下海淨身 The Washing in the Sea
那大聖才和八戒攜手駕雲，離了洞，過了東洋大海，至西岸，住雲光，叫道：「兄弟，你且在此慢行，等我下海去淨淨身子。」八戒道：「忙忙的走路，且淨甚麼身子？」行者道：「你那裡知道。我自從回來，這幾日弄得身上有些妖精氣了。師父是個愛乾淨的，恐怕嫌我。」八戒於此始識得行者是片真心，更無他意。那大圣才和八戒携手驾云，离了洞，过了东洋大海，至西岸，住云光，叫道：「兄弟，你且在此慢行，等我下海去净净身子。」八戒道：「忙忙的走路，且净甚么身子？」行者道：「你那里知道。我自从回来，这几日弄得身上有些妖精气了。师父是个爱干净的，恐怕嫌我。」八戒于此始识得行者是片真心，更无他意。
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage then joined hands with Bajie and mounted the clouds; leaving the cave, they crossed the Eastern Ocean and reached the western shore, where he stayed the cloud-light and called, "Brother, walk on slowly here a while, and let me go down into the sea to cleanse my body."
攜手, xié shǒu, hand in hand — the two of them go up on the cloud together, which after the last twenty minutes is quite a change. 住雲光, zhù yún guāng, to halt the cloud-glow, that is, to come down. 淨身子, jìng shēn zi, to cleanse the body.
Bajie said, "We are hurrying along the road — what need to cleanse your body now?"
Bajie asks the obvious question, and gets the answer wrong for the rest of his life. (甚麼 takes 甚 as shén.)
Pilgrim said, "What should you know of it.
那裡知道, nǎ lǐ zhī dào, is a brush-off — "how would you understand" — with the questioning 那, nǎ.
Since I came home, these few days have left a taint of fiend's reek about me.
弄得, nòng de, "it has come about that"; 妖精氣, yāo jing qì, the rank air of the fiend. He has been living among demons and thinks he smells of it.
Our master is one who loves cleanliness, and I fear he would find me offensive."
The reason, and it is a small one: 乾淨, gān jìng, clean; 嫌, xián, to find someone distasteful. Wukong is worried about being an offence to a fastidious man who threw him out.
It was at this that Bajie first perceived Pilgrim to be of a single true heart, with no other design whatever.
The narrator steps forward to say it plainly. 識得, shí de, to perceive at last; 真心, zhēn xīn, a true and undivided heart. Bajie has been managing Wukong since he arrived on the mountain, and only now does he understand him.
The sea-washing is a quiet devotional stroke set down in the middle of the comedy. Wukong pauses to scrub the fiend's reek off himself out of consideration for a master who likes things clean, and the gesture shows a fastidious tenderness under all the bluster. Bajie's uncomprehending question, and Wukong's brusque "what should you know of it," keep the pair rubbing against each other even in the softer moment.
The narrator's remark that Bajie "first perceived" the single true heart is the hinge of the passage, and no small concession from the novel's chief mischief-maker. The washing of the body becomes the sign of an undivided mind (真心), so that the outward cleaning stands for the inward constancy on which the whole rescue depends.