帶郎認公 Taking the Son to His Grandsire
行者即跳下石崖，到他塔門之下。那公主道：「你這和尚，全無信義：你說放了你師弟，就與我孩兒，怎麼你師弟放去，把我孩兒又留，反來我門首做甚？」行者陪笑道：「公主休怪。你來的日子已久，帶你令郎去認他外公去哩。」公主道：「和尚莫無禮。我那黃袍郎比眾不同，你若諕了我的孩兒，與他柳柳驚是。」行者笑道：「公主啊，為人生在天地之間，怎麼便是得罪？」行者即跳下石崖，到他塔门之下。那公主道：「你这和尚，全无信义：你说放了你师弟，就与我孩儿，怎么你师弟放去，把我孩儿又留，反来我门首做甚？」行者陪笑道：「公主休怪。你来的日子已久，带你令郎去认他外公去哩。」公主道：「和尚莫无礼。我那黄袍郎比众不同，你若諕了我的孩儿，与他柳柳惊是。」行者笑道：「公主啊，为人生在天地之间，怎么便是得罪？」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim at once leapt down from the stony crag and came beneath the door of the tower.
塔門, tǎ mén, the door of the pagoda-tower that crowns the cave. He has come straight back to the woman he just robbed.
The princess said, "You monk, wholly without good faith! You said that once your brother was freed you would give me my children; yet your brother is loosed and gone, and my children you keep still — what do you mean, coming back to my very door?"
Her reproach is entirely just. 信義, xìn yì, good faith — the very word the chapter's title uses of Bajie's appeal. 孩兒, hái ér, children; 做甚, zuò shén, to what purpose.
Pilgrim said with an ingratiating laugh, "Let the princess not take it amiss.
陪笑, péi xiào, to smile ingratiatingly — literally to "accompany with a laugh," the smile a man puts on when he is in the wrong and knows it. 休怪, xiū guài, take no offence.
You have been here now a long while; I am taking your young masters to acknowledge their grandsire."
The lie is a good one because it is nearly true. 令郎, lìng láng, is the courteous "your son" — the 令 prefix is how polite Chinese refers to another person's family. 認外公, rèn wài gōng, to be presented to one's maternal grandfather: the children really are going to the King of Baoxiang, though not to be introduced.
The princess said, "Monk, be not insolent.
莫無禮, mò wú lǐ: offer no insult, mind your manners.
My lord Yellow Robe is unlike common folk; if you have frightened my children, then soothe away their fright for them."
黃袍郎, Huáng páo láng, "my lord Yellow Robe" — the 郎 is a wife's fond word for a husband, and it is worth noticing that she uses it. 柳柳驚, liǔ liǔ jīng, is a folk charm for soothing a child who has had a fright.
Pilgrim said with a laugh, "Princess — for one born a human being into this world between heaven and earth, how should this be an offence?"
A question with a trap inside it. 為人, wéi rén, to be a human being; 得罪, dé zuì, to give offence, to commit a fault. He asks it innocently, and springs it in the next passage.
The exchange at the tower door mixes comedy and menace. The princess's charge of broken faith is fair — Wukong has kept the children after Sha Seng was released — and his placating laugh and the fiction of "taking the young masters to meet their grandsire" thinly cover the real design. Her warning about her formidable husband keeps the danger present under the banter.
His closing sally — that being born human is surely no offence — turns the conversation, with deceptive lightness, onto the ground where he means to fight her: not force, but the moral reproach of unfiliality. The pilgrim who deals in iron shows himself equally ready to deal in the language of the Classics, laying a snare of Confucian argument that the next passage springs.