甘替童男 Offering Himself in the Boy's Place
行者道：「我今替這個孩兒性命，留下你家香煙後代，我去祭賽那大王去也。」那陳清跪地磕頭道：「老爺果若慈悲替得，我送白銀一千兩，與唐老爺做盤纏往西天去。」行者道：「就不謝謝老孫？」老者道：「你已替祭，沒了你也。」行者道：「怎的得沒了？」老者道：「那大王吃了。」行者道：「他敢吃我？」老者道：「不吃你，好道嫌腥。」行者笑道：「任從天命。吃了我，是我的命短；不吃，是我的造化。我與你祭賽去。」行者道：「我今替这个孩儿性命，留下你家香烟后代，我去祭赛那大王去也。」那陈清跪地磕头道：「老爷果若慈悲替得，我送白银一千两，与唐老爷做盘缠往西天去。」行者道：「就不谢谢老孙？」老者道：「你已替祭，没了你也。」行者道：「怎的得没了？」老者道：「那大王吃了。」行者道：「他敢吃我？」老者道：「不吃你，好道嫌腥。」行者笑道：「任从天命。吃了我，是我的命短；不吃，是我的造化。我与你祭赛去。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said: "I shall now take this child's life upon myself and leave your house its line and its incense; I am going to be sacrificed to that Great King."
替 is to stand in for somebody, to take their place — the plainest possible verb, and he uses it about a life. 香煙後代 is the incense and the generations: a family line exists to keep the ancestral offerings burning, so "your incense and your posterity" names the whole thing a Chinese family is for. Wukong frames the rescue in the terms the Chens themselves would use. 孩兒 takes 兒 as ér; 那 points — nà.
Chen Qing knelt to the ground and knocked his head: "If your reverence will indeed be so merciful as to take his place, I will send a thousand taels of white silver to the venerable Tang for his travelling expenses to the Western Heaven."
A thousand taels of white silver, offered on the man's knees with his head on the floor — and offered not to Wukong but 與唐老爺, to the venerable Tang, for the journey west. Even in this state he gets the etiquette right. 盤纏 is travel money. 替得 takes 得 as dé; 那 points — nà.
Pilgrim said: "And no thanks at all to old Sun?"
就不謝謝老孫 — and not a word of thanks to old Sun? Mock outrage, and beautifully timed: he has just offered to be eaten.
The old man said: "You will have gone to the sacrifice — you will be no more."
你已替祭，沒了你也: you will have gone to the sacrifice, and there will be no you. The old man means it kindly. There is no point thanking a dead man.
Pilgrim said: "How should I come to be no more?"
怎的得沒了 takes 得 as dé: how would it come about that I am gone?
The old man said: "That Great King will eat you."
那大王吃了 — that Great King will eat you. Said flatly, as a fact about the world. 那 points — nà.
Pilgrim said: "He would dare to eat me?"
他敢吃我: he would *dare*? The line reads differently depending on how much of this book you have behind you. Wukong has eaten Laozi's elixir and fought heaven to a standstill, and the idea that a river god might presume to swallow him is close to funny.
The old man said: "If he does not eat you, it will only be that he finds you rank."
And the old man has a joke of his own left in him: 好道嫌腥, most likely he'd find you too gamy — 腥 being the rank smell of raw meat and fish. It is the first thing either brother has said all evening that is not about grief.
Pilgrim laughed: "Let Heaven's will dispose of it.
任從天命: leave it to heaven's decree. From a creature who once had his name struck out of the register of the dead, the fatalism is at least half a joke.
If he eats me, my span was short;
命短 is a short allotted life — the span again, the same reckoning the old man was worried about docking a few lines ago.
if he does not, it is my good fortune.
造化 is luck, but with the machinery of the cosmos behind it — literally the making and shaping of things. "My good fortune," with heaven doing the fortune-making.
I shall go and be sacrificed for you."
我與你祭賽去: I'll go and be sacrificed for you. Six characters, no ceremony, and the chapter's moral centre.
The offer is made almost in passing, and the lightness is the whole point. Wukong will 替 — stand in — for Guanbao, so that the Chens keep their 香煙後代, their incense and their generations: the line that exists to keep the ancestral offerings burning. He is speaking the family's own language back to them. Chen Qing's response is the reflex of a grateful householder, a thousand taels of silver pressed on the party for the road west, and Wukong's mock-affronted "and no thanks at all to old Sun?" keeps the whole thing at the level of banter.
Then it darkens by degrees, and the old man does not soften it. You will have gone to the sacrifice; there will be no you. That Great King will eat you. And when Wukong asks whether the creature would dare, the answer is a small dry joke — he might not, if he finds you too rank. Wukong shrugs it off onto heaven: eaten, and my span was short; spared, and it was my luck. From a monkey who once had his name scratched out of the ledger of the dead the fatalism is at least half in fun. But it also states the plain terms of every rescue in this book. The disciple puts himself where the helpless would otherwise be, and does not make a speech about it.