獻茶論寶 Tea, and Talk of Treasures
那老僧也只當一句瘋話，便不介意，也不再問，只叫獻茶。有一個小幸童，拿出一個羊脂玉的盤兒，有三個法藍鑲金的茶鍾。又一童，提一把白銅壺兒，斟了三杯香茶。真個是色欺榴蕊豔，味勝桂花香。三藏見了，誇愛不盡道：「好物件，好物件，真是美食美器。」那老僧道：「污眼，污眼。老爺乃天朝上國，廣覽奇珍，似這般器具，何足過獎？老爺自上邦來，可有甚麼寶貝，借與弟子一觀？」那老僧也只当一句疯话，便不介意，也不再问，只叫献茶。有一个小幸童，拿出一个羊脂玉的盘儿，有三个法蓝镶金的茶钟。又一童，提一把白铜壶儿，斟了三杯香茶。真个是色欺榴蕊艳，味胜桂花香。三藏见了，夸爱不尽道：「好物件，好物件，真是美食美器。」那老僧道：「污眼，污眼。老爷乃天朝上国，广览奇珍，似这般器具，何足过奖？老爷自上邦来，可有甚么宝贝，借与弟子一观？」
逐句解 Line by line
The old monk took it for a mad remark, gave it no thought, asked no more, and simply called for tea.
Wukong has just implied he is older than a man of two hundred and seventy, and the abbot does not register it at all. 只當 — 當 is dàng, "to take as, to regard as" — he treats it as a mad remark and lets it go. Deafness is this old man's besetting sin. He cannot hear a claim about a thousand years, because his world is furnished entirely with things, and a thousand years is not a thing.
A young page came out bearing a tray of mutton-fat jade, and upon it three enamelled teacups rimmed with gold.
幸童 is the favoured boy-attendant. 羊脂玉, "mutton-fat jade," is the prized white nephrite, valued for looking exactly like cold lamb fat. 法藍 is cloisonné enamel (later written 琺瑯); 茶鍾 (chá zhōng) is a small handleless cup. The 兒 of 盤兒 is a diminutive — the little tag Chinese hangs on a noun to make it small and familiar, the way English says "a nice cup of tea." It is unstressed, and reads er.
Another page carried in a white-brass pot and poured three cups of fragrant tea. Truly its colour shamed the pomegranate's bloom, and its savour surpassed the scent of osmanthus.
白銅 is paktong, the nickel-copper alloy that passed for silver. Then a matched pair of praise-lines: 色欺榴蕊豔，味勝桂花香 — verse in shape, prose in rhythm, the sort of ornament Ming storytellers drop into narration without stopping. 榴蕊 are pomegranate stamens, 桂花 the sweet osmanthus. Note that the tea is praised in the same breath as the jade it is served in.
Sanzang, seeing them, could not praise them enough. "Fine things, fine things," he said. "Fine food indeed, and in fine vessels."
誇愛不盡 is "praised and admired without end" (盡 is always jìn). 美食美器 is proverbial: fine food asks for fine vessels. And here the disaster begins. Sanzang, warned three lines ago about giving offence, now gives it himself in the politest way available — he admires. Everything that follows follows from an unguarded compliment.
"They offend the eye, they offend the eye," said the old monk. "Your reverence is from the celestial court, a superior kingdom, and has surveyed its rarest treasures. Vessels such as these — what are they, to be praised so?
污眼, "they soil the eye," is the set formula for running down one's own possessions, the Ming equivalent of "oh, this old thing." 似這般 takes sì. Every word here is modesty and every word is bait: the disclaimer exists to fish for the next compliment, and the question it leads to has been waiting since the old man came into the room.
"Since your reverence comes from a superior land, have you perhaps some treasure you would lend this disciple for a single look?"
甚麼 is shén. 借與…一觀 is "lend it for one viewing." And there is the verb again. 借, "to borrow," was last heard when Sanzang asked to borrow a night's lodging; from this line on it takes the chapter over and never lets go. A cassock is borrowed for a night. A fire-shield is borrowed from Heaven. Only one of the two borrowings is honoured.
The tea-service is the chapter in miniature. A jade tray, enamelled cups rimmed with gold, a white-brass pot, tea whose colour shames the pomegranate: an old monk who called himself rotten ailanthus wood ten lines ago produces, at a word, a table-setting fit for a prince. Nobody in the room finds the contradiction worth a remark, least of all Sanzang, who admires it warmly. The Buddhist critique of possession has become, in this house, a style of speech about possessions.
And the trap closes on a courtesy. 污眼，污眼 — "it offends the eye" — is what a host must say of his own porcelain. 可有甚麼寶貝，借與弟子一觀？ is what he must not say next. The old man is asking a guest to display his valuables. Sanzang, whose instinct is sound, will decline in the very first line of the next passage; it is Wukong, the disciple just rebuked for not knowing high from low, who will overrule him. The novel is exact about how disasters get made — not out of malice, but out of a compliment, a disclaimer, and a boy who cannot bear to be thought poor.