南山紅點 A Patch of Red on South Mountain
行者將身一縱，跳上雲端裡，手搭涼篷，睜眼觀看。可憐西方路甚是寂寞，更無莊堡人家，正是多逢樹木，少見人煙去處。看多時，只見正南上有一座高山，那山向陽處，有一片鮮紅的點子。行者按下雲頭道：「師父，有吃的了。」那長老問甚東西。行者道：「這裡沒人家化飯，那南山有一片紅的，想必是熟透了的山桃，我去摘幾個來你充饑。」三藏喜道：「出家人若有桃子吃，就為上分了。」行者取了缽盂，縱起祥光，你看他觔斗幌幌，冷氣颼颼，須臾間，奔南山摘桃不題。行者将身一纵，跳上云端里，手搭凉篷，睁眼观看。可怜西方路甚是寂寞，更无庄堡人家，正是多逢树木，少见人烟去处。看多时，只见正南上有一座高山，那山向阳处，有一片鲜红的点子。行者按下云头道：「师父，有吃的了。」那长老问甚东西。行者道：「这里没人家化饭，那南山有一片红的，想必是熟透了的山桃，我去摘几个来你充饥。」三藏喜道：「出家人若有桃子吃，就为上分了。」行者取了钵盂，纵起祥光，你看他觔斗幌幌，冷气飕飕，须臾间，奔南山摘桃不题。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim gave his body a heave and leapt up onto the clouds; shading his eyes with a hand like an awning, he opened them wide and looked about.
將身一縱: "taking his body, gave one bound" — 將 (jiāng) is the coverb "to take, with," not the martial 將 (jiàng) "general." 手搭涼篷 "hand raised as a cool awning" is a stock gesture for shading the eyes to scan a distance. 觀看 (guān kàn): "to observe, look," with 觀 (guān) in its plain verbal sense (as in 觀音), not the temple-reading 觀 (guàn).
Alas, the road to the West was drear and desolate indeed — not a hamlet or homestead anywhere — a country, in truth, where one met many trees but seldom the smoke of men.
可憐 (kě lián) here is the narrator's exclamatory "alas, pitiably," not "lovable." 甚是寂寞 (shèn shì jì mò): "truly desolate" — 甚 (shèn) "very, extremely." 人煙 (rén yān) "the smoke of human hearths" = human habitation. The emptiness is not idle scene-setting: it is precisely because there is no one for miles that the lone figure about to appear will seem so anomalous — and so suspect.
After looking a good while, he spied due south a high mountain, and on its sunlit face a single patch of bright red.
看多時 (kàn duō shí): "having looked a long while." 向陽 (xiàng yáng) "facing the sun, on the sunny slope." 一片鮮紅的點子: "a patch of vivid red" — the suffix 子 (zi) is the toneless nominal ending on 點子 "a spot, dot." This red patch, which Wukong will read as ripe peaches, is the innocuous detail that lures him away and leaves the master unguarded.
Pilgrim pressed his cloud down and said, "Master, there's food to be had!"
按下雲頭 (àn xià yún tóu): "to press down the cloud-head," i.e. descend. 有吃的了: "there is [something] to eat now," the sentence-final 了 (le) marking the change of state. Wukong's cheerful report is dramatically ironic — his going for the food is exactly what the watching demon requires.
The elder asked what it was.
問甚東西: "asked what thing" — here 甚 (shén) is the interrogative "what" (as in 甚麼), distinct from the intensifier 甚 (shèn) "very" seen above. A terse narratorial bridge into Wukong's explanation.
Pilgrim said, "There are no houses here to beg a meal from, but on that southern mountain is a patch of red — ripe mountain peaches, surely, by now. I'll go pluck a few to stave off your hunger."
化飯 (huà fàn) "to beg a meal." 熟透了 (shú tòu le) "ripened right through." 山桃 (shān táo) "wild mountain peach." 充饑 (chōng jī) "to stay hunger, take the edge off." The peaches are a small, homely wish that the narrative will honour and pervert at once: Wukong will indeed return with them, but only after the demon has thrice been slain and the master thrice deceived.
Tripitaka said gladly, "If a monk may have peaches to eat, that would be a rare blessing indeed."
出家人 (chū jiā rén): "one who has left the household," a monk. 就為上分了: "that would count as a superior portion [of fortune]" — 為 (wéi) is the copular "to be, count as," and 分 (fèn) is "an allotted share, one's portion of luck," not 分 (fēn) "to divide." The elder's simple gratitude here makes his imminent cruelty toward Wukong the more poignant.
Pilgrim took up his alms-bowl, sprang aloft on an auspicious light — and see him now, somersault swaying, cold air whistling by — in an instant he was off to the southern mountain to pick peaches: but of that no more for now.
缽盂 (bō yú): the monk's alms-bowl. 觔斗 (jīn dǒu) is a graphic variant of 筋斗 "a somersault" — 斗 (dǒu) here, as in 觔斗雲, is "a ladle/tumble," not 斗 (dòu). The reduplicatives 幌幌 (huǎng huǎng) "swaying" and 颼颼 (sōu sōu) "whistling" render the rush of flight. 不題 (bù tí) "[we] leave this untold" is the storyteller's standard formula for shifting the scene — here, pointedly, back to the master left alone.
Structurally this passage performs the separation on which the whole plot depends. Wukong must be sent away for the demon to approach, and the narrative motivates his going with perfect naturalness: the elder is hungry, the land is empty, and a promising patch of red appears on a far slope. The 不題 formula that ends the passage — "of that no more for now" — deliberately parks Wukong offstage at the exact moment his master becomes vulnerable.
The emptiness of the western road is dwelt on with unusual insistence (甚是寂寞, 少見人煙). It is doing double duty: it justifies Wukong's long-range flight to find food, and it establishes the improbability that will later confirm his suspicions — for in a country "where one seldom meets the smoke of men," a solitary young woman strolling the mountainside can only be an apparition. The reader is thus equipped to see through the demon before Tripitaka does.
Note too the pathos the narrator lays up in advance. The elder's small, grateful wish for peaches (就為上分了, "a rare blessing") and Wukong's willing errand to fetch them frame the two in a moment of ordinary tenderness — the last such moment before the illusions begin and the bond between them is torn apart.