早春前行 Two Months of Peaceful Road
此去行有兩個月太平之路，相遇的都是些羅羅、回回、狼蟲虎豹。光陰迅速，又值早春時候。但見山林錦翠色，草木發青芽；梅英落盡，柳眼初開。師徒們行玩春光，又見太陽西墜。三藏勒馬遙觀，山凹裡有樓臺影影，殿閣沉沉。三藏道：「悟空，你看那裡是甚麼去處？」行者擡頭看了道：「不是殿宇，定是寺院。我們趕起些，那裡借宿去。」三藏欣然從之，放開龍馬，徑奔前來。此去行有两个月太平之路，相遇的都是些罗罗、回回、狼虫虎豹。光阴迅速，又值早春时候。但见山林锦翠色，草木发青芽；梅英落尽，柳眼初开。师徒们行玩春光，又见太阳西坠。三藏勒马遥观，山凹里有楼台影影，殿阁沉沉。三藏道：「悟空，你看那里是甚么去处？」行者抬头看了道：「不是殿宇，定是寺院。我们赶起些，那里借宿去。」三藏欣然从之，放开龙马，径奔前来。
逐句解 Line by line
From there they travelled some two months of peaceful road, and those they met with were Lolo and Hui folk, wolves and serpents, tigers and leopards.
行有兩個月 is "travelled a matter of two months". 相遇 takes 相 as xiāng, and 都 is dōu. The 羅羅 and 回回 are the Lolo (Yi) and the Hui, peoples of the western marches — and they are listed in one breath with wolves and tigers, which tells you precisely how the frontier looked from Cháng'ān, and how little the novel expected its readers to object.
Time ran swiftly on, and it was the season of early spring once more.
光陰迅速, "light and shade run fast", is the standard formula for time passing off-stage. The bitter twelfth month this chapter opened in — the glazed ground, the north wind, the dragon under the water — has come all the way round to spring.
And this was the sight: on hill and in wood a brocade of kingfisher green; on grass and tree the shooting of blue buds; the plum-blossom wholly fallen, the willow's eye first opening.
Here 但見 introduces not verse but a short run of parallel prose, balanced clause against clause without becoming a poem. 柳眼, "the willow's eye", is the classical figure for the first leaf-bud just breaking — the slit of green that looks exactly like an eye opening. 梅英落盡 is "the plum blossom wholly fallen", with 盡 always jìn. The winter that swallowed a horse is over.
Master and disciple journeyed on, taking their pleasure in the light of spring, until they saw the sun sinking westward again.
行玩春光 is to travel along enjoying the light of spring. The cadence is nearly that of the sentence which brought them to the village shrine — the road's own rhythm reasserting itself once the marvels are done with.
Sanzang reined in his horse and gazed afar: in a fold of the hills were the shadowy shapes of towers and terraces, and halls that lay sunk in stillness.
And here is the gesture again. 勒馬, with 勒 read lè, to rein in, is precisely what Sanzang did in the chapter's fifth sentence, on the brink of Eagle-Grief Gorge. Then he had a rein and no dragon. Now he has a dragon, and a rein to check him with. 影影 and 沉沉 each double a syllable: faintly showing, sunk in stillness.
Said Sanzang: "Wukong, look — what sort of place is that yonder?"
那裡 is the question here, nǎ; 甚麼 takes 甚 as shén. The exchange repeats, nearly word for word, the one that preceded the Shrine of Village and Soil.
The Pilgrim raised his head, looked, and said: "That is no palace hall. It must certainly be a monastery.
Once again the master asks and the disciple reads the roofline. It is the signature gesture of this pair — and the monastery, when they get to it, is going to cost them a great deal more than a night's lodging.
Let us press on a little, and beg a night's lodging there." Sanzang gladly assented, gave the dragon-horse his head, and made straight for it.
And now 那裡 is the pointing nà, "over yonder" — set against the question nǎ two lines above. The same two characters, read two ways, inside one short exchange; the chapter has been doing this since its second sentence and it does it once more on the way out. Then 放開龍馬, "let the dragon-horse run": the will-horse, reined at last, is given his head and goes exactly where he is pointed.
Two months of road pass in a sentence and winter turns to spring. The chapter opened in the twelfth month with a wind that cut and ground glazed like glass; it closes among fallen plum blossom and the willow's first green eye. Between the two lies everything: a horse devoured, a dragon subdued, a Bodhisattva quarrelled with, a gorge crossed, a saddle given away by a god in rags.
The last sentence is the chapter's quiet triumph, and it works by repetition. 三藏勒馬遙觀 — Sanzang reins in his horse and gazes out — is word for word the gesture he made at Eagle-Grief Gorge just before the water erupted, except that then he was checking a common mount and now he is checking a dragon. And when they decide to press on, he 放開龍馬, gives the dragon-horse his head.
Rein and release, both freely done, both freely obeyed. That is what 意馬收韁 actually means, and it is worth being clear about it: not that the will has been broken, but that it can now be held and let go. The pilgrimage, for the first time, is properly equipped to travel.