坡下安歇 A Night on the Slope
八戒道：「這等說，便我們安歇不成。莫管甚麼黃昏半夜，且去他門上索戰，嚷嚷鬧鬧，攪他個不睡，莫教他捉弄了我師父。」行者道：「頭疼，去不得。」沙僧道：「不須索戰：一則師兄頭痛；二來我師父是個真僧，決不以色空亂性。且就在山坡下，閉風處坐這一夜，養養精神，待天明再作理會。」遂此三個弟兄拴牢白馬，守護行囊，就在坡下安歇不題。八戒道：「这等说，便我们安歇不成。莫管甚么黄昏半夜，且去他门上索战，嚷嚷闹闹，搅他个不睡，莫教他捉弄了我师父。」行者道：「头疼，去不得。」沙僧道：「不须索战：一则师兄头痛；二来我师父是个真僧，决不以色空乱性。且就在山坡下，闭风处坐这一夜，养养精神，待天明再作理会。」遂此三个弟兄拴牢白马，守护行囊，就在坡下安歇不题。
逐句解 Line by line
Bajie said, “If that is how it stands, there is no resting for us. Never mind whether it is dusk or the dead of night — let us go to her door and challenge her, and shout and make a racket, and stir her up so that she gets no sleep, and not leave her free to make sport of our master.”
嚷嚷鬧鬧 takes 嚷 as rǎng at both appearances, the reading ruled for this chapter. The automatic tools want rāng followed by a flattened second syllable, treating the doubled pair as the modern colloquial word for making a fuss; but the matching 鬧鬧 keeps both syllables full at nào nào, and the same two characters stand undoubled at the chapter's opening. 莫教 takes 教 as jiào.
Pilgrim said, “My head aches. I cannot go.”
去不得 is the "can't manage to" construction and takes 得 as the toneless de. Four characters, and the Great Sage is out of the fight.
Sha Monk said, “There is no need to challenge her. For one thing, elder brother's head is hurting; for another, our master is a true monk, and will on no account let form and emptiness throw his nature into disorder.
一則 pairs with 二來 below to number the points off — "for one thing… for another". Because 一 is doing lexical work in that pair, it keeps its full yī rather than shifting to the yì the following tone would otherwise force. That is the kind of thing no mechanical rule catches; it has to be read. 色空 points at the formula that form is itself emptiness. The two halves either side of the semicolon are a matched pair and stay in one line.
“Let us sit out this one night below the mountain slope, in some place out of the wind, and nurse our strength, and take the matter up again at daybreak.”
閉風處 takes 處 as chù — a spot out of the wind. 養養 doubles the verb to make it casual: get a bit of strength back.
So the three brothers tethered the white horse fast, kept guard over the baggage, and settled down below the slope for the night — of which we say no more.
不題 is the storyteller's formula for dropping a thread — the second of three in this chapter. Nothing here needs a ruling.
The council that closes the day is a small model of how these three work. Bajie proposes noise — go to the door, shout, keep her awake — which is neither a plan nor quite a joke, since disrupting the demon's night is at least aimed at the right target. Pilgrim cannot go and says so in four characters. It falls to Sha Monk, who gets fewer lines than either brother across the whole book, to produce the actual reasoning, and he numbers his points: 一則, for one thing; 二來, for another.
His second reason is the interesting one. Their master is a 真僧, a true monk, and will not let 色空 disorder his nature — the phrase compressing the formula that form is itself emptiness. Sha Monk is staking the night on his master's doctrinal soundness, and he turns out to be right. But the reader has watched Tripitaka reason his way into eating a bun by calculating his odds of being murdered, and knows that what will hold tonight is less serenity than stubbornness under fear.
The narrative then does something it rarely does: it puts its heroes to bed. The horse is tethered, the baggage guarded, the brothers sit down out of the wind, and the storyteller closes the thread with 不題. Everything that matters for the next several hundred characters will happen inside the cave with nobody watching — which is exactly the condition the chapter needs in order to make its argument about what Tripitaka is like unobserved.