原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
空手回覆
Why Not Seize It
八戒道:「沙僧,你既到水簾洞,看見假八戒挑著行李,怎麼不搶將來?」沙僧道:「那妖精見我使寶杖打他假沙僧,他就亂圍上來要拿,是我顧性命走了。及告菩薩,與行者復至洞口,他兩個打在空中,是我去掀翻他的石凳,打散他的小妖。只見一股瀑布泉水流,竟不知洞門開在何處,尋不著行李,所以空手回覆師命也。」八戒道:「沙僧,你既到水帘洞,看见假八戒挑着行李,怎么不抢将来?」沙僧道:「那妖精见我使宝杖打他假沙僧,他就乱围上来要拿,是我顾性命走了。及告菩萨,与行者复至洞口,他两个打在空中,是我去掀翻他的石凳,打散他的小妖。只见一股瀑布泉水流,竟不知洞门开在何处,寻不着行李,所以空手回覆师命也。」
逐句解 Line by line
八戒道:「沙僧,你既到水簾洞,看見假八戒挑著行李,怎麼不搶將來?」
八戒道:「沙僧,你既到水帘洞,看见假八戒挑着行李,怎么不抢将来?」
Eight Rules said: "Sha Monk, since you got as far as the Water-Curtain Cave and saw the false Eight Rules shouldering our luggage, how was it you did not snatch it back?"
挑著 — 挑 tiāo with durative 著 zhe. 搶將來 uses the same vernacular infix 將 as 打將來.
沙僧道:「那妖精見我使寶杖打他假沙僧,他就亂圍上來要拿,是我顧性命走了。
沙僧道:「那妖精见我使宝杖打他假沙僧,他就乱围上来要拿,是我顾性命走了。
Sha Monk said: "When that fiend saw me strike his false Sha Monk with my treasure staff, he came crowding round in a rabble to seize me, and I made off to save my life.
顧性命 'looking to one's life' — Sha Monk reports his own flight plainly, without excuse, which is characteristic of him.
及告菩薩,與行者復至洞口,他兩個打在空中,是我去掀翻他的石凳,打散他的小妖。
及告菩萨,与行者复至洞口,他两个打在空中,是我去掀翻他的石凳,打散他的小妖。
Then I went and told the Bodhisattva, and came back with the Pilgrim to the cave mouth. While the two of them were fighting up in the air, I went and overturned his stone benches and scattered his little fiends.
掀翻石凳 and 打散小妖 repeat, in Sha Monk's own mouth, the raid the narrator described at blk2 — the chapter's habit of retelling.
只見一股瀑布泉水流,竟不知洞門開在何處,尋不著行李,所以空手回覆師命也。」
只见一股瀑布泉水流,竟不知洞门开在何处,寻不着行李,所以空手回覆师命也。」
I saw only a single cataract of spring-water flowing, and truly could not tell where the cave door opened. I could not find the luggage, and so came back empty-handed to report to our master's command."
尋不著 — 著 zháo, resultative 'manage to', flipping the preceding 不 to bù as at 齋不著. 何處 chù.
總評 Commentary
Eight Rules asks the obvious practical question, and it is the first time in the chapter that anyone has pressed on a concrete failure rather than on the metaphysical one. Sha Monk's answer is honest to the point of bluntness: he ran away to save his life, and he could not find the door.
The retelling matters structurally. This is the third time the Water-Curtain Cave raid has been narrated — once by the narrator, once to Tripitaka, and now to Eight Rules — and each version is accurate. The chapter has an extraordinary tolerance for repetition, and it is not padding: the story of the true and false Pilgrim is being built out of testimony, and testimony is what gets repeated.
尋不著行李 is also the practical thread that will carry the next passage. The luggage contains the travel rescript, without which the pilgrimage cannot proceed regardless of how many Wukongs there are.