快早供來 Make Your Deposition Quickly
行者將變化入裡解放師父，正走，被妖驚覺，顧不得師父，打出來的事，講說一遍不題。那妖王把唐僧捉住，依然使鐵索鎖了。執著刀，掄著斧，燈火齊明，問道：「你這廝怎樣開鎖？那猴子如何得進？快早供來，饒你之命；不然，就一刀兩段。」慌得那唐僧戰戰兢兢的跪道：「大王爺爺，我徒弟孫悟空，他會七十二般變化。才變個火焰蟲兒，飛進來救我。行者将变化入里解放师父，正走，被妖惊觉，顾不得师父，打出来的事，讲说一遍不题。那妖王把唐僧捉住，依然使铁索锁了。执着刀，抡着斧，灯火齐明，问道：「你这厮怎样开锁？那猴子如何得进？快早供来，饶你之命；不然，就一刀两段。」慌得那唐僧战战兢兢的跪道：「大王爷爷，我徒弟孙悟空，他会七十二般变化。才变个火焰虫儿，飞进来救我。
逐句解 Line by line
How Pilgrim had changed shape, got inside, loosed his master and been starting away when the fiends woke and, unable to see to his master, fought his way out — all this he related to them at length, which we need not set down.
The storyteller's shortcut: it happened, he told them, we are not doing it twice. 不題 — we leave it untold — is the standard formula for skipping a repetition, and the novel uses it whenever a character has to recount something the reader has just watched. 顧不得 is the same phrase from the last passage, now in Pilgrim's own summary: he could not see to his master. Here the 得 is the light de that sits inside a "cannot manage to" — the reading changes with the shape of the phrase, not with the word's meaning.
The demon king had seized the Tang Monk and chained him with the iron chain as before.
依然 — just as before. Four passages of effort and the master is back on the same pillar with the same chain. The novel wastes no sympathy on the point; it simply says "as before" and moves on, which is worse.
Gripping their swords and swinging their axes, with lamps and torches all ablaze, they asked, "You wretch — how did you get that lock open?
The lighting is doing work here. This cave has been dark for four passages, lit by one small firefly; now 燈火齊明, every lamp and torch lit at once. The demons are bringing light to an interrogation, having stolen a town's worth of lamp-oil to do it. Both uses of 著 are the sustained zhe: weapons held up and held swinging while they talk.
And how did that monkey get in?
Here 那 is nà, the pointing word — that monkey, the one we all just saw. It is worth setting beside the nǎ of the last passage, which asked where. Same character, two jobs, and only the sentence tells you which.
Make your deposition quickly and we shall spare your life;
This is the chapter's second title made audible. 供 is read gòng here, not gōng, and the difference is the whole of the word: gōng is to supply or provide, gòng is to lay something before an authority — an offering on an altar, or a statement before a court. A 供 in this sense is testimony. The previous chapter turned on exactly this word twice over: the 燈供 — the lamp-offering the demons collected from the town — and the deposition they made the Tang Monk write. They are asking for it again, and this time out loud.
if not, you are cut in two at a stroke."
一刀兩段 — one blade, two pieces. Still current, and still means exactly what it says.
In terror the Tang Monk knelt down trembling and said, "Great King, Your Honour! My disciple Sun Wukong has seventy-two transformations.
大王爺爺 is the giveaway. He has stacked a title on a title — "Great King" and then "grandfather", which is what a frightened person in old China called anyone with power over them. It is the voice of a man grovelling, and he is grovelling by giving away his disciple's abilities. The 得 that follows the word for panic is the light de again, linking the fright to what it did to him.
Just now he changed into a firefly and flew in to rescue me.
And out it comes. Tripitaka tells them precisely how the break-in was done, in twelve characters, without being pressed.
The interrogation scene, and the word the chapter is named for. 四星挾捉犀牛怪 promises star-gods and rhinoceros demons; the previous chapter's title promised a written deposition — the novel's own word for one is 供狀, which turns up in a magistrate's court as early as chapter 9 — and here the demons demand it again by mouth. This novel likes to put its legal vocabulary in the mouths of monsters. A demon king interrogating a prisoner uses the language of a magistrate's court because that is the only model of authority anybody in the book has.
What Tripitaka does under questioning is the uncomfortable part. He is not tortured, not even threatened for long — one line about being cut in two — and he immediately gives up his disciple's name, his powers and his method. The novel does not editorialise. It gives him 大王爺爺, a title piled on a title in the voice of a man calling his captor grandfather, and lets the reader hear it.
And yet the giving-away is also, in its way, praise. Everything he tells them is about how formidable Wukong is: seventy-two transformations, a firefly at the window, a lock opened by hand. He is frightened into boasting about somebody else. Two passages ago he was praying for these disciples in the dark; now he is describing them to the enemy, and the words are almost the same words.