容貌異常 Their Faces Are Not Ordinary
太宗更喜，教：「光祿寺設宴在東閣酬謝。」忽見他三徒立在階下，容貌異常，便問：「高徒果外國人耶？」長老俯伏道：「大徒弟姓孫，法名悟空，臣又呼他為孫行者。他出身原是東勝神洲傲來國花果山水簾洞人氏。因五百年前大鬧天宮，被佛祖困壓在西番兩界山石匣之內，蒙觀音菩薩勸善，情願皈依。是臣到彼救出，保護甚虧此徒。太宗更喜，教：「光禄寺设宴在东阁酬谢。」忽见他三徒立在阶下，容貌异常，便问：「高徒果外国人耶？」长老俯伏道：「大徒弟姓孙，法名悟空，臣又呼他为孙行者。他出身原是东胜神洲傲来国花果山水帘洞人氏。因五百年前大闹天宫，被佛祖困压在西番两界山石匣之内，蒙观音菩萨劝善，情愿皈依。是臣到彼救出，保护甚亏此徒。
逐句解 Line by line
Taizong was more delighted still, and ordered: “Let the Court of Imperial Entertainments lay on a banquet in the East Pavilion to thank them.”
光祿寺 was a real office of the Tang state, the Court of Imperial Entertainments, which ran the palace kitchens and the official banquets. The novel drops a genuine department into a scene with a monkey in it and does not blink. 酬謝 — to repay with thanks. The emperor's response to the scriptures is to book a dinner.
All at once he noticed the three disciples standing below the steps, their faces not like other men's, and asked, “Are your worthy disciples foreigners, then?”
⚠ 忽見 — all at once he noticed. They have been standing at the bottom of the steps for the whole audience. The emperor has only now looked at them. ⚠ 容貌異常 — countenances out of the ordinary. It is put very gently. One of them is a monkey, one is a pig and one has a face the colour of iron. ⚠ And the emperor's guess is the funniest line in the chapter. 果外國人耶 — are they foreigners, then? Faced with three demons, a Tang emperor reaches for the most ordinary explanation available.
The elder bowed low and said: “My eldest disciple's surname is Sun, his religious name Wukong, and your servant also calls him Sun the Pilgrim.”
⚠ 呼他為 — call him. The last character is the copula here, read wéi: to be, to make into. The wèi the bare chain gives means for the sake of, and would point the sentence the wrong way. Three names for one disciple, given in order of formality: the surname, the religious name conferred at ordination, and the one everybody actually uses. It is exactly how you would introduce somebody at a formal occasion. 俯伏 — he bows low to say it. He is in a chair the emperor granted him and he gets out of it.
“By origin he is a native of the Water Curtain Cave, Flower Fruit Mountain, in the country of Aolai in the Eastern Continent of Superior Body.”
⚠ The full address, given the way a Chinese magistrate's clerk records a place of origin: continent, country, mountain, cave. 人氏 is the formal word on a register for native of. It is the opening of chapter one, compressed into one line of testimony and read out in a throne room.
“Because he made his great uproar in heaven five hundred years ago, the Buddha pinned him in a stone box under the Mountain of Two Frontiers in the western marches; and the Bodhisattva Guanyin urged him to good, so that he took refuge willingly.”
⚠ 大鬧天宮 — the great uproar in heaven. It is the most famous phrase in Chinese popular literature, the whole of the novel's first seven chapters, and here it is a subordinate clause in a man's character reference. 石匣, a stone box. Not a mountain falling on him: a container. 情願皈依 — took refuge willingly. The Tang monk is at pains to say his disciple came in of his own accord, which is what you say for somebody with a record.
“It was your servant who came there and got him out, and in the matter of protection your servant owes this disciple a great deal.”
⚠ 保護甚虧此徒 — much indebted to this disciple for protection. The verb is the one for owing somebody, and it is the only credit Monkey gets in the entire audience. He is standing at the bottom of the steps while it is said, and nobody calls him up.
The emperor orders the banquet before he has looked at the disciples. When he finally does notice them, standing where they have been standing all along, his question is the funniest thing in the chapter: their faces are not like other men's, so — are they foreigners?
⚠ What follows is a character reference, and the Tang monk gives it in the form a Chinese official document would take: surname, religious name, common name, then place of origin down to the cave, then the criminal record and the terms of release. The great uproar in heaven, which is the most famous story in Chinese popular fiction and the whole first act of this book, appears as a subordinate clause explaining why the man was in custody.
⚠ And the reference ends with the only thanks Monkey receives all day: in the matter of protection, your servant owes this disciple a great deal. It is said about him, over his head, while he stands at the bottom of the stairs.