蓮臺送人 A Throne to Give Away
行者看見道：「好好好，蓮花臺兒好送人了。」菩薩道：「悟空，你又說甚麼？」行者道：「說甚？說甚？蓮臺送了人了。那妖精坐放臀下，終不得你還要哩？」菩薩道：「正要他坐哩。」行者道：「他的身軀小巧，比你還坐得穩當。」菩薩叫：「莫言語，且看法力。」行者看见道：「好好好，莲花台儿好送人了。」菩萨道：「悟空，你又说甚么？」行者道：「说甚？说甚？莲台送了人了。那妖精坐放臀下，终不得你还要哩？」菩萨道：「正要他坐哩。」行者道：「他的身躯小巧，比你还坐得稳当。」菩萨叫：「莫言语，且看法力。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim, seeing it, said: "Good, good, good — the lotus throne is fit to be given away now."
Wukong sees it now, and cannot resist. 兒 in 臺兒 is the light er ending; 好送人 is "fit to be given away."
The Bodhisattva said: "Wukong, what are you saying now?"
甚 is shén.
Pilgrim said: "Saying what?
Innocence, badly acted. 甚 in 說甚 is shén.
Saying what?
And again, because the joke improves with repetition. 甚 is shén.
The lotus throne's been given away.
The throne has been given away, he says, and to a paying customer.
That fiend has it planted under his rump — surely you won't be wanting it back now?"
Planted under his rump — so you will hardly be wanting it back. 那 points, so nà; 得 in 終不得 is dé; 還 in 還要 is hái, still want.
The Bodhisattva said: "It's just that I want him to sit."
Five characters, and they change the meaning of everything he has just been laughing at: the sitting is the point.
Pilgrim said: "His frame is small and neat — he sits even more steadily on it than you."
He is still not listening. 還 is hái, even more than; 得 in 坐得 is the light de; 當 in 穩當 is dàng, steadily.
The Bodhisattva called: "Hold your tongue, and just watch the power."
And she silences him for the spring. 看 in 且看法力 is kàn.
Wukong, now beginning to see the plan, needles the Bodhisattva with mock innocence — the throne is fit to give away, the fiend has it planted under his rump, surely she will not be wanting it back — and Guanyin answers only, cryptically, that she wants him to sit. The banter is the calm before the spring: the jesting and her terse instruction to hold his tongue and watch the power frame a moment of stillness before the blades bite. The scene closes the long comedy of the luring and hands the chapter over to its climax.
Guanyin's one cryptic line — it is just that I want him to sit — is the chapter's quietest joke and its clearest statement of method. The demon believes he is helping himself to a spoil; he is completing an instruction. Everything the Bodhisattva has arranged since the vase went into the sea has been aimed at getting him to do, of his own free choice, the one thing that will finish him.