Canonical Classics ← 第五十一回
第五十一回
xīnyuánkōngyòngqiānbān
shuǐhuǒgōngnánliàn

The Mind-Monkey Spends a Thousand Devices in Vain · Water and Fire Avail Nothing, and the Fiend Is Hard to Refine

覆奏無闕,敕選天將
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

覆奏無闕,敕選天將 The Report Comes Back Empty, and Heaven Orders Him to Choose

hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「滿mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」


逐句解 Line by line

hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「滿mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」 hánzhàngrénzhēnjūnchákānhuízòudào:「mǎntiānxīng宿xiùshǎofāngshénjiàngjiēcúnbìngfánxiàjièzhě。」

The True Lord, the Elder of the Han Office, having made his inquiry point by point, reported back to the Jade Emperor: "The stars and mansions of the whole sky are not one short, the divine generals of every quarter are all present, and none has gone down to the world out of a longing for ordinary life."

星宿 takes xiù. 歷歷 is item by item, the manner of the audit itself. 神將 takes jiàng, rank. 不少 is by mechanical sandhi and takes shǎo — "not short by one", the register's own phrase.

wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」 wénzòu:「zhuósūnkōngtiāoxuǎnyuántiānjiàngxiàjièqín。」

The Jade Emperor heard the report and said, "Let Sun Wukong pick out a few heavenly generals and go down to the world to seize the fiend."

takes zhuó, the dispatching reading — "have him do it" — not the durative zhe or the resultative zháo. 挑選 takes tiāo. The reply is a small masterpiece of administration: the inquiry found nothing, so the complainant is handed the work and dismissed.


總評 Commentary

Two segments, and the chapter turns on them. Wukong came to lodge a charge of slack discipline; the audit clears Heaven entirely; and Heaven, having been cleared, gives him troops anyway. From here every force sent against the ring will be swallowed by it, and the reader already knows the roster came out clean.

takes zhuó here and again in the next passage when the Celestial Masters repeat the order to Wukong's face. It is the dispatching reading throughout.