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

是真是假
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

是真是假 Whether It Is Real or False

xíngzhědào:「chīle便biànzhǐchūréntóuláikànshìzhēnshìjiǎ。」xiǎoguàicóngménpāochūtóuláizhūjièjiànlejiùdào:「liánaxíngzhědào:「chīle便biànzhǐchūréntóuláikànshìzhēnshìjiǎ。」xiǎoguàicóngménpāochūtóuláizhūjièjiànlejiùdào:「liána


逐句解 Line by line

xíngzhědào:「chīle便biànzhǐchūréntóuláikànshìzhēnshìjiǎ。」 xíngzhědào:「chīle便biànzhǐchūréntóuláikànshìzhēnshìjiǎ。」

Pilgrim said, "If you have eaten him then so be it. Only bring out the head, and let me see whether it is real or false."

The reaction is pure Wukong: no grief yet, just verification. 便罷, then let it be, keeps at its full-toned reading as a verb of finishing, unlike the softening particle he used at the gate a few passages back. 是真是假 puts the two possibilities side by side with no conjunction at all, which is the standard way of framing a straight test.

xiǎoguàicóngménpāochūtóulái xiǎoguàicóngménpāochūtóulái

The little fiend pitched the head out through the hole in the gate.

門窟 is the hole in the door — the one Bajie punched with his rake, now serving as the fiends' only means of communication. Note that they still will not open the gate. The hole is doing everything: they look through it, they shout through it, and now they throw evidence through it.

zhūjièjiànlejiùdào:「liána zhūjièjiànlejiùdào:「liána

Zhu Bajie saw it and burst out crying: "How pitiful!

可憐 is pitiful, and here it is an exclamation rather than a description — the sound of somebody's composure going. Bajie is the first to break, which fits the pattern of this chapter: he weeps early, weeps hardest, and does the practical work of burial afterwards.


總評 Commentary

Two reactions, side by side, and they tell you everything about the two characters. Wukong asks for the object so he can test it. Bajie sees the object and starts crying. Neither of them is wrong, and only one of them is useful.

The hole in the door is quietly becoming a character in its own right. Bajie made it in anger, and it has turned into the channel through which the fiends run their entire deception — every lie in this half of the chapter comes through a gap that the heroes themselves opened.