失聲誇敵 Blurting Praise of the Foe
他在山頂上看見，魂飛魄喪，忽失聲道：「幾年間聞說孫行者，今日才知話不虛傳果是真。」眾怪上前道：「大王，怎麼長他人之志氣，滅自己之威風？你誇誰哩？」二魔道：「孫行者神通廣大，那唐僧吃他不成。」他在山顶上看见，魂飞魄丧，忽失声道：「几年间闻说孙行者，今日才知话不虚传果是真。」众怪上前道：「大王，怎么长他人之志气，灭自己之威风？你夸谁哩？」二魔道：「孙行者神通广大，那唐僧吃他不成。」
逐句解 Line by line
Watching from the mountaintop, his souls scattered in terror, he cried out despite himself: “For years I've heard tell of Sun the Pilgrim — only today do I know the report was no idle rumor but the very truth!”
魂飛魄喪 (hún fēi pò sàng), “hun-souls flown, po-souls lost” — the cloud-soul and the white-soul both scattered in fright, the idiom for utter terror. 話不虛傳 (huà bù xū chuán), “the word was not falsely transmitted,” i.e. the rumor proves true.
The fiends pressed forward and said: “Great King, why swell another's mettle and quench your own martial glory?
長他人之志氣，滅自己之威風 (zhǎng tā rén zhī zhì qì, miè zì jǐ zhī wēi fēng) is a set antithesis, “to boost the enemy's spirit and crush one's own prestige”; 長 is zhǎng, “to make grow, to boost,” not cháng, “long.”
“Whom are you praising?”
誇 (kuā), “to praise, extol”; the final 哩 (li) is the vernacular particle of remonstrance, sharpening the rebuke.
The second fiend said: “Sun the Pilgrim's divine powers are vast and far-reaching — that Tripitaka is not to be eaten while he stands guard.”
神通廣大 (shén tōng guǎng dà), “supernatural powers vast and great.” 吃他不成 (chī tā bù chéng), “cannot manage to eat him” — the potential negative 不成, “it won't come off.”
The demon's fright breaks into speech — the involuntary cry 失聲 that betrays his shaken nerve — and takes the form of a couplet-like admission that Pilgrim's fearsome reputation is no exaggeration. It is a moment of comic deflation for the antagonist, whose terror the storyteller lets him confess aloud before his own troops.
The imps' rebuke crystallizes the scene's irony in a proverb: their captain, by praising the foe, “swells another's mettle and quenches his own prestige.” The second fiend's blunt reply — Pilgrim is too mighty, Tripitaka cannot be taken by force while such a guardian stands watch — is the premise from which the rest of the chapter's scheming flows. Force having failed, the demon must turn to guile.