天晚安歇 Shelter at Nightfall
正走處,不覺天晚。三藏道:「徒弟,如今天色又晚,卻往那裡安歇?」行者道:「師父說話差了。出家人餐風宿水,臥月眠霜,隨處是家。又問那裡安歇,何也?」豬八戒道:「哥啊,你可知道你走路輕省,那裡管別人累墜?自過了流沙河,這一向爬山過嶺,身挑著重擔,老大難挨也。須是尋個人家,一則化些茶飯,二則養養精神,才是個道理。」行者道:「獃子,你這般言語,似有報怨之心。還像在高老莊倚懶不求福的自在,恐不能也。既是秉正沙門,須是要吃辛受苦,才做得徒弟哩。」正走处,不觉天晚。三藏道:「徒弟,如今天色又晚,却往那里安歇?」行者道:「师父说话差了。出家人餐风宿水,卧月眠霜,随处是家。又问那里安歇,何也?」猪八戒道:「哥啊,你可知道你走路轻省,那里管别人累坠?自过了流沙河,这一向爬山过岭,身挑着重担,老大难挨也。须是寻个人家,一则化些茶饭,二则养养精神,才是个道理。」行者道:「呆子,你这般言语,似有报怨之心。还像在高老庄倚懒不求福的自在,恐不能也。既是秉正沙门,须是要吃辛受苦,才做得徒弟哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
Just as they were pressing on, before they knew it evening had fallen.
A short hinge, turning the scenery back into a story: 正走處, just as they were walking along.
Sanzang said, "Disciples, the sky darkens once again — where are we to go and rest?"
In 那裡, meaning where, the 那 is the question-word nǎ rather than the pointing nà — the same two characters, two jobs, and this chapter uses both dozens of times. 安歇 is to put up for the night.
Pilgrim said, "Master, you speak amiss.
說話差了, you have spoken wrongly, with 差 as chà, to be off, to err.
One who has left the household feeds on the wind and lodges by the water, sleeps beneath the moon and beds down in the frost — everywhere is home.
Wukong answers with a string of set phrases about homelessness: 餐風宿水 and 臥月眠霜, dine on wind and lodge by water, lie under the moon and bed down in frost. 隨處是家, everywhere is home, is the motto they add up to — and a sharp jab at a disciple who has just started pining for a roof.
Why, then, ask where we shall lodge?"
何也, why so? And 那裡 is once more the question-word nǎ.
Zhu Bajie said, "Brother — do you know how light your own travelling is? What do you care for another's weary burden?
Bajie's reply is the complaint of a man carrying the bags for somebody who is not. 輕省 (qīng shěng) is travelling light and easy; 那裡管, as if you would care, is the 那 of rhetorical questions, nǎ again; 累墜 is the drag of a heavy load on a body.
Ever since we crossed the Flowing-Sands River, all this while it has been climbing mountains and crossing ridges, my body shouldering the heavy load — hard, so hard to bear!
一向 is all this while. In 挑著 the 著 is the little zhe that keeps an action running — shouldering, and going on shouldering. 重擔, the heavy load, takes 重 as zhòng; 老大 is a colloquial intensifier, greatly, mightily; 難挨 is hard to endure.
We really must find a household: first, to beg a little tea and rice; second, to restore our spirits — that would be the sensible course."
化些茶飯 — 化 is the monk's word for begging alms. Bajie lays his case out in numbered points, 一則 and then 二則, like a man presenting a budget. Keep an eye on what he is asking for: the 人家, the household, is about to appear on cue, and it is a trap.
Pilgrim said, "Idiot! Talk like this sounds like a grumbling, resentful heart.
獃子, blockhead, is what Wukong calls Bajie roughly every time he opens his mouth. 似有 uses 似 (sì), to seem; 報怨 here stands for 抱怨, to nurse a grievance.
Still hankering after the idle ease of Gao Village — shirking effort, seeking no blessing — that, I fear, will not do.
還 is hái, still. 高老莊, Gao Village, is where Bajie had settled down as a live-in son-in-law until Wukong hauled him out of it five chapters back; naming it is a low blow, and an accurate one. 倚懶 is to lean on your own laziness, and 不求福 to chase no merit at all.
Now that you are a monk who holds to the right, you must eat bitterness and bear hardship — only so do you make a true disciple!"
沙門 is śramaṇa, a Buddhist mendicant; 秉正 is to hold to the orthodox. In 做得徒弟 the 得 is the structural de of managing to be something, not the verb dé, to get.
The chapter's comic engine starts here, in the friction between what Bajie's body wants and what Wukong's doctrine demands. Bajie complains entirely in the flesh — the weight of the pack, the endless ridges, no tea and no rice. Wukong answers entirely from the rule book: a real monk is at home anywhere and seeks hardship on purpose. That argument, flesh against spirit, is the one this novel never stops having.
The passage is thick with the vocabulary of having no home — dine on wind, sleep in frost, everywhere is home, hold to the orthodox — all of it praising the man who owns nothing and belongs nowhere. Against that, Bajie pleads the memory of Gao Village and the comfortable life he lost there. This is not idle. The trial about to be set for these four is a household, a wife, and a life of ease: exactly the thing Bajie has just been caught wishing for, out loud, in front of witnesses.
Two readings anchor the scene: the question-word 那 (nǎ) that keeps recurring in 那裡 and 那裡管, and the structural 得 (de) of managing-to-be in 做得徒弟. And the irony is laid on with a trowel: Bajie asks for a household to shelter in, and the story is about to hand him one built specifically to expose him.