原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
含詞賦 With rhapsody
妖魔出河
The River-Demon Appears
菩薩正然點看，只見那河中潑剌一聲響喨，水波裡跳出一個妖魔來，十分醜惡。他生得：菩萨正然点看，只见那河中泼剌一声响喨，水波里跳出一个妖魔来，十分丑恶。他生得：
青不青，黑不黑，晦氣色臉；青不青，黑不黑，晦气色脸；
長不長，短不短，赤腳筋軀。长不长，短不短，赤脚筋躯。
眼光閃爍，好似灶底雙燈；眼光闪烁，好似灶底双灯；
口角丫叉，就如屠家火缽。口角丫叉，就如屠家火钵。
獠牙撐劍刃，紅髮亂蓬鬆。獠牙撑剑刃，红发乱蓬松。
一聲叱咤如雷吼，兩腳奔波似滾風。一声叱咤如雷吼，两脚奔波似滚风。
逐句解 Line by line
菩薩正然點看，只見那河中潑剌一聲響喨，水波裡跳出一個妖魔來，十分醜惡。他生得：
菩萨正然点看，只见那河中泼剌一声响喨，水波里跳出一个妖魔来，十分丑恶。他生得：
As the Bodhisattva was intently observing, there came from the river a splashing crash, and out of the waves leapt a demon, hideous in the extreme. He was formed thus:
一聲 takes yì before first-tone 聲; 一個 takes yí before fourth-tone 個. 他生得 introduces the portrait-rhapsody.
青不青，黑不黑，晦氣色臉；
青不青，黑不黑，晦气色脸；
Green yet not green, black yet not black, a face of ill-boding hue;
青不青黑不黑 refuses both colours it offers, which is the standard way this novel introduces a face it means to be unclassifiable. 晦氣色 is the colour of ill luck.
長不長，短不短，赤腳筋軀。
长不长，短不短，赤脚筋躯。
long yet not long, short yet not short, a bare-foot, sinewy frame.
長 here is cháng (long).
眼光閃爍，好似灶底雙燈；
眼光闪烁，好似灶底双灯；
His eyes flash and gleam like a pair of lamps beneath a stove;
好似 — “just like”; 似 is read sì.
口角丫叉，就如屠家火缽。
口角丫叉，就如屠家火钵。
the corners of his mouth fork wide like a butcher's fire-bowl.
丫叉 is forked, and the mouth is likened to a butcher's brazier — an image from the trade, and pointedly not from the scriptures.
獠牙撐劍刃，紅髮亂蓬鬆。
獠牙撑剑刃，红发乱蓬松。
His tusks thrust out like sword-blades; his red hair, a wild and matted tangle.
撐劍刃 has the tusks propping up blades. Red hair loose about a blue-black face completes a portrait built entirely from disorder.
一聲叱咤如雷吼，兩腳奔波似滾風。
一声叱咤如雷吼，两脚奔波似滚风。
One bellow of his roars like thunder; his two feet pound on like a rolling gale.
一聲 takes yì before first-tone 聲; 似 is sì.
總評 Commentary
The river's guardian erupts from the waves — the future Sha Wujing, here still a nameless demon of the deep. A portrait-rhapsody (賦) fixes his grotesque form before the fight begins.
The portrait works by paradox and negation — 青不青，黑不黑, 長不長，短不短 — refusing to settle his shape, which makes him the more uncanny. The similes are violent and domestic at once (lamps under a stove, a butcher's brazier), a characteristic register of the novel's monster-賦: the demonic rendered through the homely and the kitchen-bound.
Following Anthony C. Yu, this is the second of the chapter's two converted-disciple monsters, and his depiction here as pure ferocity is the necessary prelude to his subdual: the wildness must be shown in full before it can be disciplined into the pilgrim's service.