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？」行者擡头看了道：「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, "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 — listed in one breath with wolves and tigers, which tells the reader precisely how the frontier looked from Cháng'ān.
Time ran swiftly on, and it was the season of early spring once more.
光陰迅速, "light and shade run fast," the standard formula for elapsed time. The bitter twelfth month on which this chapter opened, when the ground was glazed with ice and a dragon lay under the water, has turned 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.
但見 introduces here not verse but a passage of parallel prose. 柳眼, "the willow's eye," is the classical figure for the first unfurling leaf-bud; 梅英落盡, "the plum's blossoms utterly fallen" (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, "to travel and take pleasure in the spring light." The cadence is almost that of the sentence which brought them to the village shrine; the road's own rhythm reasserting itself after the marvels.
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.
勒馬 takes 勒 as lè, "to rein in" — the same verb with which Sanzang drew up at the gorge in the chapter's fifth sentence. Then there was a rein and no dragon; now there is a dragon, and a rein to check him with. 影影 and 沉沉 are reduplicatives: "faintly showing," "sunk in stillness."
Said Sanzang: "Wukong, look — what sort of place is that yonder?"
那裡 is here the interrogative, 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.
Again the master asks and the disciple reads the roofline. It is the signature gesture of the pair — and the monastery, when they reach it, will 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.
那裡 is here demonstrative, nà, "yonder" — set against the interrogative nǎ two lines above, the same two graphs read two ways within one exchange. 放開龍馬, "to let the dragon-horse run": the will-horse, reined at last, is given his head, and goes 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 north 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 by a god in rags.
The last sentence is the chapter's quiet triumph. 三藏勒馬遙觀 — Sanzang reins in his horse and gazes out — is verbatim the gesture he made at Eagle-Grief Gorge before the water erupted, except that then he was reining a common mount and now he checks a dragon; and when they decide to go 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 means: not that the will is broken, but that it can now be held and loosed. The pilgrimage, for the first time, is properly equipped to travel.