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，方才咬著牙，忍著腿疼跳将起去。踏著乌云，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 (a "double-hour," one of the twelve two-hour divisions of the day). In 咬著牙 and 忍著 the durative 著 is zhe; in 跳將起去 the directional 將 is jiāng. 那 is deictic 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 durative 著 is zhe; 還變作 ("changed back again") takes 還 as hái. He resumes the humble form he had cast off, his sally spent.
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 deictic nà. The bedraggled horse at its trough is the image on which the verse reflects.
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.
The chapter’s title-couplet, and the heart of its inner-alchemy allegory. 意馬 (the dragon-horse, the will) and 心猿 (Sun Wukong, the mind) name two of the pilgrims; 金公 (the "Metal Lord," gold) and 木母 (the "Wood Mother") are further Five-Phases (五行) epithets 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 Five-Phases roster; 道義 is "the Way and its rightness." 分別 takes 分 as fēn; 怎得成 ("how can it succeed") takes 得 as dé. The couplet reads the pilgrims’ dispersal as a spiritual disintegration.
This is the passage that gives the chapter its title, and its couplet unfolds the allegory that runs, half-submerged, beneath the whole novel. In the inner-alchemical reading, the pilgrims embody the Five Phases (五行) of the cultivated self: 心猿, the Monkey of the Heart, is the restless mind (Sun Wukong); 意馬, the Horse of the Will, is the intention (the dragon-horse); 金公 and 木母, the Metal Lord and Wood Mother, and 黃婆, the Yellow Dame, are the further phases mediating between them.
The couplet’s force lies in reading the plot as a psychology. With the Mind-Monkey banished and the company scattered, the Five Phases are "dispersed" and "withered" — the cultivated self is coming apart. The wounded horse at its trough is not merely a defeated fighter but the emblem of a soul whose faculties have lost their governing center. The remedy the chapter drives toward is therefore not a rescue by force but a restoration of order: the recalling of the 心猿, the mind, without which nothing can hold together.
The closing question — 道義消疏怎得成, "how shall the work be brought to pass?" — is the pivot of the whole chapter. It names the impasse that the second half must resolve, and points, unmistakably, to the one absent disciple whose return the horse is about to set in motion.