妖怪暗疑 The Fiend’s Secret Doubt
那怪還在銀安殿，宿酒未醒。正睡夢間，聽得有人叫他名字，他就翻身，擡頭觀看，只見那雲端裡是豬八戒、沙和尚二人吆喝。妖怪心中暗想道：「豬八戒便也罷了；沙和尚是我綁在家裡，他怎麼得出來？我的渾家怎麼肯放他？我的孩兒怎麼得到他手？這怕是豬八戒不得我出去與他交戰，故將此計來羈我。我若認了這個泛頭，就與他打啊。那怪还在银安殿，宿酒未醒。正睡梦间，听得有人叫他名字，他就翻身，抬头观看，只见那云端里是猪八戒、沙和尚二人吆喝。妖怪心中暗想道：「猪八戒便也罢了；沙和尚是我绑在家里，他怎么得出来？我的浑家怎么肯放他？我的孩儿怎么得到他手？这怕是猪八戒不得我出去与他交战，故将此计来羁我。我若认了这个泛头，就与他打啊。
逐句解 Line by line
The fiend was still in the Hall of Silver Peace, not yet sobered from the night's wine.
宿酒未醒, sù jiǔ wèi xǐng, not yet awake from the previous night's drink. The chapter's villain is introduced to us, at his moment of decision, with a hangover.
In the midst of sleep and dream he heard someone calling his name; he turned over, raised his head to look, and saw that up in the clouds it was the two, Zhu Bajie and Sha the Monk, hallooing.
睡夢間, shuì mèng jiān, in the middle of sleep; 吆喝, yāo he, to shout, to halloo — a rough, carrying sort of noise, exactly what wakes a man who does not want to be woken.
The fiend thought secretly in his heart, "Zhu Bajie, well and good; but Sha the Monk I bound fast at home — how has he got out?
And now the novel does something it does rarely and well: it lets the adversary think. 暗想, àn xiǎng, to reason inwardly; 綁, bǎng, to bind; 得出來, dé chū lái, to manage to get out, with 得 read dé. His first objection is a good one.
How should my wife be willing to release him?
渾家, hún jiā, is the ordinary colloquial word for "my wife" — homely rather than grand, and he uses it throughout. His second objection is also good.
And how should my children have come into his hands?
His third: 得到, dé dào, to come into somebody's hands. Three sound reasons in three lines, and every one of them correct.
This is likely that Zhu Bajie, unable to get me out to fight him, has hit upon this device to snare me forth.
So he reaches the right conclusion for the right reasons — and it does him no good at all. 不得, bù dé, unable to; 羈, jī, to tether, to snare; 將此計, jiāng cǐ jì, by means of this device.
If I take this bait, I shall have to fight him.
認泛頭, rèn fàn tóu, to swallow a bait — a 泛頭 being a trumped-up pretext, a lure floated out to see who bites.
The passage turns to the demon's interior and finds him no fool. His drunken doze broken by the shouting, he reasons shrewdly through the improbabilities — Sha Seng bound, his wife loyal, the children safe — and rightly suspects a lure to draw him out of his stronghold. Letting an adversary have a moment of genuine mind is a favourite device of the novel, and here it raises the stakes by showing the trap very nearly seen through.
His hesitation over whether to take the bait poises the episode on a knife-edge, and prepares the decisive consideration of the next passage, where a hangover and a fear of losing face tip him toward the fatal course of going home to check. That his very caution walks him into the deeper snare is the fine irony the whole sequence is built on.