意馬心猿 The Horse of the Will and the Monkey of the Heart
卻說那小龍潛於水底，半個時辰聽不見聲息，方才咬著牙，忍著腿疼跳將起去。踏著烏雲，徑轉館驛，還變作依舊馬匹，伏於槽下。可憐渾身是水，腿有傷痕。那時節：却说那小龙潜于水底，半个时辰听不见声息，方才咬着牙，忍着腿疼跳将起去。踏着乌云，径转馆驿，还变作依旧马匹，伏于槽下。可怜浑身是水，腿有伤痕。那时节：
逐句解 Line by line
Now the little dragon lay hidden at the bottom of the water; and only after half a double-hour, hearing no sound above, did he grit his teeth and, enduring the pain of his leg, spring up and away.
半個時辰 is half a 時辰 — the day was divided into twelve of these, so one runs two of our hours and half of one is about sixty minutes. He lies on the bottom of a moat for an hour, bleeding, listening. In 咬著牙 and 忍著 the 著 is zhe; in 跳將起去 the 將 carrying the motion is jiāng. 那 is pointing nà.
Treading a black cloud, he made straight back to the hostel, changed again into his former horse-shape, and lay down beneath the trough.
In 踏著 the 著 is zhe; 還變作, changed back again, takes 還 as hái. He puts the halter back on himself. Nobody saw him go and nobody sees him return.
Piteous — his whole body soaked, his leg gashed and scarred. At that hour:
The lead-in to the couplet. 傷痕 is a wound-scar; 那 is pointing nà. A soaked, bruised horse lying under a feed trough is the image the verse is about to lift into cosmology.
The Horse of the Will and the Monkey of the Heart are all dispersed; the Metal Lord and the Wood Mother are withered utterly away.
This is the chapter's title couplet, and the heart of the inner-alchemy reading that runs under the whole novel. The pilgrims double as the phases of a self being refined. 意馬, the Horse of the Will, is the dragon-horse; 心猿, the Monkey of the Heart, is Sun Wukong. 金公, the Metal Lord, and 木母, the Wood Mother, are further Five Phases names for the disciples. 都 is dōu; 盡凋零 takes 盡 as jìn.
the Yellow Dame is hurt and marred, and all is set asunder; the Way and its rightness dwindle and fail — how shall the work be brought to pass!
黃婆, the Yellow Dame — the mediating Earth phase, here Sha Wujing — completes the roster; 道義 is the Way and its rightness. 分別 takes 分 as fēn; 怎得成, "how can it come off," takes 得 as dé. Read plainly it says the party has fallen apart. Read the other way it says a person has.
This is the passage the chapter is named for, and its couplet opens out the allegory that runs half-submerged beneath the whole novel. On the inner-alchemical reading the pilgrims embody the Five Phases (五行) of a self under cultivation: 心猿, the Monkey of the Heart, is the restless mind, which is Sun Wukong; 意馬, the Horse of the Will, is intention, which is the dragon-horse; 金公 and 木母, Metal Lord and Wood Mother, and 黃婆, the Yellow Dame, are the remaining phases that mediate between them.
The force of the couplet is that it reads the plot as a psychology. With the Mind-Monkey banished and the company scattered, the phases are "dispersed" and "withered" — the cultivated self is coming apart. The wounded horse under the trough is not merely a beaten fighter but the emblem of a mind whose faculties have lost the thing that governed them. Which is why the remedy the chapter drives toward is not a rescue by force but a restoration of order: get the 心猿 back, or nothing will hold.
The closing question — 道義消疏怎得成, "how shall the work be brought off?" — is the hinge of the whole chapter. It names the impasse the second half has to break, and points unmistakably at the one absent disciple whom the horse is about to send for.