himself can be handled. 奉承 is to flatter, literally to receive and hold up.


總評 Commentary

The vanguard has correctly identified Wukong's one exploitable flaw, and it is not a fighting weakness. It is vanity. Everything that happens for the next several pages follows from a monster working out that the strongest creature on the mountain can be slowed down by being called sir.

The plan is also a good piece of character reading. Wukong genuinely does stop when he is addressed respectfully — we will watch him do it within two passages, and he will hold Bajie back to listen.