假捏失狀 You Made the Charge Up
行者喝道：「有個甚麼『唐僧點著火，八戒叫殺人。沙僧劫出金銀去，行者打死你父親』。只因你誑言，把那好人受難。那唐朝四位老師路遇強徒，奪將財物，送來謝我，是何等好意！你卻假捏失狀，著兒子們首官。官府又未細審，又如今把他們監禁。行者喝道：「有个甚么『唐僧点着火，八戒叫杀人。沙僧劫出金银去，行者打死你父亲』。只因你诳言，把那好人受难。那唐朝四位老师路遇强徒，夺将财物，送来谢我，是何等好意！你却假捏失状，着儿子们首官。官府又未细审，又如今把他们监禁。
逐句解 Line by line
Monkey barked at her, "What is all this — 'The Tang monk lit the fire, Bajie called out to kill. Sha Monk robbed and carried off the gold and silver, Wukong beat your father to death'?"
The accusation, quoted back at its author, and the edition marks it as a quotation with its own inner brackets — so it takes no verse flag, though the words are the same as the four lines set out as verse earlier. And it has changed again. Four versions of this charge now exist in the chapter: what she said aloud to her sons (點火的是唐僧), what they wrote down (唐僧點著火), what Monkey claimed in court (點燈的也是我), and this. Here Sha Monk has lost a character from his name and Wukong has lost his surname, and my father has become your father. 點著火 — the same three characters the narrator used of the real robbers coming through the door on the first night. They have now travelled from a true description of one set of men into a false accusation against another and back out of a coffin.
"Your lying tongue alone has brought suffering on good men."
受難 — brought suffering on them. The word for an ordeal undergone, taking the falling tone, which is the second and last time this chapter needs it. The three places it means merely hard to do come out right on their own. 只因你誑言 — your lying tongue alone. Monkey is assigning the whole chain of consequence to one act, and he is right to.
"Those four reverend teachers of the Tang court met bandits on the road, took the goods off them and brought them back to thank me for my kindness. What better intention could there be!"
是何等好意 — what better intention could there be. He is stating the plain truth of what happened, to a household that has no way of knowing it and every reason to believe a ghost. Everything in this sentence is accurate. The pilgrims did meet bandits, did take the goods back, and were carrying them to the house out of gratitude. Monkey has had to impersonate a dead man in order to get the truth into this room.
"But you faked up a complaint of robbery and set your sons to lay information. The authorities have not looked into it properly either, and now they have the four of them locked up."
著兒子們首官 — set your sons to lay information. Here the much-used character is the main verb and means to appoint somebody to an errand, which is its literary reading. This is the only place in the chapter it does that job — the book has already used the same character three other ways, for a state going on, for a result attained, and for a move in a game. 假捏失狀 — faked up a complaint. Blunt, and legally specific: to fabricate a plaint was itself an offence. 官府又未細審 — the authorities have not looked into it properly either. Monkey spreads the blame, and fairly. The widow lied, and the court convicted on one document without inquiry, and both things are true.
The accusation now exists in four versions and no two are the same. Spoken, it gave Bajie a knife; written, it had him calling for murder; in Monkey's false confession every crime belonged to him; and here, coming out of a coffin, Sha Monk and Wukong have both lost a piece of their names.
Nobody in the book alters it deliberately. Five people have simply repeated it over one day, and each repetition has moved a word. The chapter is not really about a lie — the widow told one lie, once. It is about what a lie does after it stops being anybody's fault.
Notice what Monkey has to do to get the truth said. He cannot say it in court, where he tried and was told he was talking his way round things. He cannot say it to the family, who have no reason to listen. He can only say it by pretending to be the dead man, in the dark, using a name he learned by eavesdropping. The truth in this chapter is only audible when a ghost says it.