紅輪西墜 The Red Wheel Sinks in the West
孫大聖聞言，呵呵冷笑道：「師父不必罣念，少要心焦，且自放心前進，還你個功到自然成也。」師徒們玩著山景，信步行時，早不覺紅輪西墜。正是：孙大圣闻言，呵呵冷笑道：「师父不必罣念，少要心焦，且自放心前进，还你个功到自然成也。」师徒们玩著山景，信步行时，早不觉红轮西坠。正是：
逐句解 Line by line
Hearing this, the Great Sage laughed coldly: “Master, you needn't fret, and spare yourself this anxiety. Just set your mind at ease and press on — I'll deliver you a ‘success that comes of itself when the work is done.’”
罣念 (guà niàn) "to worry over." 還你個 (huán nǐ ge) is a vernacular promissory construction — ‘I'll give you a ——,’ ‘I guarantee you’ — so 還 is read huán ("to give back, repay"), not hái. 功到自然成 ("when the effort is complete, success comes of itself") is a proverb of patient cultivation.
As master and disciples enjoyed the mountain scenery, strolling at an easy pace, before they knew it the red wheel was sinking in the west.
玩著 (wánzhe) "enjoying," durative; 信步 (xìn bù) "to walk wherever the feet lead," at leisure. 紅輪 (hóng lún) ‘the red wheel,’ a kenning for the setting sun; 不覺 (bù jué) "without noticing."
Just so:
正是 ("just so, precisely thus") introduces the closing verse of the scene.
For ten li the long wayside pavilions — no traveller walks; in the ninefold heaven above, the stars come out.
A descending-number verse, counting from ten down to one across its eight lines. 長亭 (cháng tíng) the roadside rest-pavilion, with 長 read cháng; 九重天 (jiǔ chóng tiān) the ‘nine-layered’ heavens, with 重 as chóng ("fold, layer").
On the eight rivers the boats have all put into harbour; in seven thousand prefectures and counties the gates are all shut.
收港 (shōu gǎng) "to come into port"; 盡關門 (jìn guān mén) "all shut their gates," 盡 in its invariant reading jìn. The falling numbers mark the drawing-in of the day.
From the six palaces and five offices the officials return; on the four seas and three rivers the fishing-lines are laid down.
六宮五府 the palace quarters and the government bureaus. 罷釣綸 (bà diào lún) "to cease the fishing-line," 罷 in its ‘stop’ sense; 綸 here is lún, the fishing-cord.
From two towers the bell and drum resound; one wheel of bright moon fills all Heaven and Earth.
鐘鼓 the bell and drum that mark the night-watches; 一輪明月 "one wheel of bright moon." 乾坤 (qián kūn) ‘Heaven and Earth,’ the trigrams Qian and Kun, with 乾 read qián. The verse ends on the full moon that will occasion the chapter's long lunar meditation.
The scene closes on a formal ‘sunset’ verse built on a descending series of numbers, ten through one — a favourite Chinese poetic game that here does real work, its falling count enacting the drawing-down of the day: travellers off the road, boats in harbour, gates shut, officials home, fishing-lines laid by, the watch-bells sounding, and at last the single full moon rising over everything.
That closing image — 一輪明月滿乾坤, ‘one wheel of bright moon fills Heaven and Earth’ — is not merely scenic. It sets the stage for the heart of the chapter: Tripitaka's moonlit lament and Wukong's answering discourse on the phases of the moon as an emblem of inner-alchemical cultivation. Wukong's brisk promise here — that ‘success comes of itself when the work is done’ — is the seed of that teaching, the moon that fills the sky being both the end of a day's travel and a figure for the completed Work.