Chinese Literature

蝎子精毒敵山琵琶洞 · 37

Leaf 37 of the pilgrimage · 蝎子精 The Scorpion Spirit

Scorpion Spirit 蝎子精

In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a demon on the road west · nicknamed 蝎子精 “The Scorpion Spirit”

The novel gives her one credential and it is not strength: she stung the Buddha's finger, and heaven's answer to her is a bird.

Lair
'毒敵山琵琶洞' in the hills of the Women's Kingdom, behind a screen of stone
Weapons
a three-tined steel fork which is her two grown-over pincers, and a tail-hook called '倒馬毒'
Collected by
Mao Ri Xingguan of the Guangming Palace at the East Gate — the celestial cock

The great deeds 大事記

  1. ch. 54

    Whirlwind Off the Queen's Road

    旋風攝僧

    A whirlwind takes the monk off the road the very day the Queen of the Women's Kingdom was trying to marry him; behind the stone screen at the cave door he finds other women she carried off, and a table laid for two.

  2. ch. 55

    The Honeybee at the Lattice

    蜂入洞

    Wukong comes in as a honeybee through a chink in the gate, sits on the lattice of her flower pavilion and watches the maidens bring up two trays of hot buns: one human-flesh, one vegetarian, so the monk will eat something.

  3. ch. 55

    The Twice-Flung Poison Hook

    倒馬毒樁

    In the open fight she springs the hook once and pricks Wukong's scalp, then again on Bajie's lip; both retreat howling and she has the cave mouth stacked shut with stone.

  4. ch. 55

    The Hook in the Buddha's Finger

    近他不得

    Guanyin comes in her fish-basket shape, names the creature — a scorpion who listened to sutra at Thunderclap Monastery until the Buddha pushed her away and she run her hook into his left middle finger — and says plainly that she herself cannot come near her.

  5. ch. 55

    The Double-Crowned Cock Crows

    雙冠一叫

    The star officer goes up the slope, shows himself as a double-crowned cock six or seven feet high, and crows: a scorpion the size of a pipa appears. He crows a second time.

結局 The ending

The second crow goes through her and she dies soft all over in front of the cave; Bajie, nursing his lip since morning, rakes the carcase into mud. Wukong burns the lair and points the stolen women downhill towards home. The sting's account closes on the hillside: the star touches Bajie's lip, blows on it, and the pain stops; Wukong asks for the same and is told he had only slept his off.

In the same episode 同難

The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials