解虎識人 The Tiger Unbound
他三人徑下寶殿，與眾官到朝房裡，擡出鐵籠，將假虎解了鐵索。別人看他是虎，獨行者看他是人。原來那師父被妖術魘住，不能行走，心上明白，只是口眼難開。行者笑道：「師父啊，你是個好和尚，怎麼弄出這般個惡模樣來也？你怪我行兇作惡，趕我回去，你要一心向善，怎麼一旦弄出個這等嘴臉？」八戒道：「哥啊，救他救兒罷，不要只管揭挑他了。」他三人径下宝殿，与众官到朝房里，抬出铁笼，将假虎解了铁索。别人看他是虎，独行者看他是人。原来那师父被妖术魇住，不能行走，心上明白，只是口眼难开。行者笑道：「师父啊，你是个好和尚，怎么弄出这般个恶模样来也？你怪我行凶作恶，赶我回去，你要一心向善，怎么一旦弄出个这等嘴脸？」八戒道：「哥啊，救他救儿罢，不要只管揭挑他了。」
逐句解 Line by line
The three of them went straight down from the throne-hall, and with the officers came to the court-chamber, carried out the iron cage, and loosed the false tiger from its iron chains.
朝房, cháo fáng, the antechamber where officials wait before an audience — which is where they have been keeping him. 鐵籠, tiě lóng, an iron cage. It takes a party of them to carry it out.
To others he seemed a tiger; to Pilgrim alone he seemed a man.
獨, dú, alone, only. Eleven words, and they are the quiet vindication the whole chapter has been withholding: the disciple who was thrown out for seeing what nobody else could see is the only one in the room who can see his master.
For the master, held fast by the fiend's spell, could not move; his mind was clear within, only his mouth and eyes would not open.
魘住, yǎn zhù, held fast by an enchantment — the character is the one used for nightmares and sleep paralysis, and the sensation is the same: 口眼難開, kǒu yǎn nán kāi, mouth and eyes that will not open, with a mind perfectly clear behind them. Tripitaka has been awake inside the tiger the entire time.
Pilgrim said with a laugh, "Master — you are so good a monk, how have you got yourself into so hideous a shape?
And Wukong, knowing that, opens with a joke. 惡模樣, è mú yàng, a hideous appearance — 惡 read è, "ugly, foul."
You blamed me for my violence and evil-doing, and drove me back; you would keep a heart wholly bent on goodness — how, then, have you at a stroke got yourself such a countenance?"
Then he hands back the exact charge sheet from chapter 27. 行兇作惡, xíng xiōng zuò è, to do violence and evil, is what he was banished for; 一心向善, yì xīn xiàng shàn, a heart wholly set on goodness, is what Tripitaka wanted instead. 一旦, yí dàn, in a single day. The needling is cruel and the grievance behind it is real, and the master cannot answer a word of it, being a tiger.
Bajie said, "Brother, save him, do save him, and leave off picking at him so."
Bajie, of all people, is the one who asks him to stop. 救他救兒 is the same softened, doubled form Sha Seng used on the crag — the verb repeated with a light 兒, ér, on the end, "just give him a bit of a save." 揭挑, jiē tiāo, to pick at somebody, to keep lifting the scab.
The unbinding of the tiger gives the novel a moment of pointed comedy at Tripitaka's expense and of tacit vindication for Wukong. That the Great Sage alone sees the man beneath the beast quietly reasserts the discernment he was unjustly banished for, while the master lies helpless, clear in mind and unable to speak — an apt figure for a pilgrim whose good intentions availed nothing against the fiend.
Wukong cannot resist twisting the knife, throwing Tripitaka's own reproaches back at him — the charge of violence, the demand for a heart set on goodness — now that the tender-hearted master has been reduced to a monster. The teasing is barbed with genuine grievance about the banishment, and Bajie's soft-hearted plea to leave off and get on with the rescue supplies the counter-voice that moves the scene toward its resolution.