呼天之嘆 The Cry to Heaven
行者聽見「當值」二字，卻也心驚。仰面朝天，高聲大叫道：「蒼天，蒼天！自那混沌初分，天開地闢，花果山生了我，我也曾遍訪明師，傳授長生秘訣。想我那隨風變化，伏虎降龍，大鬧天宮，名稱大聖，更不曾把山神、土地欺心使喚。今日這個妖魔無狀，怎敢把山神、土地喚為奴僕，替他輪流當值？天啊！既生老孫，怎麼又生此輩？」行者听见「当值」二字，却也心惊。仰面朝天，高声大叫道：「苍天，苍天！自那混沌初分，天开地辟，花果山生了我，我也曾遍访明师，传授长生秘诀。想我那随风变化，伏虎降龙，大闹天宫，名称大圣，更不曾把山神、土地欺心使唤。今日这个妖魔无状，怎敢把山神、土地唤为奴仆，替他轮流当值？天啊！既生老孙，怎么又生此辈？」
逐句解 Line by line
Hearing the words "stand duty," Pilgrim too was startled at heart. Lifting his face to the sky, he cried aloud: "Blue Heaven! Blue Heaven!
當值 (dāng zhí), "on duty," is the phrase that does the damage -- ordinary office vocabulary, and that is exactly why it stings. 仰面朝天 (yǎng miàn cháo tiān), "face turned up to the sky." 蒼天 (cāng tiān) is Heaven addressed by its color, the deep blue-gray vault, and it is what Chinese has always shouted at when there is no one else to shout at.
"Ever since the primal chaos first parted, when heaven opened and earth was cleaved and the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit gave me birth, I too sought out enlightened masters and had the secret of long life imparted to me.
混沌初分 (hùn dùn chū fēn), "when the primal muddle first came apart," is the standard opening of a Chinese account of how things began. 花果山 is the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, where Monkey came out of a stone. 長生秘訣 (cháng shēng mì jué), "the secret formula for long life," 長 read cháng.
"Think of my wind-borne transformations, my taming of tigers and subduing of dragons, my great uproar in Heaven, my very title of Great Sage — and yet never once did I bully or wrongfully order about a mountain-god or earth-god.
伏虎降龍 (fú hǔ xiáng lóng), "tame tigers and subdue dragons," with 降 as xiáng. It is a stock phrase for a master of the arts, and it turns up in Buddhist art as often as in fiction. 欺心使喚 (qī xīn shǐ huàn), "to order about with a bullying heart." Even at his worst, he says, he never did this.
"Yet today this outrageous fiend dares to summon mountain-gods and earth-gods as his slaves, to serve him duty by turns!
無狀 (wú zhuàng), "past all decency." 喚為奴僕 (huàn wéi nú pú), "summon them to be servants," 為 read wéi. The outrage is on the gods' behalf, and it amounts to a principle: power does not entitle you to humiliate the powerless.
"O Heaven! Having given life to old Monkey, why must you also give life to such creatures as these?"
既生...又生 (jì shēng... yòu shēng), "having produced me, why produce him as well," echoes the most famous dying complaint in Chinese fiction -- Zhou Yu's 既生瑜，何生亮 in the Three Kingdoms, gasped out in envy of Zhuge Liang. Pilgrim borrows a lament of bitter rivalry and uses it to complain that Heaven bothered to make anyone so far beneath him. 此輩 (cǐ bèi), "creatures of this sort."
What finally undoes Pilgrim is not his own defeat but two words of office vocabulary: on duty. A demon has put gods on a rota. His cry to Heaven is a resume of his own greatness -- born out of the primal chaos on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, schooled in immortality, tamer of tigers and dragons, wrecker of Heaven, titled Great Sage -- and, he insists, never once a bully of the small gods, even at the height of his rebellion.
The lament is characteristic in mixing real principle with towering vanity. The indignation on the gods' behalf is genuine and amounts to a point of honor: power is not a licence to humiliate the weak. Then the closing outburst tips it over, borrowing the most famous cry of envy in Chinese fiction to complain that Heaven took the trouble to create anyone so far beneath him. The novel lets his nobility and his ego finish the same speech.