The Pilgrim said, "Step lively, Master, the day is late. Over yonder the trees stand thick — surely a farmstead; let us hurry and find lodging early."

The dusk of the lyric turns immediately into a practical problem: find a bed. 那壁廂, 'over yonder', reads 那 as nà; 行者 reads 行 as xíng.

Sanzang duly whipped his horse forward, made straight for the house, and dismounted before the farm gate.

Told to hurry, he hurries. 三藏 reads 藏 as zàng.

The Pilgrim flung down the baggage, stepped up, and called, "Open the gate! Open the gate!"

The baggage hits the ground and the gate gets hammered. Nobody has to be told which of the two travellers is doing the knocking.

Within, an old man came out leaning on a staff and pulled the gate open with a rattle.

An old householder shuffles out on a bamboo stick — 扶筇, leaning on a staff — and hauls the gate open with a 唿喇, the clatter written straight into the word.

At the sight of the Pilgrim's fearsome aspect — a piece of tiger-skin bound at his waist, for all the world like the Duke of Thunder —

And here is the joke the whole scene rests on. The old man opens his gate at night and finds a creature in a tiger skin with a face like 雷公, Léigōng, the Duke of Thunder — who is conventionally painted with a beaked nose and a monkey's snarling face, so the comparison is doing more than saying 'ugly'. It is saying: the thing at my gate looks like a god of storms. 惡相 takes 相 in its 'appearance' sense, read xiàng; 繫著 uses the ongoing-action 著 (zhe).

he was so frightened that his legs went weak and his body numb, and he babbled deliriously, "A ghost has come! A ghost has come!"

Legs gone, body numb, and babbling. 諕得, 'so frightened that', reads 諕 as xià and 得 as de.

Sanzang came forward and steadied him, calling, "Do not be afraid, old patron; he is this poor monk's disciple, no ghost or goblin."

The monk is the antidote to his own disciple, and knows it. 施主 (shī zhǔ), patron or donor, is the polite word for a layman who supports monks — the exact term to use on a householder you are about to ask for a bed.

The old man raised his head, and seeing Sanzang's face fresh and refined, at last stood firm and asked, "From what temple do you come, reverend, that you bring this vicious fellow to my door?"

One look at a cultivated face and the old man's legs come back. 你是那寺裡來的和尚, 'from which temple do you come', reads 那 as the asking-word nǎ, 'which'.

Sanzang said, "This poor monk comes from the land of Tang, journeying to the Western Heaven to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures.

The standard account of himself, which he will give at door after door from here to the end of the book: from Tang, bound west, after scriptures. 拜佛 reads 佛 as fó.

Passing this way, and the day being late, I have come to your honoured house to beg one night's lodging; by first light, before the sky is bright, we shall be gone. I beg you show us this small kindness."

The request is wrapped in road courtesy. 檀府 flatters the house by calling it a patron's residence, and the promise to be gone before the sky is light is the traveller's way of saying: you will hardly know we were here.

The old man said, "Though you may be a man of Tang, that vicious one is surely no man of Tang."

A man of Tang, perhaps — but not that one. The old man is not finished being frightened, and his wary aside is the fuse for Wukong's outburst in the next passage.