南柯夢醒 Waking from the Dream of Nanke
那冤魂叩頭拜別，舉步相送，不知怎麼踢了腳，跌了一個觔斗，把三藏驚醒，卻原來是南柯一夢。慌得對著那盞昏燈，連忙叫：「徒弟，徒弟。」八戒醒來道：「甚麼『土地土地』？當時我做好漢，專一吃人度日，受用腥羶，其實快活，偏你出家，教我們保護你跑路。原說只做和尚，如今拿做奴才，日間挑包袱、牽馬，夜間提尿瓶、務腳！這早晚不睡，又叫徒弟作甚？」那冤魂叩头拜别，举步相送，不知怎么踢了脚，跌了一个觔斗，把三藏惊醒，却原来是南柯一梦。慌得对着那盏昏灯，连忙叫：「徒弟，徒弟。」八戒醒来道：「甚么『土地土地』？当时我做好汉，专一吃人度日，受用腥膻，其实快活，偏你出家，教我们保护你跑路。原说只做和尚，如今拿做奴才，日间挑包袱、牵马，夜间提尿瓶、务脚！这早晚不睡，又叫徒弟作甚？」
逐句解 Line by line
The wronged soul kowtowed and took his leave; and as Tripitaka stepped forward to see him off, somehow he stubbed his foot and tumbled head over heels — which startled Tripitaka awake, and it proved, after all, but a Dream of Nanke.
The dream ends the way dreams end — someone trips. 觔斗 is a somersault, 斗 read dǒu; the same word will shortly be Wukong's cloud-somersault. 南柯一夢 nán kē yí mèng, the Dream of Nanke, comes from a Tang tale by Li Gongzuo in which a man dozes under a locust tree, lives a whole career in an ant kingdom, and wakes to find the kingdom is a nest in the roots. It is the standard tag for a vision that dissolves — and here it is doing double duty, because this particular dream happens to be true. 相送 is to see someone off; 那 is the pointing nà.
Flustered, facing that dim lamp, he called out in haste, “Disciples! Disciples!”
Back in the world, in the dark, shouting for help. 慌得 takes the linking de; 對著 has 著 as zhe, holding the action open; 那盞 takes the pointing nà.
Bajie woke and said, “What is this ‘earth-god, earth-god’?
The joke everybody remembers from this chapter, and it survives translation badly, so here it is plainly: Tripitaka calls 徒弟 tú dì, "disciples," and the half-asleep Bajie hears 土地 tǔ dì, "the local earth-god." Same two syllables, different tones, and a pig who does not want to get up. 甚麼 is shén me, "what."
Back when I was a stout fellow, I lived by eating men and nothing else, feasting on rank flesh — truly a merry life; but you, of all people, left the world, and set us to guard you and run the roads.
The grievance speech, delivered at three in the morning. 腥羶 xīng shān is rank, gamy flesh — he is being nostalgic about eating people. 專一 is "exclusively," and its 一 stays yī because the pair has set as a word; 當時 has 當 as dāng, in those days.
It was said I would only be a monk, and now I am made a slave — by day shouldering the baggage and leading the horse, by night fetching the piss-pot and tending your feet!
The full job description, and it is funny because it is accurate: baggage and horse by day, chamber-pot and foot-rubbing by night. 挑 is tiāo, to carry on a shoulder-pole; 日間 and 夜間 take jiān.
At this hour, not sleeping, what do you call your disciples for now?”
And the actual complaint underneath all of it: it is late and you woke me up. 這早晚 is "at this hour"; 作甚 has 甚 as shén.
The dream dissolves in the classic manner — the ghost stumbles, the sleeper wakes — and the narrator reaches for the Dream of Nanke, the Tang story of a man who lived a lifetime under a locust tree and woke beside an ants' nest. The tag is exactly right and quietly wrong at the same time, because everything in this particular dream turns out to be true, tablet and all.
Then the register drops through the floor into comedy. Bajie mishears "disciples" as "earth-god" — the two words differ only in tone — and follows it with a catalogue of grievances running from his glory days as a man-eater to his present duties as pack-mule and foot-servant. This deflation after a solemn episode is a reliable rhythm in the novel, and it does real work: it restores the pilgrims' ordinary bickering daylight against the king's tragedy.