八戒奪食 Bajie Grabs the Food
旁邊卻惱壞了八戒,那獃子努著嘴,口裡埋怨道:「天下和尚也無數,不曾像我這個老和尚罷軟。現成的飯,三分兒倒不吃,只等那猴子來,做四分才吃。」他不容分說,一嘴把個罐子拱倒,就要動口。旁边却恼坏了八戒,那呆子努着嘴,口里埋怨道:「天下和尚也无数,不曾像我这个老和尚罢软。现成的饭,三分儿倒不吃,只等那猴子来,做四分才吃。」他不容分说,一嘴把个罐子拱倒,就要动口。
逐句解 Line by line
Off to the side, meanwhile, Eight Rules was fit to burst with vexation; the idiot thrust out his snout and grumbled: "There's no counting the monks in this world, but not one is as spineless as this old monk of mine!
努著嘴 is a pig shoving his snout out in a sulk, which is exactly the picture wanted. 罷軟 (bà ruǎn) is "spineless, feckless, a wet blanket" — Bajie's verdict on a master who will not let anybody eat. 惱壞了: vexed to bursting. And note the grudge underneath it. The reason nobody is eating is that they are waiting for Wukong. (著 is zhe, 數 is shù, and both instances of 子 are the toneless suffix; 那 points, nà.)
"Here's food ready and waiting, and he won't take even a third-share of it, but must hold out for that monkey to come and make it a quarter-share before he'll eat!"
Here is the whole of Bajie in one piece of arithmetic. Food divided three ways is a third each. Wait for the monkey and it becomes a quarter each. That is his objection to waiting, and he has worked it out to the fraction. 倒 (dào) is the adverb of grievance — won't eat it, if you please. The 兒 of 三分兒 is the small toneless tag; 那猴子 points, so nà, with 子 as the suffix zi.
And without another word he shoved the jar over with a thrust of his snout and was about to fall to.
拱 is what a pig does with its nose, and he does it to the jar. Watch the character that has just changed jobs: this 倒 is dǎo, "to topple over", where the one a line above was dào, the adverb of complaint. 不容分說 is "without waiting to be argued with". He is about to eat — and if he had, he would have found what is actually in that jar and blown the whole scheme open. Greed very nearly saves everybody.
Comic relief pitched at exactly the wrong moment, which is the point of it. A fiend stands disguised in front of the party, the master is hesitating, and Bajie's entire concern is the division of the rice — a third-share, a quarter-share, his portion shrinking if the monkey comes back. The gluttony is petty. It is also the low, believable human motive that keeps him needling at his rival, and so it feeds the larger rupture.
There is a grim comedy in Bajie nearly wrecking the demon's plan through sheer greed. He shoves the jar over and is about to fall on it — and that jar, as we shortly discover, holds not rice but maggots and toads. The scene is balanced on the edge of accidental discovery when Wukong drops out of the sky and takes it out of everybody's hands.