來顯魂哩 The Master Come Back as a Ghost
行者道:「他兩個都在那裡哭你哩。你可叫他一聲。」長老果厲聲高叫道:「八戒,八戒。」那獃子哭得昏頭昏腦的,揩揩鼻涕眼淚道:「沙和尚,師父回家來顯魂哩,在那裡叫我們不是?」行者道:「他两个都在那里哭你哩。你可叫他一声。」长老果厉声高叫道:「八戒,八戒。」那呆子哭得昏头昏脑的,揩揩鼻涕眼泪道:「沙和尚,师父回家来显魂哩,在那里叫我们不是?」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "Those two are over there weeping for you. Give them a call."
Nineteen characters, and Wukong declines to explain. He could say that they think you are dead, that they buried a stranger's head, that Bajie laid out pebbles. He says none of it, and lets the master walk into the scene cold. 那裡 is nà, over there — the pointing reading, not the questioning one.
The elder duly raised his voice and called loudly, "Bajie! Bajie!"
厲聲 is a sharp, carrying voice. The master is shouting across a hillside to a pig who has spent two days at his graveside.
The Idiot, weeping till his head was dazed and his brain befuddled, wiped his snot and tears and said, "Sha Monk — the master has come home to show his ghost, and is that not him calling us over there?"
This is the funniest line in the chapter and it is built on real belief. 顯魂 is for a soul to manifest, and the newly dead were held to return to the house — so Bajie's conclusion is not stupid, it is orthodox. In 哭得, 得 is de, hanging the daze off the weeping, and 昏頭昏腦 doubles a frame to mean thoroughly muddled in the head.
Bajie hears his master's voice and concludes, reasonably, that he is being haunted. The soul of the newly dead was expected to come back to the house, and he has spent two days making sure the funeral was done properly. Of course it worked.
The joke has a real tenderness under it. The ghost does not frighten Bajie at all. Believing his dead master is calling him, he turns to Sha Monk and points it out, as though the two of them had a guest.