群猴訴苦 The Monkeys' Lament
那大聖正當悲切，只聽得那芳草坡前，曼荊凹內，響一聲，跳出七八個小猴，一擁上前，圍住叩頭。高叫道：「大聖爺爺，今日來家了？」美猴王道：「你們因何不耍不頑，一個個都潛蹤隱跡？我來多時了，不見你們形影，何也？」群猴聽說，一個個垂淚告道：「自大聖擒拿上界，我們被獵人之苦，著實難捱。怎禁他硬弩強弓，黃鷹劣犬，網扣槍鉤，故此各惜性命，不敢出頭頑耍，只是深潛洞府，遠避窩巢。饑去坡前偷草食，渴來澗下吸清泉。卻才聽得大聖爺爺聲音，特來接見，伏望扶持。」那大圣正当悲切，只听得那芳草坡前，曼荆凹内，响一声，跳出七八个小猴，一拥上前，围住叩头。高叫道：「大圣爷爷，今日来家了？」美猴王道：「你们因何不耍不顽，一个个都潜踪隐迹？我来多时了，不见你们形影，何也？」群猴听说，一个个垂泪告道：「自大圣擒拿上界，我们被猎人之苦，着实难挨。怎禁他硬弩强弓，黄鹰劣犬，网扣枪钩，故此各惜性命，不敢出头顽耍，只是深潜洞府，远避窝巢。饥去坡前偷草食，渴来涧下吸清泉。却才听得大圣爷爷声音，特来接见，伏望扶持。」
逐句解 Line by line
Just as the Great Sage stood at the height of his grief, he heard, from the grassy slope before him and the hollow of tangled brush, a sudden noise; and seven or eight little monkeys sprang out, rushed forward in a throng, and pressed about him, knocking their heads to the ground.
The wasteland turns out not to be empty. Seven or eight small monkeys break cover and are on him before he can move. 只聽得 uses 得 in its unstressed form, de, hooking a result onto the verb: heard, and what he heard was this. 那 points twice, 那大聖 and 那芳草, and is nà both times.
They cried aloud, “Grandfather Great Sage, have you come home today?”
爺爺 is what his subjects call him, and the affection is in the sound as much as the sense: the first character carries its tone, yé, and the second drops to a neutral ye, the way English softens a name into a pet name. Something like Grandad.
Said the Handsome Monkey King, “Why is it you do not romp and play, but skulk one and all in hiding? I have been here a good while and seen no sign of you — how is this?”
都 is dōu, every one of them. His first question is not what has happened but why nobody is playing — he has been reading the mountain and has not yet understood it.
Hearing this, the monkeys one and all shed tears and answered, “Since you, Great Sage, were seized and carried to the upper realm, we have suffered bitterly at the hunters' hands — truly it has been hard to endure. How could we withstand their stiff crossbows and mighty bows, their yellow hawks and vicious hounds, their nets and snares, their spears and hooks? And so, each of us clinging to his life, we dared not show our heads to play, but only burrowed deep in the caverns and shunned our nests far off.
Now they tell him, and the answer is a weapons list. Crossbows, bows, hawks, hounds, nets, snares, spears, hooks. 著實 is zhuó, one of the four readings this hard-working character takes across the novel, and here it simply means truly, really. 難 is nán, hard to bear.
When hungry we crept to the slope to steal a bite of grass; when thirsty we came down to the gorge to sip the clear spring. Just now, catching the sound of your voice, Grandfather Great Sage, we hurried out to meet you, and beg only that you take us under your care.”
聽得 again takes the unstressed de. The detail that lands is the diet: stealing grass on the slope, drinking from the gorge. These are fruit-eating monkeys from a mountain named for its fruit, and they are reduced to grazing.
The wasteland has survivors, and their arrival turns the chapter's grief from scenery into speech. Where the poem lamented scorched trees, the monkeys lament themselves: hunted, starving, driven underground. Calling Wukong Grandfather Great Sage restores him, for a moment, to the kingship he lost, and their tears answer his.
The passage quietly rearranges the reader's sympathies. Wukong has just been thrown out by Tripitaka for killing — for too much violence — and he comes home to find his own people on the receiving end of human violence, hunted for sport and for meat. The monkeys' catalogue of weapons inverts the moral world of the pilgrimage: here the monkeys are the innocents and men are the predators. The chapter is preparing a revenge it wants the reader to feel as justice, and it will complicate that feeling later.