脫妖衣束虎裙 The Sage Puts Off the Fiend’s Garb
那大聖才跳下崖，撞入洞裡，脫了妖衣。整一整錦直裰，束一束虎皮裙，執了鐵棒，徑出門來。慌得那群猴攔住道：「大聖爺爺，你往那裡去？帶挈我們耍子幾年也好。」行者道：「小的們，你說那裡話。那大圣才跳下崖，撞入洞里，脱了妖衣。整一整锦直裰，束一束虎皮裙，执了铁棒，径出门来。慌得那群猴拦住道：「大圣爷爷，你往那里去？带挈我们耍子几年也好。」行者道：「小的们，你说那里话。
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage then leapt down from the crag, dashed into the cave, and stripped off the fiend’s garb.
妖衣 (yāo yī), the fiend’s costume Wukong had donned in disguise; 那 read nà.
He set straight his brocade cassock, bound fast his tiger-skin kilt, took up the iron staff, and came straight out at the door.
錦直裰 (jǐn zhíduō), a brocade monk’s robe. 虎皮裙 (hǔpí qún), the tiger-skin kilt, Wukong’s emblematic garment.
The troop of monkeys, in alarm, barred his way, crying, “Great Sage, our lord, where are you bound?
慌得 (huāng de), so alarmed that… ; 得 read de. 那群猴 (nà qún hóu), that troop of monkeys, 那 read nà; but 那裡去 (nǎlǐ qù), “whither away,” 那 read nǎ.
Take us along, and let us make merry a few years — that would be well.”
帶挈 (dàiqiè), to take along, to bring in one’s train. 耍子 (shuǎzi), to sport, to play.
Pilgrim said, “Little ones, what a thing to say.
那裡話 (nǎlǐ huà), an idiom of demurral — “what talk is that! nonsense”; 那 read nǎ.
The undressing is emblematic: in shedding the fiend’s costume and resuming the brocade cassock and tiger-skin kilt, Wukong sheds the impostor and reassumes the pilgrim, and the iron staff taken up in the same motion marks him once more the company’s champion. The little scene of re-robing performs, in the plain idiom of action, the inward turn the previous passage secured by persuasion.
The monkeys’ plea that he stay and make merry sets the domestic ease of Flower-Fruit Mountain against the harder road he has chosen, and his gentle rebuff — “what a thing to say” — confirms that the choice is made. The vernacular endearment “little ones” preserves the affection even as he refuses them, so that his departure reads not as abandonment but as the resumption of a higher obligation.