不曾出去 I Have Never Left the City
這段因果，是太陰君親口才與我說的。今日既去其假者，明日請御駕去尋其真者。」國王聞說，又心意慚惶，止不住腮邊流淚道：「孩兒，我自幼登基，雖城門也不曾出去，卻教我那裡去尋你也？」行者笑道：「不須煩惱，你公主現在給孤布金寺裡裝風，今且各散，到天明我還你個真公主便是。」这段因果，是太阴君亲口才与我说的。今日既去其假者，明日请御驾去寻其真者。」国王闻说，又心意惭惶，止不住腮边流泪道：「孩儿，我自幼登基，虽城门也不曾出去，却教我那里去寻你也？」行者笑道：「不须烦恼，你公主现在给孤布金寺里装风，今且各散，到天明我还你个真公主便是。」
逐句解 Line by line
"This chain of cause and effect is what the Star Lord of the Grand Yin told me just now with her own mouth. Today we have got rid of the false one; tomorrow I invite Your Majesty's carriage to go and look for the true one."
He offers the plan and it is a good one, and it is about to run into a fact he has not considered. 親口 — with her own mouth — is Wukong producing his credentials. He did not work this out; a goddess told him, and he is careful to say so. 御駕, the imperial carriage, is the formal way of saying the king in person. It is going to turn out to be exactly the wrong suggestion.
When the king heard this, his heart was full of shame and dismay, and he could not keep back the tears running down his cheeks. "My child," he said, "I came to the throne as a boy, and I have never so much as been out of the city gate. Where am I to go to look for you?"
The most affecting line in the chapter, and it is a small administrative fact about a man's life. ⚠ 那裡 here is nǎ lǐ, where — the last of this chapter's four question uses out of seventy-two. He is not being rhetorical. He genuinely does not know how to go and look for somebody. 孩兒 — my child — is addressed to a daughter who is not in the room. He has stopped talking to the monk and started talking to her. 慚惶 pairs shame with fear. The shame is that he did not know his own daughter; the fear is of what he will find.
Pilgrim laughed and said: "There is no need to distress yourself. Your princess is at this moment in the Jetavana Almsgiving Monastery, playing the madwoman. Let us all disperse for now, and at daybreak I will give you back your true princess and there is an end of it."
He has known where she is for the entire chapter. He is only mentioning it now. ⚠ 給 in 給孤布金寺 is jǐ, to provide. The name renders Anathapindika, the merchant who bought the Jetavana grove with gold and gave it to the Buddha — his epithet means he who gives to the friendless. This project ruled the reading at Ch.93 and all three sites in this chapter are the monastery name. ⚠ 還 is huán, to give back — not the hái of still, which is the reading its other seven appearances here take. 裝風 means putting on madness. The girl has been feigning insanity in a monastery to keep herself safe, and the reader learned it two chapters ago.
The king breaks, and what breaks him is not the monster or the theology. It is being asked to go and look for his daughter and realising he does not know how. He came to the throne as a boy and has never been outside the city wall. It is the most human sentence anybody speaks in this chapter and it is a confession of complete uselessness.
Wukong's answer is characteristically ill-timed and entirely effective. He knows where she is. He has known since the previous chapter, when the monks of the almsgiving monastery told the pilgrims about a madwoman locked in a back room. He has let a father weep before mentioning it, not out of cruelty but because it had not occurred to him that the information was urgent.
The monastery's name is doing quiet work here. The Jetavana grove was bought with gold by a merchant whose title means he who gives to the friendless, and a friendless girl has been sheltering there for a year pretending to be mad. The book does not point this out. It just puts her in that building.