The Pilgrim's eye was sharp. Seeing under the eaves a rope hung out for clothes, he walked over, snapped it with one pull, and tied the horse's legs with it.

眼乖 is "a sharp eye", with 乖 in its older sense of quick or clever. Modern Chinese has narrowed the word right down to "well-behaved", which is what you say to a small child, so it has come a long way. Two 將 in one sentence, both read jiāng and doing different jobs: in 走將去 it is a hinge before the direction word, and in 將馬腳繫住 it shunts the horse's legs in front of the verb. Having no rein, he takes the nearest thing that will serve, and asks nobody.

The old man laughed and said: "Where did you steal that horse?"

The first 那 is the pointing nà, the second is the question, nǎ: 那裡偷來的, "stolen from where?" The old man is teasing. It is not received as teasing.

The Pilgrim said angrily: "You old fellow, you talk without knowing high from low.

老頭子 is "old codger", with 子 the unstressed suffix zi; 不知高低 is "not knowing high from low", that is, not knowing what is fitting to say. The temper that took on a Bodhisattva a few hours ago is no protection whatever against a countryman's joke.

We are holy monks going to worship the Buddha. Should we be stealing horses?"

又會偷馬 is "as though we would be stealing horses". Wukong — who has stolen the peaches of immortality, Laozi's elixir of long life, the wine of a heavenly banquet and the staff in his own hand out of the Dragon King's treasury — stands upon his dignity. 佛 is always fó.

The old man laughed: "If it is not stolen, why has it no saddle, no bridle and no rein — so that you must come and break my clothes-line?"

索子 is cord; 晒衣 is to dry clothes in the sun. The old man's logic is airtight and completely without malice, which makes it a great deal worse.

Sanzang made apology for him, saying: "This wild creature has nothing worse than a hasty temper.

陪禮 is to apologise on somebody else's behalf; 頑皮 is unruly, mischievous — still precisely what a Chinese parent says of a naughty child; 性燥 is written here for 性躁, a hasty temper. The monk steps into the one office he fills really well.

— If you wanted to tether the horse, you should have asked the old gentleman properly for a length of rope. How came you to snap his clothes-line?

The edition marks the change of address with a pair of long dashes: Sanzang swings round from his host to his disciple and back again inside a single speech. 好生 is "properly, with care". The reproof is a parent's, down to the word order.

— Old sir, do not take it amiss, do not take it amiss. This horse of ours, I tell you truly and conceal nothing, was not stolen.

休怪 is "don't take it amiss", doubled; 實不瞞你說 is "in truth I will hide nothing from you". Sanzang's candour is his charm, and his complete inability to stop talking is about to earn him a saddle.

Coming from the east yesterday, we reached Eagle-Grief Steep Gorge. We had a white horse to ride, with saddle and bridle complete.

俱全 is "complete in every part". He begins, as everybody incapable of a short answer begins, at the beginning.

But it fell out that in that gorge there was a vile dragon, grown to a sprite in the place, and it swallowed my horse, saddle, bridle and all, at a gulp.

不期 is "unlooked-for"; 成精 is grown into a sprite. 一口吞之, "swallowed it at one gulp", is the narrator's own phrase from the ambush, now coming out of the victim's mouth. 那澗 is the pointing nà.

Happily my disciple has some arts, and moved the Bodhisattva Guanyin to come to the gorge and seize that dragon;

感得 takes the unstressed de: moved her, so that she came. Sanzang is handing his disciple the credit for the Bodhisattva's arrival, which is close to the exact reverse of the truth — Wukong was forbidden to go and fetch her, and a Guardian went instead. He was not there. He is guessing, and guessing generously.

and she bade it change into the very white horse I used to ride, hair and markings all alike, to bear me west to worship the Buddha.

教 is causative, jiào; 毛片俱同 is "hair and markings all alike". He has the facts right at last. He simply was not present for any of them.

We crossed the gorge today, not one day since, and have come to your holy shrine, old sir — and I have not yet been able to procure a saddle and bridle."

還不曾 takes 還 as hái, "not yet"; 置得 takes the unstressed de, on the pattern of 接得 earlier. 老先 is a clipped 老先生. And here the missing saddle, first raised as an objection to riding at all, is simply confessed as a lack — and it lands, entirely by accident, in the one pair of ears in the country where it could possibly do any good.

The old man said: "Master, do not take it amiss. This old fellow spoke in jest; who could know your worthy disciple would take it in earnest?

作笑耍子 is to speak in fun, 耍子 taking the unstressed suffix zi; 認真 is to take a thing in earnest — still the everyday word, and still faintly reproachful. The apology is unnecessary and freely offered, which is its own quiet rebuke to the disciple.

When I was young I had a few country coppers, and was fond enough of riding a fine horse.

村錢 is "village money", a modest country competence. And now the old man begins telling his own history, which nobody has asked for.

But through years of misfortune heaped on misfortune, mourning and fire, I came at last to this pass; so I took service as keeper of this shrine, and tend its incense.

累歲 takes 累 as lěi, year upon year; 迍邅 zhūn zhān is to be beset, to have everything go hard; 遭喪 takes 喪 as sāng, a bereavement. 充為廟祝 — 為 read wéi, to serve as — a 廟祝 being the caretaker of a shrine. 沒了下梢 is "came to no good end". Count what is packed into that one sentence: years of ruin, a death in the family, a fire, and a beggar's post at the end of it.

Happily the households of the hamlet behind support me with their alms, and so I pass my days.

募化 is to beg alms; 度日 is to get through the days. A 施主 is a lay donor, Sanskrit dānapati — the same root as the almsgiving Sanzang will name in a moment. The man who is about to give away his one treasure lives entirely on other people's charity.

Now at my place there is still a saddle and bridle, a thing I have loved all my life; poor as I am, even so I could never bring myself to sell it.

我那裡 is the pointing nà, "at my place"; 倒還有 takes 還 as hái, "there is yet". Then the word that carries the passage: 捨得, with the unstressed de, means being able to bring yourself to part with something. It is still one of the most used words in Chinese for describing exactly what a person can and cannot give up. He could not 捨得 this saddle through fire, mourning and destitution. That is what makes the next page a gift rather than a transaction.

Just now, hearing the master's words — that a Bodhisattva should stoop to rescue a divine dragon, and bid it become a horse to carry you —

尚且 is "even, so much as"; 救護 is to rescue and shelter. The reasoning runs from the greater case to the lesser, and it is unanswerable: if a Bodhisattva will stoop that far, what excuse has a poor man got?

how then can this old fellow have so little as no help at all to give?

周濟 is material help given to somebody in need. The sentence is a modest double negative — he cannot have "even a little" to offer — so he states his own charity as though it were merely the avoidance of a disgrace.

Tomorrow I shall fetch out that saddle and bridle and gladly present them to the master, to be strapped upon its back for your journey. I beg you to accept them with a smile."

將 jiāng shunts the saddle in front of the verb; 扣背 is to buckle onto the back. 乞為笑納, with 為 read wéi, is the polite letter-writing formula for pressing a gift on somebody who might well refuse it: I beg you to accept this with a smile.

Hearing this, Sanzang thanked him beyond all measure. And soon the boy was seen bringing out the evening meal.

稱謝不盡 is to thank without coming to the end of one's thanks, with 盡 always jìn; 晚齋 is the evening meatless meal.

The meal done, they set up the lamps, laid out the bedding, and each lay down to rest.

掌上燈 is to raise the lamps; 安了鋪 is to lay out the bedding; 各各寢歇 is "each lay down to rest". A chapter that opened on a frozen road and a devoured horse subsides into the plainest domestic cadence in the book.