洞中悲啼 The Captive and the Woman
且不言他三人戰鬥。卻說那長老在洞裡悲啼，思量他那徒弟，眼中流淚道：「悟能啊，不知你在那個村中逢了善友，貪著齋供？悟淨啊，你又不知在那裡尋他，可能得會？豈知我遇妖魔，在此受難？幾時得會你們，脫了大難，早赴靈山？」正當悲啼煩惱，忽見那洞內走出一個婦人來，扶著定魂樁，叫道：「那長老，你從何來？為何被他縛在此處？」且不言他三人战斗。却说那长老在洞里悲啼，思量他那徒弟，眼中流泪道：「悟能啊，不知你在那个村中逢了善友，贪着斋供？悟净啊，你又不知在那里寻他，可能得会？岂知我遇妖魔，在此受难？几时得会你们，脱了大难，早赴灵山？」正当悲啼烦恼，忽见那洞内走出一个妇人来，扶着定魂桩，叫道：「那长老，你从何来？为何被他缚在此处？」
逐句解 Line by line
But leave aside the combat of the three. The elder, meanwhile, wept within the cave, and thinking of his disciples let the tears fall: 'Wuneng, ah — I know not in what village you have fallen among good friends and grown greedy for their almsfood; Wujing, ah — you too know not where to seek him, and can you even find him? Little did I think to fall in with a fiend and suffer this ordeal here. When shall I meet you again, escape this great affliction, and reach the Spirit Mountain betimes?'
The storyteller swings his camera off the battle and into the cell: 且不言 ("leave that aside") and 卻說 ("now to tell of") are the two halves of the turn. What we find there is Tripitaka weeping and apportioning his pathos in matched appeals, one to 悟能 (Eight Rules) and one to 悟淨 (Sha Monk) — and even in extremity he cannot resist accusing Eight Rules of gluttony. 貪著齋供, "greedy for the almsfood," takes 著 as the verb zhuó, the Buddhist 貪著, "to cleave to, to be attached." Both 那 in his questions are the interrogative nǎ ("in which village," "where"), and 受難 and 大難 both take 難 as nàn, an ordeal rather than a difficulty. 靈山 is Gṛdhrakūṭa, Vulture Peak, the far end of the road. Four questions, none of them answered — which is what leaves the scene open for somebody to walk into it.
Just as he grieved and fretted, of a sudden a woman came forth from within the cave, and steadying herself against the soul-fixing post, called out: 'You there, elder — whence do you come? Why has he bound you in this place?'
And somebody does, at the very top of the lament: 正當... 忽見, "just as he was..., suddenly he saw." The 定魂樁, the "soul-settling post" she steadies herself against, is the thing Tripitaka is lashed to — a nasty piece of furniture, well suited to an ogre's house. 扶著 uses 著 as the ongoing-action zhe. Her two blunt questions — 你從何來, where have you come from, and 為何被他縛在此處, why has he tied you up here, with 為 read wèi — open the recognition scene that drives the whole rest of the chapter.
With one turn of the storyteller's phrase (且不言... 卻說...) the chapter drops the noise of battle for the quiet of the cell, and action for interior life. Tripitaka's lament is one of his set arias of self-pity, but it is finely observed: even tied to a post awaiting the pot, he cannot help imagining that Eight Rules has been distracted by a free meal — 貪著齋供, greedy for the almsfood — the very appetite that has endangered the group a dozen times already. Sha Monk he credits only with confusion. The four unanswered questions build the pathos and, structurally, hold the door open.
Through it comes the woman. Her plainness of speech — where from, why bound — is the idiom of recognition drama: she does not yet know who he is, and he has no idea she is a prisoner too rather than a member of the household. The 定魂樁 she leans on names, with grim aptness, the fittings of the lair. And her two questions start the exchange from which everything else in the chapter unfolds — the letter, the embassy to Baoxiang, the summoning of the disciples to court, and the disaster that follows all three.