飛蛾投火 A Moth Flying into the Flame
即與八戒、沙僧，去山凹裡取將那些贓物，收拾了，馱在馬上。又教八戒挑了一擔金銀，沙僧挑著自己行李。行者欲將這夥強盜一棍盡情打死，又恐唐僧怪他傷人性命，只得將身一抖，收上毫毛。那夥賊鬆了手腳，爬起來，一個個落荒逃生而去。這唐僧轉步回身，將財物送還員外。這一去，卻似飛蛾投火，反受其殃。有詩為證。詩曰：即与八戒、沙僧，去山凹里取将那些赃物，收拾了，驮在马上。又教八戒挑了一担金银，沙僧挑着自己行李。行者欲将这伙强盗一棍尽情打死，又恐唐僧怪他伤人性命，只得将身一抖，收上毫毛。那伙贼松了手脚，爬起来，一个个落荒逃生而去。这唐僧转步回身，将财物送还员外。这一去，却似飞蛾投火，反受其殃。有诗为证。诗曰：
逐句解 Line by line
So he went with Bajie and Sha Monk into the fold of the hills, fetched out the stolen goods, packed them up and loaded them on the horse. He also had Bajie shoulder one pole-load of gold and silver, while Sha Monk carried their own luggage.
⚠ 一擔 — one pole-load. The second character here is the thing carried, not the carrying: a load you can count one of, the way you might count a bushel. Read the other way it is the verb, which is what the chain gives it and what the same character means two clauses later when Sha Monk shoulders the luggage. ⚠ And the word in front of it has to move with it. 一 lowers its tone before a falling one and keeps it otherwise, so the moment the load becomes a load the number in front of it changes too. Small thing, entirely invisible on the page, and the sort of chain reaction a reading has to be checked for. The image is worth pausing on: the pilgrims are now walking back towards Tongtai with a horse and a shoulder-pole full of the Kou family's gold.
Monkey wanted to finish the whole gang off with one blow of his cudgel, but fearing the Tang monk would blame him for taking human life, he could only give himself a shake and take back his hairs.
盡情打死 — kill the lot of them outright. It is a real impulse, not a joke, and the book states it plainly. 又恐唐僧怪他傷人性命 — fearing the Tang monk would blame him for taking human life. Monkey does not refrain because it would be wrong. He refrains because he would be told off. That is exactly the calibration this book has always given him. 只得 — could only. There is a note of grievance in it.
The gang, their hands and feet loosed, scrambled up and fled every one of them into the wilds to save their lives. And the Tang monk turned about and went back the way he had come, to carry the property home to the squire.
⚠ 送還 — to carry it back to its owner. This is the word for returning a thing, not the everyday one meaning still or yet that is written the same way and that this chapter uses thirteen other times. ⚠ The whole plot turns on this act. Tripitaka has the stolen goods and is walking them back to the house they came from, in the direction of a hundred and fifty armed men who have been told to look for exactly that. 落荒逃生 — fled into the wilds to save their lives. The robbers leave the story here and do not come back into it for four thousand characters.
This going of his was like a moth flying into a flame: he took the harm of it upon himself. There is a poem to prove it. The poem says:
⚠ 飛蛾投火 — a moth flying into a flame. A four-character saying, and one still in daily use: to rush headlong into your own destruction. The narrator is telling us the outcome before we see it, which is this book's habit at the head of a disaster. ⚠ 有詩為證。詩曰： — there is a poem to prove it; the poem says. This is the cue, and it is the one place in the chapter where two set phrases stack up, one after the other. Neither is scenery: the verse that follows is a moral judgement, not a description. 反受其殃 — took the harm of it upon himself. Reversal is the whole point: he goes to do good and the good is what hurts him.
Kindness repaid with kindness is rare in this world; / instead they turn kindness and mercy into a grudge.
恩將恩報 — kindness repaid with kindness. The first line states the general case and the second states what actually happens, and the same character for kindness appears three times across the two halves. 人間少 — rare in this world. The poem is not talking about the Kou family in particular. It is a flat statement about people, delivered by the narrator, and it is the harshest thing said in the chapter.
Go into the water to save a man and there is a loss in it at the last; / think three times before you act and you will have nothing to grieve over.
下水救人終有失 — go into the water to save a man and there is a loss in it at the last. A drowning man pulls his rescuer under: the image is old and the moral drawn from it here is unusually cold. 三思行事 — think three times before you act. The advice the poem gives is caution, and the person it is given about is a monk returning stolen property to a bereaved family. ⚠ The book is not endorsing this. It is stating what the world does to such people, and then spending five thousand characters showing it happen.
The poem is the chapter's moral thesis and it is a deeply uncomfortable one. Kindness is rarely repaid with kindness. Save a drowning man and you will drown. Think three times before you act. That is not Buddhist counsel; it is the wisdom of a cautious householder, and the book puts it in the narrator's own voice at the moment Tripitaka does something plainly good.
It arrives with a doubled cue — a saying about a moth in a flame, then the formal announcement of a poem — which is the heaviest signalling the chapter gives to anything. Elsewhere the rhapsodies describe a prefect or a set of prisoners. This one passes sentence.
Notice what Monkey nearly does and why he does not. He wants to kill all thirty men on the spot, and the only thing that stops him is that his master would be annoyed. Under three hundred characters later he is tied up on the ground with his master beside him, and thirty men he could have killed are alive and will eventually be caught and made to testify. The restraint he resented turns out to be the thing that saves them.