逐去行者 Wukong Dismissed
行者道：「師父，你教我回那裡去？」唐僧道：「我不要你做徒弟。」行者道：「你不要我做徒弟，只怕你西天路去不成。」唐僧道：「我命在天，該那個妖精蒸了吃，就是煮了，也算不過。終不然，你救得我的大限？你快回去。」行者道：「师父，你教我回那里去？」唐僧道：「我不要你做徒弟。」行者道：「你不要我做徒弟，只怕你西天路去不成。」唐僧道：「我命在天，该那个妖精蒸了吃，就是煮了，也算不过。终不然，你救得我的大限？你快回去。」
逐句解 Line by line
Said Pilgrim, "Master — where would you have me go back to?"
你教我回那裡去 "where would you have me go back?" — 那裡 (nǎ lǐ) interrogative ("where"), hence 那 (nǎ); 教 (jiào) "to have [one] do." Wukong's question is not defiance but genuine — he has no home to return to but this pilgrimage.
The Tang Monk said, "I want you no longer for a disciple."
我不要你做徒弟 "I do not want you as a disciple." The flat renunciation, curt and absolute, refuses even to argue — the elder's hurt pride hardening into rejection.
Said Pilgrim, "You may not want me for a disciple — but I fear your road to the Western Heaven will come to nothing."
去不成 (qù bù chéng) "will not succeed, cannot be accomplished." Wukong's retort is plain fact, not threat: without him the quest cannot be completed, as the wider novel repeatedly bears out. The elder hears it only as impudence.
The Tang Monk said, "My life rests with Heaven. If it is fated that this fiend should steam me for the eating — even boil me — that too is beyond changing.
我命在天 (wǒ mìng zài tiān) "my fate lies with Heaven" — the elder's fatalism, at once pious and reckless. 該那個妖精蒸了吃 (gāi nà ge yāo jīng zhēng le chī) "destined for that fiend to steam and eat," 那 (nà). 算不過 (suàn bú guò) "cannot be reckoned otherwise, is unavoidable." He would rather trust his fate to Heaven than his eyes to Wukong.
"After all — could you save me from my allotted end?
終不然 (zhōng bù rán) "in the end, surely not" (a rhetorical opener). 救得 "[could you] save," 得 (de) the potential complement; 大限 (dà xiàn) "the great limit" — one's fated hour of death. The elder's fatalism becomes a rebuke: Wukong cannot avert destiny, so his protection is presumption.
"Off with you, and quickly."
你快回去 (nǐ kuài huí qù) "go back at once." The repeated, curt dismissal seals the elder's resolve — and prompts, in the next passage, Wukong's kneeling appeal.
The dismissal-scene turns on Tripitaka's fatalism: 我命在天, "my life rests with Heaven." It is a genuinely pious sentiment — a resignation to destiny — but here it curdles into recklessness and even cruelty, a willingness to be steamed by a fiend rather than to trust the disciple who would prevent it. The elder mistakes stubbornness for faith.
Wukong's replies are notable for their restraint and their accuracy. He does not bluster; he states the plain fact — "your road to the Western Heaven will come to nothing" — which the novel as a whole confirms, and asks the honest question of a being with nowhere else to belong: "where would you have me go back to?" Each true word is heard by the elder as mere impertinence.
The passage deepens the chapter's central asymmetry. The master wields absolute authority (he can dismiss the Great Sage with a word) yet possesses none of the sight that authority ought to require; the disciple possesses the sight but, bound by the fillet and by loyalty, must beg. It is this cruel gap between power and perception that the next passage's plea tries, movingly, to bridge.