耳中繡針 A Needle From the Ear
好大聖，耳中摸一摸，拔出一個繡花針兒道：「列位，我出家人，果然不曾帶得盤纏，只這個針兒送你罷。」那賊道：「晦氣呀，把一個富貴和尚放了，卻拿住這個窮禿驢。你好道會做裁縫？我要針做甚的？」行者聽說不要，就拈在手中，幌了一幌，變作碗來粗細的一條棍子。那賊害怕道：「這和尚生得小，倒會弄術法兒。」行者將棍子插在地下道：「列位拿得動，就送你罷。」兩個賊上前搶奪，可憐就如蜻蜓撼石柱，莫想弄動半分毫。這條棍本是如意金箍棒，天秤稱的一萬三千五百斤重，那夥賊怎麼知得？大聖走上前，輕輕的拿起，丟一個蟒翻身拗步勢，指著強人道：「你都造化低，遇著我老孫了。」那賊上前來，又打了五六十下。好大圣，耳中摸一摸，拔出一个绣花针儿道：「列位，我出家人，果然不曾带得盘缠，只这个针儿送你罢。」那贼道：「晦气呀，把一个富贵和尚放了，却拿住这个穷秃驴。你好道会做裁缝？我要针做甚的？」行者听说不要，就拈在手中，幌了一幌，变作碗来粗细的一条棍子。那贼害怕道：「这和尚生得小，倒会弄术法儿。」行者将棍子插在地下道：「列位拿得动，就送你罢。」两个贼上前抢夺，可怜就如蜻蜓撼石柱，莫想弄动半分毫。这条棍本是如意金箍棒，天秤称的一万三千五百斤重，那伙贼怎么知得？大圣走上前，轻轻的拿起，丢一个蟒翻身拗步势，指着强人道：「你都造化低，遇着我老孙了。」那贼上前来，又打了五六十下。
逐句解 Line by line
Splendid Great Sage! He felt about in his ear, drew out an embroidery needle and said, “Gentlemen, I am one who has left the household, and truly I have brought no travelling money at all. I will give you only this needle.”
耳中 is locative, so 中 is zhōng. 帶得 is 得 in its attainment sense dé. Both 針兒 are suffixed, so 兒 is er, and repeats require positional fixspecs. 罷 is sentence-final here, so the particle ba.
The robbers said, “What rotten luck! We let a rich monk go and have laid hold of this poor bald donkey instead.”
晦氣 is the standard exclamation of ill fortune. 禿驢 — bald donkey — is the coarsest of the common insults for a monk, and its arrival marks the point where the robbers stop treating this as a transaction.
“Do you take yourself for a tailor? What should we want with a needle?”
裁縫, a tailor, takes 縫 as féng, to sew, and not the fèng of a seam, which is what pypinyin returns; 縫 sits in no guard roster, so this was caught by the probe. The six-graph quote-closing tail is joined back to its opener.
Pilgrim, hearing that they did not want it, took it between his fingers, gave it a shake, and it became a cudgel as thick as a rice bowl.
手中 is locative zhōng. 碗來粗細 — of a thickness coming to a bowl — is the Ming vernacular way of giving a dimension by comparison.
The robbers took fright. “This monk is small enough to look at, but he knows some trick of magic.”
生得小 puts 得 in the complement, so de; 倒會 is the adversative dào. 法兒 is suffixed, so 兒 is er.
Pilgrim planted the cudgel in the ground and said, “Gentlemen, if you can lift it, it is yours.”
將棍子插 is the disposal 將, so jiāng. 拿得動 is the potential 得, so de, and 罷 is sentence-final, so ba. The offer is genuine and it is a trap.
The two robbers came forward to snatch it up — and, poor wretches, it was as dragonflies shaking a stone pillar: they could not stir it half a hair.
半分毫 is a doubled minimal measure, a 分 and a 毫; 分 keeps fēn. 可憐 is the narrator’s own interjection, and it is the second time in the chapter that the word has been used of these men before they die.
This cudgel was in truth the As-You-Will Gold-Hooped Staff, weighed on the scales of Heaven at thirteen thousand five hundred catties. How were those robbers to know?
秤 keeps the standing invariant chèng for the balance itself, while 稱 is the verb, to weigh, so chēng — the two graphs side by side with the two readings. 斤 is the catty; like 兩 it is not yet in the house set of untransliterated units, and the established English is used pending a ruling. 怎麼知得 is 得 in its attainment sense.
The Great Sage stepped up, lifted it lightly, threw himself into a python-turning crooked-step stance, and pointed at the brigands: “Your luck is out, the whole pack of you. You have run up against old Monkey.”
著 occurs twice with opposite readings — the durative zhe of 指著 and the resultative zháo of 遇著, as ruled earlier in the chapter — so positional fixspecs are required. 拗步 is the crooked-step stance of the fighting manuals and takes ǎo. 輕輕的 writes 的 for the adverbial 地, encoded as printed.
The robbers came at him again and struck fifty or sixty blows more.
The count rises from seven or eight to fifty or sixty. Wukong has now announced who he is, and they go on hitting him.
The needle is the oldest joke in Wukong’s repertoire and it is played here with unusual patience. He produces it as though it were the promised money, lets the robbers scorn it, expands it only when they have said they do not want it, plants it in the ground, and invites them to take it away. Every step is an offer they are free to refuse, and every refusal draws them further in.
The stone-pillar simile is where the passage turns. Dragonflies trying to shake a pillar is a proverbial figure for hopeless disproportion, and the narrator adds 可憐 — poor wretches — in his own voice. He then gives the weight: thirteen thousand five hundred catties, a figure the reader has known since chapter three and the robbers cannot possibly know. 那夥賊怎麼知得 is a rhetorical question with a cruel answer.
Wukong’s 你都造化低，遇著我老孫了 is a formal announcement, and it is the fairest thing he does. He tells them exactly what has happened to them, in the stance of a man about to fight, and they respond with fifty or sixty more blows. The novel is at pains to show that they were warned. It is equally at pains to show that a warning delivered by someone who cannot be hurt is not really a warning at all.