He gave a whistle, sprang up into the air, and with his fiery eyes and golden pupils shaded his brow with a hand and scanned every quarter — but of the horse there was still not the least trace.

火眼金睛 (huǒyǎn jīnjīng), "fiery eyes and golden pupils," is Wukong's signature faculty, tempered in Laozi's furnace: eyes that pierce disguise and reach across great distance. 搭涼篷 ("to make an awning" with the hand) is the gesture of shading the eyes to peer far off. 更 (gèng) here sharpens the negative, meaning still not at all.

He brought his cloud down and reported: "Master, our horse has surely been eaten by that dragon; there is nothing to be seen anywhere I look."

按落雲頭, "to press down the cloud-head," i.e. to descend from flight; 斷乎 is emphatic — "assuredly, beyond doubt." Wukong now grasps what has happened, too late to have prevented it. 那龍 is demonstrative, nà.

Said Sanzang: "Disciple, ah — how big a mouth can that creature have, to swallow so large a horse, saddle, bridle and all?

那廝 (nà sī), "that fellow, that creature," is dismissive. 將 marks 那匹大馬 as the thing gulped down; 都 ("all," dōu) sweeps in the tack besides. The monk's incredulity is the ordinary mind measuring a marvel against common sense.

It must have shied and slipped its rein, and wandered off into some fold of the hills.

驚張 is "to take fright, be startled"; 溜韁, "to let the rein slip." 山凹 (shān'āo) is a hollow or dell between hills. Sanzang clings to the mundane explanation — a bolted horse — against his disciple's report.

Look again, and carefully."

仔細 is "closely, with care." The request is faintly reproachful, as though Wukong had simply not looked hard enough — which stings his pride.

Said the Pilgrim: "You do not know what I am capable of.

本事 (běnshì) is one's skill, one's powers. The retort opens Wukong's boast, and the friction of wounded self-regard begins to show.

These two eyes of mine can commonly make out good and ill fortune a thousand lǐ off in broad daylight.

白日裡, "in the daytime"; 吉凶, "the auspicious and the ominous." The 里 (lǐ) is the Chinese mile (roughly half a kilometre); the boast measures how impossible it is that the horse escaped his notice.

Within that thousand lǐ, let a dragonfly so much as spread its wings and I would see it — how then should I fail to see so large a horse?"

蜻蜓 (qīngtíng) is a dragonfly, 展翅 "to spread the wings"; 何期, "who would have expected." The hyperbole — a dragonfly at a thousand 里 — is Wukong's proof by contradiction that the horse is not merely lost but gone.

Said Sanzang: "If it has indeed been eaten, how am I to go forward?

既是, "since it is so." The monk's mind leaps at once from the loss to its consequence — the journey itself imperilled — the seed of his despair.

Alas — with all these thousand hills and myriad streams, however am I to travel it?"

千山萬水 (qiān shān wàn shuǐ), "a thousand mountains and ten thousand streams," is the set phrase for an arduous road. 走得 here is potential — "able to travel" — so 得 is read dé. The sheer scale of it undoes him.

As he spoke, his tears fell like rain.

說著話 — "while speaking," the durative 著 read zhe. 淚如雨落, "tears falling like rain," is a stock figure; Sanzang's readiness to weep is a recurring trait the novel treats with mingled sympathy and gentle irony.

When the Pilgrim saw him break into weeping, how could he hold in his hot temper? He raised his voice and shouted:

哭將起來, "to burst out crying," where 將 is the directional particle before 起來 (jiāng). 那裡忍得住 is a rhetorical "how could he bear it," 那裡 read nǎ and 得 potential dé; 暴燥 (for 暴躁) is a fiery, impatient temper.

"Master, don't put on this spineless act — sit down, sit down, and let old Sun go find that creature and make it give me back my horse, and there's an end of it.""

膿包 (nóngbāo), literally "a pustule," is an insult for a weakling or spineless coward — startlingly blunt from disciple to master, and wholly in character. 老孫 ("old Sun") is Wukong's brash self-styling. 還 (huán), "give back," will recur as his battle-cry; The doubled 坐著 takes the durative 著 (zhe), a state held while another action proceeds; but 尋著 is verb-plus-resultative — "to find," the seeking attained — and its 著 is read zháo.

But Sanzang caught hold of him and said: "Disciple, ah — where would you go to look for it?

扯住, "to seize and hold back." 那裡去尋 is again the interrogative "where would you go," 那裡 read nǎ. The monk's fear now shifts from the horse to his disciple's safety.

I only fear that if it should come lunging out from hiding, would it not then do me harm as well?

暗地裡, "in secret, from concealment"; 攛將出來, "to come bursting out," 將 the directional particle. 連我都害 — "harm even me too," 都 read dōu. Sanzang pictures himself left defenceless should Wukong depart.

Then it would be man and horse both lost — however would that do?"

那時節, "at that juncture, in that case" (nà, demonstrative); 人馬兩亡, "man and horse both perished." The monk's timidity is drawn without flattery: he would rather keep Wukong at his side than recover the horse.

Hearing these words, the Pilgrim grew angrier still, and shouted out like a thunderclap: "You are no good at all — no good!

聞得, "hearing," resultative 得 read de. 嗔怒 (chēnnù) is wrathful indignation; 忒 (tè), "too, excessively"; 不濟, "useless, no good." The exchange has become an open quarrel.

You want a horse to ride, yet you won't let me go; sit here minding the baggage like this, then, till we grow old, and be done!"

似這般, "in this fashion, at this rate," 似 read sì. 看著行李 — "guarding the baggage," durative 著 read zhe. 坐到老, "sit until old age," is exasperated hyperbole: nothing can be done if he is forbidden to act.