Canonical Classics ← 第八十六回
第八十六回
zhùwēizhēngguài
jīngōngshīmièyāoxié

The Wood Mother Lends His Strength to Fight the Monster · The Metal Lord Works His Art to Destroy the Fiend

莫費氣力
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

莫費氣力 Do Not Waste Your Strength

zhèxíngzhěyǐnjiègǎnzhìménshǒuyāonèirényìngjiè使shǐzhùshíxiǎngdedòngxíngzhězhīzhīdào:「jièfèiménle。」jièdào:「leménshīchóuzěnbào?」xíngzhědào:「qiěhuíshàngqiánkànkànshāsēng。」zhèxíngzhěyǐnjiègǎnzhìménshǒuyāonèirényìngjiè使shǐzhùshíxiǎngdedòngxíngzhězhīzhīdào:「jièfèiménle。」jièdào:「leménshīchóuzěnbào?」xíngzhědào:「qiěhuíshàngqiánkànkànshāsēng。」


逐句解 Line by line

zhèxíngzhěyǐnjiègǎnzhìménshǒuyāonèirényìng zhèxíngzhěyǐnjiègǎnzhìménshǒuyāonèirényìng

Pilgrim brought Bajie up to the gate and hollered at it, and there was no answer from within.

吆喝, to holler, takes as , the shouting reading. 答應, to answer, takes as yìng. Seventeen characters, and the whole war has stopped because nobody will come to the door.

jiè使shǐzhùshíxiǎngdedòng jiè使shǐzhùshíxiǎngdedòng

Bajie put his rake to it, and there was no hope of shifting it.

莫想得動 is a fine tight phrase — do not even imagine getting it to move. The parse cuts after the first two characters, so is de, the light hinge marking whether a thing can be managed at all; a sealed chapter earlier in the novel carries the identical phrase and reads it the same way. The rake that punched a hole through this door an hour ago now does nothing.

xíngzhězhīzhīdào:「jièfèiménle。」 xíngzhězhīzhīdào:「jièfèiménle。」

Pilgrim understood, and said, "Bajie, do not waste your strength. He has blocked the gate already."

知之, understood it, is a compact literary turn dropped into ordinary speech — Wukong works out what has happened without needing to be told. He is the first to accept that force has stopped being useful.

jièdào:「leménshīchóuzěnbào?」 jièdào:「leménshīchóuzěnbào?」

Bajie said, "With the gate blocked, how is the master to be avenged?"

師仇怎報, how is the master's wrong to be repaid, is the question the whole second half of the chapter answers — and it answers it in a way neither of them expects, because the wrong they are trying to avenge has not actually happened.

xíngzhědào:「qiěhuíshàngqiánkànkànshāsēng。」 xíngzhědào:「qiěhuíshàngqiánkànkànshāsēng。」

Pilgrim said, "Let us go back up to the grave first and look in on Sha Monk."

Thirteen characters, and the fight is over for now. 看看 doubled makes it casual, look in on him — after a battle, a rout and a blocked door, the next move is to go and check on the brother left sitting by a mound of earth.


總評 Commentary

The chapter has spent thirteen passages building to a battle and then makes the battle irrelevant with a pile of rocks. Wukong can fight anything that will fight him, and the fiend has simply declined.

Bajie's question about avenging the master is the hinge of the whole chapter. He asks how the wrong is to be repaid, and the honest answer — which nobody in the scene can give — is that there is no wrong yet. Tripitaka is tied to a tree behind the cave, and the next stretch of the story begins when Wukong stops trying to break in through the front.