編詞誆怪 The Fabricated Tale
你昨日進朝認親，怎不回來？今早被豬八戒劫了沙和尚，又把我兩個孩兒搶去，是我苦告，更不肯饒。他說拿去朝中認認外公，這半日不見孩兒，又不知存亡如何，你又不見來家，教我怎生割捨？故此止不住傷心痛哭。」那怪聞言，心中大怒道：「真個是我的兒子？」行者道：「正是，被豬八戒搶去了。」你昨日进朝认亲，怎不回来？今早被猪八戒劫了沙和尚，又把我两个孩儿抢去，是我苦告，更不肯饶。他说拿去朝中认认外公，这半日不见孩儿，又不知存亡如何，你又不见来家，教我怎生割舍？故此止不住伤心痛哭。」那怪闻言，心中大怒道：「真个是我的儿子？」行者道：「正是，被猪八戒抢去了。」
逐句解 Line by line
Yesterday you went to court to claim your kinship — why did you not come back?
進朝認親, jìn cháo rèn qīn, to go to court and claim kinship. The complaint begins as a wife's reproach, which is good technique: reproach first, catastrophe after.
This morning Zhu Bajie carried off Sha the Monk by force, and seized my two children besides; for all my bitter pleading, he would not be moved.
Every detail is chosen to enrage. 劫, jié, to seize by force, to rob; 苦告, kǔ gào, to plead bitterly. The blame is laid squarely on Bajie — the one member of the party the demon has beaten, and therefore the one he will want to beat again.
He said he would take them to court to acknowledge their grandsire; this half-day I have not seen the children, nor know whether they live or die, and you too are not come home — how am I to bear the parting?
存亡, cún wáng, whether they live or die; 怎生割捨, zěn shēng gē shě, "how am I to bear the parting" — 割捨 is literally to cut something away from yourself. The fate of the children is left hanging, which is the cruellest possible way to leave it.
And so I could not stop this grieving and weeping."
止不住, zhǐ bu zhù, unable to stop; 傷心痛哭, shāng xīn tòng kū, to grieve and weep bitterly. He has been sobbing throughout the speech, which is how it is delivered.
The fiend, hearing this, in a great rage said, "Are they truly my sons?"
The bait is taken. 大怒, dà nù, great wrath — and the question he asks in it is a father's question.
Pilgrim said, "Just so — seized and carried off by Zhu Bajie."
搶去, qiǎng qù, snatched away. Two words in the princess's voice, and the demon's judgement is gone.
Wukong's fabricated account is a small masterwork of provocation, calculated in every particular to enrage. It lays the children's seizure squarely on Bajie, dwells on the mother's helpless pleading, and leaves their fate suspended between life and death. The false grief of the previous passage now finds its object, working on the demon's paternal feeling until tenderness turns to fury.
The eruption — "Are they truly my sons?" — is the hinge on which the trap turns, because it is rage on their behalf that will shortly draw the elixir out of his mouth. Wukong's flat confirmation, delivered in his wife's voice, completes the goading. The whole exchange is a study in how the pilgrim, denied a straight fight, wins by working on his enemy's heart.