Canonical Classics ← 第五十六回
第五十六回
shénkuángzhūcǎokòu
dàofàngxīnyuán

The Spirit Runs Mad and Puts the Bandits to Death · The Way Is Clouded and the Mind-Monkey Is Cast Off

後門放行
模式 Mode Read Study
拼音 Pinyin Off
字體 Script
原文 Original text 繁體 Traditional Reader's edition

後門放行 Out Through the Back Gate

lǎoertīngyánqiāoqiāodezǒudàohòuyuánjiàotángsēngwèidào:「lǐngzhòngláilezhīděngzàihàilǎozhuōniànyuǎnláirěnshānghàikuàizǎoshōushíxíngsòngwǎnghòuménchūba。」sānzàngtīngshuōzhànjīngjīngdekòutóuxièlelǎozhěhuànjièqiānshāsēngtiāodànxíngzhělejiǔhuánzhànglǎozhěkāihòuménfànglejiùqiāoqiāodeláiqiánshuìxiàlǎoertīngyánqiāoqiāodezǒudàohòuyuánjiàotángsēngwèidào:「lǐngzhòngláilezhīděngzàihàilǎozhuōniànyuǎnláirěnshānghàikuàizǎoshōushíxíngsòngwǎnghòuménchūba。」sānzàngtīngshuōzhànjīngjīngdekòutóuxièlelǎozhěhuànjièqiānshāsēngtiāodànxíngzhělejiǔhuánzhànglǎozhěkāihòuménfànglejiùqiāoqiāodeláiqiánshuìxià


逐句解 Line by line

lǎoertīngyánqiāoqiāodezǒudàohòuyuánjiàotángsēngwèidào:「lǐngzhòngláilezhīděngzàihài lǎoertīngyánqiāoqiāodezǒudàohòuyuánjiàotángsēngwèidào:「lǐngzhòngláilezhīděngzàihài

The old man heard this, crept quietly out to the back garden and roused the Tang Monk and the other three: “That wretch has brought his gang; he knows you are here and means to do you harm.”

悄悄的 writes for the adverbial . 老兒 is suffixed, so is er. 汝等 is a formal you — the old man raises his register at the moment of greatest urgency. is attainment.

lǎozhuōniànyuǎnláirěnshānghài lǎozhuōniànyuǎnláirěnshānghài

“I, old fool that I am, think of how far you have come, and cannot bear to see you hurt.”

老拙 — this old clumsy one — is a self-deprecating first person. He is choosing four strangers over his own son, and he says so in eleven graphs.

kuàizǎoshōushíxíngsòngwǎnghòuménchūba。」 kuàizǎoshōushíxíngsòngwǎnghòuménchūba。」

“Get your baggage together quickly. I will see you out by the back gate.”

is sentence-final, so the particle ba. is to see a guest off, the ordinary verb of hospitality, used here to mean smuggling them out of a house that intends to kill them.

sānzàngtīngshuōzhànjīngjīngdekòutóuxièlelǎozhěhuànjièqiānshāsēngtiāodànxíngzhělejiǔhuánzhàng sānzàngtīngshuōzhànjīngjīngdekòutóuxièlelǎozhěhuànjièqiānshāsēngtiāodànxíngzhělejiǔhuánzhàng

Tripitaka heard it, and trembling all over he knocked his head to the ground and thanked the old man; then he called Bajie to lead the horse and Sha Monk to shoulder the load, while Pilgrim took up the nine-ringed priestly staff.

戰兢兢的 writes for the adverbial . 挑擔 gives as tiāo and as the nominal dàn. 九環錫杖 is the ringed staff given to Tripitaka by Guanyin in chapter twelve.

lǎozhěkāihòuménfànglejiùqiāoqiāodeláiqiánshuìxià lǎozhěkāihòuménfànglejiùqiāoqiāodeláiqiánshuìxià

The old man opened the back gate, let them go, and went quietly back to the front to lie down again.

依舊悄悄的 — quietly again, just as before — is the detail that closes the passage. He returns to bed beside a house full of armed men, having saved four lives, and says nothing to anybody.


總評 Commentary

This is the moral high point of chapter fifty-six, and it belongs to a man with no name beyond his surname. He has heard his only son plan a massacre in his own kitchen; he crosses the garden in the dark, wakes four strangers, tells them the truth, and lets them out of his own back gate. His stated reason — 念你遠來不忍傷害, I think how far you have come and cannot bear you to be hurt — is not doctrine, not calculation, and not fear. It is simply that he will not have guests killed under his roof.

Set beside it, everything the pilgrims have done in this chapter looks thin. Wukong killed two men over an insult and boasted to their grave; Tripitaka prayed over them and then amended the prayer to shift the blame; Bajie asked to be excluded from it. The old man acts against his own son and his own interest, and the narrative gives him five sentences and no praise at all.

依舊悄悄的來前睡下 is the line to hold on to. Having done it, he goes back to bed. He does not warn his son off, or confront the gang, or claim any credit, and when the robbers find the garden empty at the fifth watch he will be lying in the front of the house pretending to sleep. The chapter never returns to him.