灘坡窺車 The Cart-Slope Observed
行者漸漸按下雲頭來看處，呀！那車子裝的都是磚瓦、木植、土坯之類。灘頭上坡最高，又有一道夾脊小路，兩座大關。關下之路都是直立壁陡之崖，那車兒怎麼拽得上去？雖是天色和暖，那些人卻也衣衫藍縷，看此像十分窘迫。行者心疑道：「想是修蓋寺院，他這裡五穀豐登，尋不出雜工人來，所以這和尚親自努力。」正自猜疑未定，只見那城門裡搖搖擺擺，走出兩個少年道士來。行者渐渐按下云头来看处，呀！那车子装的都是砖瓦、木植、土坯之类。滩头上坡最高，又有一道夹脊小路，两座大关。关下之路都是直立壁陡之崖，那车儿怎么拽得上去？虽是天色和暖，那些人却也衣衫蓝缕，看此像十分窘迫。行者心疑道：「想是修盖寺院，他这里五谷丰登，寻不出杂工人来，所以这和尚亲自努力。」正自猜疑未定，只见那城门里摇摇摆摆，走出两个少年道士来。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim let his cloud sink lower and lower to look; and — ah! —
呀, ya, is the noise of a man seeing something he did not expect — the narrator letting Wukong's surprise land before telling us what caused it. 看 is kàn; 處 is chù, the point at which he looked.
the carts were loaded with the like of brick and tile, timber and mud-blocks.
Not treasure, not contraband — building rubble. 土坯 is unfired mud-brick, the cheapest material there is, and the heaviest for what it is worth. 那 points, as nà; 子 on 車子 is the light zi ending; 都 is dōu.
At the head of the sand-flat the slope rose steepest, and there ran besides a narrow path along the ridge, with two great barrier-passes.
The chapter's title gets its ground here. 夾脊 is a spine of high ground with a path pinched along the top, and 脊 is jǐ, the mainland standard reading for a spine or ridge, not the older clipped jí. Hold on to the word: the chapter is called 心正妖邪度脊關, and the ridge-pass in that title is this one. 一 is yí before 道.
Below the passes the road was all sheer upright walls and cliffs — how were the carts ever to be hauled up?
The question is the reader's as much as Wukong's: sheer cliff below, loaded carts above, and no visible way of getting one to the other. That is the answer, of course — men. 拽 is zhuài, to drag or haul, the chapter's workhorse verb. 得 is the light de; 都 is dōu; 那 is nà and 兒 is the light er.
Though the day was mild and warm, these men went in ragged, tattered clothes and looked, by their appearance, in the utmost distress.
A warm day and men in rags: the detail is doing quiet work, since nobody dressed like that is there by choice. 藍縷 is the same word now usually written 襤褸, ragged and threadbare. 那 is nà; 分 in 十分 is fēn.
Pilgrim wondered to himself: "It must be they are building a temple; in a year of good harvest here they can find no hired hands, and so these monks set to it themselves."
His first guess is the charitable one, and it is exactly what the next moment will overturn. 五穀豐登, a bumper harvest of the five grains — in a good year, he reasons, nobody needs to hire out as a laborer, so the monks must be building their own temple. 不 is bù before 出.
Even as he pondered, undecided, out through the city gate came swaggering two young Daoist priests.
Two men come out of the gate 搖搖擺擺, swaggering, and the swagger is the first thing wrong with the scene. 那 is nà; 少 in 少年 is shào, young.
Wukong drops low enough to read the scene properly, and every detail he picks out is chosen to make a point. The carts hold nothing of value — 磚瓦, 木植, 土坯, brick and tile, timber and unfired mud-block, dead weight and nothing else — and they have to go up a cliff road, along a pinched ridge, through two barrier-gates. The 夾脊 and the passes are named here in plain sight before the chapter title makes anything of them.
Then the men: ragged on a mild day, and visibly at the end of themselves. His first reading of it is the generous one — a prosperous district, no laborers to be hired, monks building their own temple with their own hands. It is a reasonable guess, and the two swaggering figures coming out of the city gate are about to demolish it.