賢姪莫弄虛頭 Worthy Nephew, No Tricks
那紅孩兒怪出得門來,高叫道:「是甚麼人在我這裡吆喝!」行者近前笑道:「我賢姪莫弄虛頭。你今早在山路傍高吊在松樹梢頭,是那般一個瘦怯怯的黃病孩兒,哄了我師父。我倒好意馱著你,你就弄風兒把我師父攝將來。你如今又弄這個樣子,我豈不認得你?趁早送出我師父,不要白了面皮,失了親情,恐你令尊知道,怪我老孫以長欺幼,不象模樣。」那红孩儿怪出得门来,高叫道:「是甚么人在我这里吆喝!」行者近前笑道:「我贤姪莫弄虚头。你今早在山路傍高吊在松树梢头,是那般一个瘦怯怯的黄病孩儿,哄了我师父。我倒好意驮着你,你就弄风儿把我师父摄将来。你如今又弄这个样子,我岂不认得你?趁早送出我师父,不要白了面皮,失了亲情,恐你令尊知道,怪我老孙以长欺幼,不象模样。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Red Boy demon came out at the gate and cried aloud: ‘Who is it bawling here at my door?’
紅孩兒: the 兒 here is a full syllable, ér, because 孩兒 is simply the word for "child" -- not the light unstressed ending that turns other nouns into diminutives. 出得門來 uses 得 in its light linking sound de, joining the verb to where it got to. 吆喝 is to bawl or holler; the demon has come out to find who is making the racket.
The Pilgrim stepped up and said with a smile: ‘Worthy nephew, play me no tricks.
The whole scene turns on this word. 賢姪 means "worthy nephew" -- Wukong greeting a demon he has never met as family, on the strength of an old sworn brotherhood with the boy's father. 弄虛頭 is to put on a false front, to try it on. He is smiling as he says it, which makes it worse.
This morning, beside the mountain path, you hung high in the top of a pine — just such a scrawny, sickly, jaundiced-looking child — and so you gulled my master.
Wukong throws the morning's trick back in the demon's face. Chapter 40 had Red Boy hanging from a pine in the guise of a kidnapped child, and Tripitaka, who never learns, insisted on rescuing him. 傍 is páng, beside. 那般 is "that sort of," 那 pointing rather than asking. The string of adjectives -- 瘦怯怯, scrawny and timid, 黃病, jaundiced -- is Wukong doing an impression of the performance.
I, out of pure goodwill, carried you on my back; and you straightway raised a wind and snatched my master clean away.
我倒好意: 倒 is dào, the "and yet, on the contrary" sound, not the dǎo that means to topple over. 馱著 is carrying on the back, with 著 as zhe showing it going on. Then 弄風兒 -- and here the 兒 is the light diminutive ending, a little puff of wind, in contrast with the full ér two lines above. Same character, two jobs, close enough together to compare.
Now here you are got up in this guise again — do you suppose I would not know you?
認得 is to recognise, and its 得 is dé, the full sound meaning to attain or manage -- recognising is something you succeed at. That puts it with 記得, "remember," rather than with the light de of 出得門來 a moment ago. 豈不 takes bú before the falling tone of 認.
Send out my master at once; do not lose face and forfeit the family bond, lest your honoured father hear of it and blame old Sun for bullying the young from seniority — an unseemly business.’
The threat, dressed as concern for the family reputation. Send my master out, do not lose face over it, and think what your father would say. 以長欺幼 is bullying the young from the strength of seniority, with 長 as zhǎn, elder. 令尊 is the courteous way to say "your father," and the father in question is 牛魔王, the Bull Demon King. 不象模樣 means unseemly, not the proper look of a thing.
Wukong's entire tactic is the kinship claim. He calls the child-demon 賢姪, worthy nephew, because he once swore brotherhood with the boy's father. The claim is true as far as it goes, and it is also a manoeuvre: if the demon accepts the relationship, he cannot decently keep the hostage, and if he refuses it, he looks like a boy disowning his father's friends.
Folded into the speech is a recap of Chapter 40 -- the child hanging in the pine, the wind, the vanished master. Wukong is not just claiming family, he is pointing out that he has already seen through one disguise today. Neither argument is going to work, and some of the pleasure of the scene is watching him spend so much charm on a target that has no intention of being charmed.