凌雲仙渡 Across the Cloud-Touching Crossing
那撐船的打著號子，也說：「那是你，可賀，可賀。」他們三人也一齊聲相和。撐著船，不一時，穩穩當當的過了凌雲仙渡。三藏才轉身，輕輕的跳上彼岸。有詩為證。詩曰：那撑船的打着号子，也说：「那是你，可贺，可贺。」他们三人也一齐声相和。撑着船，不一时，稳稳当当的过了凌云仙渡。三藏才转身，轻轻的跳上彼岸。有诗为证。诗曰：
逐句解 Line by line
The man poling the boat struck up his working chant and said so as well: "That is you! Congratulations, congratulations!"
⚠ 打著號子 — striking up a work-chant. A 號子 is the rhythmic call that boatmen and haulers sing to keep time, the same thing as a sea shanty, and the buddha is doing it while he poles. ⚠ 可賀，可賀 — congratulations, twice over. The one who came to fetch the soul across is now congratulating the passenger on having left his body behind, in the register of a man calling out at a wedding. This is the only thing the ferryman says in the whole scene apart from ferry over and his poem.
And the three of them joined in with him, all in one voice.
⚠ 相和 — to answer in chorus, to sing the response. The second character is hè, the joining-in reading, and not the hé of and. It is the technical word for what a crew does when the leader starts the chant. ⚠ Picture it. A buddha poling a bottomless boat sings a work-chant about the corpse of the man standing next to him, and a monkey, a pig and a river demon sing the response. That is how the central mystery of the novel is celebrated: as a boat song.
He poled on, and in no long time they were over the Cloud-Touching Immortal Crossing, steady as anything.
⚠ 穩穩當當 — steady and sure, both words doubled. The crossing that a poem declared impossible for anyone but an immortal is made without incident, and the adverb the book chooses is the one you would use about a cart on a good road. ⚠ 凌雲仙渡 — and the name has grown a character. The board at the bridge said Cloud-Touching Crossing; now that it has been crossed the book adds the word for immortal in the middle. It is the only time the full form appears.
Only then did Tripitaka turn about and spring lightly up onto the far shore.
⚠ 輕輕的跳 — springing lightly. Two hundred characters ago he could not keep his footing on a log and had to be pushed. Now he jumps, and the book chooses the word light for it — the same word it used for the buddha's push on the pole. ⚠ 彼岸 — the far shore. It is an ordinary phrase for the other side of a river and it is also the standing Buddhist term for the state beyond suffering, the thing the whole religion is about reaching. The book has arranged for the two senses to be the same act.
There is a poem to prove it.
⚠ 有詩為證 — there is a poem in evidence. It is the novel's standard way of producing a verse, and the middle character here is wéi, to serve as, rather than the wèi of purpose. Note that this is a cue in two parts, and the second half is coming.
The poem says:
⚠ And here is the other half. The set phrase that actually triggers the verse is this one, not the announcement before it — a distinction that matters to anyone trying to spot verse coming, because the sentence ends on 詩曰 and not on the longer phrase. This is the only doubled cue in the chapter.
The crossing itself takes nine characters and is described as steady. After a poem swearing that no one but an immortal could get over, and a scuffle on the bank, and a man being pushed into the water, the actual passage is the least eventful thing on the whole river.
What fills it instead is singing. The ferryman strikes up a boatman's chant — the same thing as a sea shanty, sung to keep the stroke — and congratulates his passenger on the corpse floating past. The three disciples come in on the response. Four beings singing at each other on a boat mark the most important transformation in a hundred chapters.
And then Tripitaka springs ashore. The book gives it one word — lightly — and that word is the whole difference from the man who could not keep his footing on a log two hundred characters ago. The far shore he lands on is an ordinary riverbank and also the oldest metaphor in his religion for the end of suffering, and the novel lets both meanings stand without explaining either.