盈街塞道 Filling The Streets To See Them Off
鼓樂之聲，旌旗之色，盈街塞道。正是家家戶外焚香火，處處門前獻彩燈。來至許遠方回，他四眾方得離城西去。這一去頓脫群獅，潛心正果。正是：鼓乐之声，旌旗之色，盈街塞道。正是家家户外焚香火，处处门前献彩灯。来至许远方回，他四众方得离城西去。这一去顿脱群狮，潜心正果。正是：
畢竟不知到靈山還有幾多路程，何時行到，且聽下回分解。毕竟不知到灵山还有几多路程，何时行到，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
The sound of drums and music, the colours of banners and flags, filled the streets and blocked the roads.
樂 is yuè here, the reading for music, and not the lè of joy that the same character carries in the Realm of Lasting Joy and again in the closing poem. 塞 takes sè, the formal reading for blocking that this book uses in bound compounds. Two characters, two readings each, in one line of ten.
Truly, before every house incense and lamps were burned, and at every door coloured lanterns were offered.
Two lines of seven, in perfect balance - house against door, incense against lanterns. And the lanterns are the ones the city was hanging on its battlements earlier in the chapter, when it was preparing for a siege. Same objects, opposite occasion.
They came a good long way before turning back, and only then were the four of them able to leave the city and go west.
得 is dé here, heading a predication of its own - being able to, managing to. 四眾 counts the four pilgrims, which is the number this book has travelled with since the third disciple joined.
This departure shook off the pack of lions at a stroke, and set the heart quietly on the true fruit.
頓脫 is to slip free of something all at once. 正果 is the true fruit - the genuine attainment at the end of the religious path, and the thing the whole journey is for.
Truly:
The cue for the closing pair of lines, which every chapter of this book ends with. It is a performer's device: a rhymed tag to finish on before the audience is asked to come back.
Free of care and free of sorrow, they come to the Buddha-realm; with sincere heart and honest purpose, they go up to Thunder Sound.
Both halves double a two-character phrase - no care, no sorrow; true heart, true intent - and the balance is what makes it memorable. 雷音, Thunder Sound, is the monastery on Vulture Peak where the scriptures are kept: the destination of the entire novel, named here for the second time in this chapter.
But there is no telling how many stages of road there still are to Vulture Peak, nor when they will arrive - so listen to the explanation in the next chapter.
The standing formula that ends every chapter of this book. 還 is hái - still, yet - the last of its seventeen appearances here. And 分解 puts 解 back on jiě for its final site: to break something apart and explain it, which is what a storyteller does.
The chapter ends with the city emptying into the street to see three monks and a horse out of the gate, and the novel takes care to reuse its own props. The lanterns hanging at every door are the lanterns the battlements were being fitted with when a siege was expected. The drums are the drums the princes beat on the wall while their teachers fought.
The closing pair of lines is deliberately serene - free of care, free of sorrow, sincere in heart, going up to Thunder Sound. Nothing in the ninety chapters so far suggests any of that is true, and the tag has been used at the end of disasters before. It is a destination held up rather than a state achieved.
And then the question the storyteller always leaves hanging: how much road is left, and when will they get there? Ten chapters remain. This is a performer's line before an interval, and it has been doing that job for four hundred years.