原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
恨苦相持 Locked in Bitter Grip
他兩個在庵門外交手，跳跳舞舞的，鬥到山坡之下，恨苦相持不題。他两个在庵门外交手，跳跳舞舞的，斗到山坡之下，恨苦相持不题。
逐句解 Line by line
他兩個在庵門外交手，跳跳舞舞的，鬥到山坡之下，恨苦相持不題。
他两个在庵门外交手，跳跳舞舞的，斗到山坡之下，恨苦相持不题。
The two of them joined battle outside the convent gate, leaping and capering, and fought their way down to the foot of the mountain slope, where they held each other in bitter grip — of which no more.
相持 takes 相 as xiāng, mutual — each holding the other — and not xiàng, the reading it takes as a noun. 跳跳舞舞 is a doubled description of the capering of combat. And 不題 — no more of this — is the storyteller's formula for laying a thread aside, which here does exactly what Wukong's plan requires: it carries both fighters off the page and away from the well.
Twenty-six characters, and the shortest passage in the chapter. Its whole function is spatial: it moves the two combatants from the convent gate down to the foot of the slope, and then stops narrating them.
The closing 不題 is the mechanism. As a storyteller's formula it simply means no more of this for now, and the novel uses it dozens of times to switch threads. Here it also executes the plan. Wukong needed the immortal drawn away from the well and held there; the narrative obliges by removing both men from the page, and the next passage opens on Sha Monk, alone, at the water.