挑得經擔 Who Is To Carry the Load
大聖道：「尊者之言雖當，但吾師如何挑得經擔？如何牽得這馬？須得我等同去一送。煩你在空少等，諒不敢誤。」大圣道：「尊者之言虽当，但吾师如何挑得经担？如何牵得这马？须得我等同去一送。烦你在空少等，谅不敢误。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage said, “What the venerable ones say is apt enough — but how is our master to carry the scripture-load?”
雖當 — apt though it is. The last character is read dàng here, meaning fitting or right. Read dāng it means at the time of, a different word entirely. Monkey concedes the point politely and then demolishes it. 挑得 — the second character is the light one that turns a verb into a question of capability: can he manage to carry it? Not dé, to obtain. 經擔, the scripture-load. Its second character is read dàn here — the noun, a shoulder-pole load — not dān, the verb of shouldering. It is the same distinction English keeps between a load and to load, and Chinese keeps it in the tone.
“How is he to lead this horse?”
The second objection, and it is the same shape as the first: 牽得, can he manage to lead it. Monkey is not arguing about honour or about the end of the journey. He is pointing out that his master cannot carry the luggage.
“We shall have to go along and see him there.”
須得 — it must be had that. Both characters are full verbs: the first means must, the second means to have, and what follows is what must be had, namely the three of them. Chinese in this novel builds the phrase the same way at nine other places in the book, and every one of them puts a thing after it rather than an action. 一送 — see him the one stretch. Monkey asks for the last mile.
“Trouble yourselves to wait a little in the air; we shall not dare be late.”
煩你 — may I trouble you. Monkey being courteous is rare enough to notice, and he is courteous here because he has just overruled heaven's escort and wants it to go smoothly. 不敢誤, we would not dare be late. He is quoting their own vocabulary back at them: the phrase attached to every order in this book is no failure and no delay.
Monkey overrules heaven, and the grounds he chooses are luggage. The venerable ones are quite right, he says, but how is the master to carry the scripture-load, and how is he to lead the horse?
It is the perfect argument because it cannot be answered. The Tang monk has become a buddha, floats in water and suppresses fiends by existing — and he still cannot shoulder a carrying-pole. Nothing about attaining the Way has made him able to manage his own bags.
And notice what Monkey actually asks for. Not glory, not a share of the audience: we shall have to go along and see him there. One stretch of road, on foot, carrying things. After all the flying, the last mile of the greatest journey in Chinese literature is walked because somebody has to hold the horse.