Canonical Classics ← 第八十八回
第八十八回
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Chan Reaches Yuhua and a Dharma Assembly Is Held · The Mind-Ape and the Wood and the Earth Take Disciples

不須乘馬
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

不須乘馬 No Need to Ride

sānzàngcáizhuǎnshēnduìbèiyánqiánshìsānrénxīnshīshàngsānzàngdào:「méiduōchéng。」zhòngsuìzhìchéngbiānjiēdàoguānkànsānzàngcáizhuǎnshēnduìbèiyánqiánshìsānrénxīnshīshàngsānzàngdào:「méiduōchéng。」zhòngsuìzhìchéngbiānjiēdàoguānkàn


逐句解 Line by line

sānzàngcáizhuǎnshēnduìbèiyánqiánshì sānzàngcáizhuǎnshēnduìbèiyánqiánshì

Tripitaka turned back at once and told his disciples the whole of it.

備言 means to state in full, leaving nothing out — a compact way of skipping a speech the reader has just heard. The novel does this constantly and it is one reason it moves as fast as it does: information the reader already has is handed over in two characters.

sānrénxīnshīshàng sānrénxīnshīshàng

The three of them were delighted, and helped their master into the saddle.

A small domestic moment. Three of the most dangerous beings in the novel are helping a middle-aged monk onto a horse, which is roughly the shape of their entire working relationship.

sānzàngdào:「méiduōchéng。」 sānzàngdào:「méiduōchéng。」

Tripitaka said, "It is no great distance. There is no need to ride."

is chéng, to ride or mount — the same character that in Buddhist writing names a vehicle of doctrine, as in the Greater and Lesser Vehicles, where it is read differently. Here it is simply a man getting off a horse again immediately after being put on it.

zhòngsuìzhìchéngbiānjiēdàoguānkàn zhòngsuìzhìchéngbiānjiēdàoguānkàn

So the four of them walked as far as the streets at the city's edge and looked about them.

is guān, to look at, and it recurs three times in this stretch: they look, they look at the sound and appearance of the place, and later they look again. The character also names a Daoist temple when read differently, but nothing of that sort is in view here.


總評 Commentary

Four short sentences that do nothing but move the party from a thicket to a street. The novel is unhurried about arrivals in a way it never is about fights.

The horse business is quietly funny. They lift him up; he says it is not far and gets down. Tripitaka is the only member of the party who cannot travel under his own power for any distance, and he spends a good deal of the book insisting he can.