求水滅火 A Plea for Water
行者道：「不勞茶，有一事相煩：我因師父唐僧往西天拜佛取經，經過號山枯松澗火雲洞，有個紅孩兒妖精，號聖嬰大王，把我師父拿了去。是老孫尋到洞邊，與他交戰，他卻放出火來。我們禁不得他，想著水能剋火，特來問你求些水去，與我下場大雨，潑滅了那火，救唐僧一難。」行者道：「不劳茶，有一事相烦：我因师父唐僧往西天拜佛取经，经过号山枯松涧火云洞，有个红孩儿妖精，号圣婴大王，把我师父拿了去。是老孙寻到洞边，与他交战，他却放出火来。我们禁不得他，想着水能克火，特来问你求些水去，与我下场大雨，泼灭了那火，救唐僧一难。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Pilgrim said: ‘No need to trouble over tea; I have a matter to trouble you with. Because my master the Tang Monk journeys to the Western Heaven to worship Buddha and fetch the scriptures, we passed the Fire-Cloud Cave of the Withered-Pine Torrent on Roaring Mountain, where a Red Boy demon, styled the Sage-Child King, has carried my master off.
Wukong waves off the tea and gets straight to business, which after the elaborate courtesies of the last passage is slightly rude and entirely in character. He gives the full address of the cave and, for the first time, the demon's own chosen title: 聖嬰大王, the Sage-Child King. 號 means styled or titled, and it turns up twice in one sentence -- 號山, Roaring Mountain, and then the demon's own style. A monster who gives himself a title with "Sage" in it is telling you something about his self-regard.
Old Sun sought him to his cave and did battle with him, but he loosed his fire upon us.
The defeat, summarised in eleven characters with no excuses attached. He went, he fought, the fire came out. Wukong is capable of brevity when he is asking for something.
We could not withstand him; and bethinking me that water conquers fire, I have come on purpose to ask you for some water — to send me down a great rain, douse that fire, and deliver the Tang Monk from this ordeal.’
禁不得他, we could not withstand him -- 禁 is read jīn here, meaning to endure or bear, not the jìn that means to prohibit. Then the principle, stated as fact: 水能剋火, water can conquer fire. And then the request. The last phrase is worth pausing on: 救唐僧一難, deliver the Tang Monk from one ordeal. 難 is read nàn, a tribulation, not the nán that means difficult -- and because 難 then carries a falling tone, 一 shifts to yí in front of it. This is the second of only a handful of places in the chapter where a tone shift depends on getting the following word right.
Wukong's petition is a small masterpiece of framing. He does not ask for a favour; he presents the fire as a problem of natural law, cites the law, identifies the dragon king as the officer responsible for the remedy, and requests that the remedy be issued. It is the approach of someone who has learned how the celestial civil service works.
The final phrase gives the game away about the novel's architecture. 一難, one ordeal -- Tripitaka's journey is fated to include eighty-one of these, a fixed quota that the pilgrimage must accumulate before the scriptures can be won. So what looks like an emergency is, in the book's own accounting, a scheduled item. Wukong says so out loud, to a dragon, as part of a request for rain.