唐僧望見 Tripitaka Spies the Woman
三藏見了,叫:「八戒、沙僧,悟空才說這裡曠野無人,你看那裡不走出一個人來了?」八戒道:「師父,你與沙僧坐著,等老豬去看看來。」三藏见了,叫:「八戒、沙僧,悟空才说这里旷野无人,你看那里不走出一个人来了?」八戒道:「师父,你与沙僧坐着,等老猪去看看来。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka, seeing her, called out: "Eight Rules! Sha Monk! Wukong said just now that this wilderness held no one — but look, there's a person coming out over there!"
Here is the irony the whole chapter turns on, and it takes one sentence. Tripitaka quotes Wukong's own report — there is nobody out here — and treats it not as grounds for suspicion but as grounds for wonder. The fact that should have set off every alarm is the fact he finds charming. On the reading: this 那裡 points at something he can already see, so it is the pointing nà, "look, over there", not the questioning nǎ lǐ, "where", that has turned up several times already. The 了 in 見了 and 來了 marks the action done.
Said Eight Rules, "Master, you and Sha Monk sit tight — let old Hog go and take a look."
老豬 (lǎo zhū), "old Hog", is how Bajie refers to himself throughout the novel — mock-humble and quietly boastful at once, the way somebody says "leave it to your old dad". 坐著 keeps the other two sitting, 著 as zhe. And note who volunteers. He has not seen her face yet, and he is already on his feet.
The passage turns on a sharp irony of quotation. Tripitaka repeats Wukong's plain and entirely accurate report — this wilderness holds nobody — and takes it for a marvel rather than a warning. His misreading starts here, before a single illusion has been tried on him. He is primed to be curious exactly where he ought to be careful.
Bajie volunteering to go and look starts the comic interlude running, and it makes a structural point at the same time. His eagerness stands against the absence of the one disciple whose eyes would have gone through the disguise from a hundred paces. The party's real protection is the disciple who is not there.