幌棒驚馬 A Flourish of the Golden Staff
四眾進山，緩行良久，過了山頭。下西坡，乃是一段平陽之地。豬八戒賣弄精神，教沙和尚挑著擔子，他雙手舉鈀，上前趕馬。那馬更不懼他，憑那獃子嗒笞笞的，還只是緩行不緊。行者道：「兄弟，你趕他怎的？讓他慢慢走罷了。」八戒道：「天色將晚，自上山行了這一日，肚裡餓了，大家走動些，尋個人家，化些齋吃。」行者聞言道：「既如此，等我教他快走。」把金箍棒幌一幌，喝了一聲，那馬溜了韁，如飛似箭，順平路往前去了。四众进山，缓行良久，过了山头。下西坡，乃是一段平阳之地。猪八戒卖弄精神，教沙和尚挑着担子，他双手举钯，上前赶马。那马更不惧他，凭那呆子嗒笞笞的，还只是缓行不紧。行者道：「兄弟，你赶他怎的？让他慢慢走罢了。」八戒道：「天色将晚，自上山行了这一日，肚里饿了，大家走动些，寻个人家，化些斋吃。」行者闻言道：「既如此，等我教他快走。」把金箍棒幌一幌，喝了一声，那马溜了缰，如飞似箭，顺平路往前去了。
逐句解 Line by line
The four of them went up into the mountain, walking slowly a good while, and got over the summit.
四眾, the four, is the novel's standing collective for the travelling party — master and three disciples. The horse does not count, which is a little hard on an animal that is also a dragon prince.
Coming down the western slope, they found a stretch of level open country.
平陽 is open flat ground lying out in the sun. Notice the timing: the long description has just spent a dozen lines insisting there was nowhere level to stand, and the narrative hands them easy footing in the very next sentence.
Zhu Bajie made a great show of his energy: he set Sha Monk to shoulder the carrying-pole while he himself raised his rake in both hands and went on ahead to drive the horse.
Three characters in a row here have more than one reading and each takes a different one. 挑 is tiāo, to carry slung on a shoulder-pole; 著 is zhe, which marks an action under way; 擔 is the noun dàn, the load itself. 教 is jiào, to make somebody do a thing. And 鈀, Bajie's rake, is pá — not bǎ.
But the horse was not in the least afraid of him; for all the idiot’s clacking and clattering, it still only ambled along and would not hurry.
嗒笞笞 is a noise word: either the rake clattering or the driver clicking his tongue at the horse, and the text does not say which. No dictionary records a special reading for it, so the three characters keep their ordinary values, dā chī chī. 更 is gèng, still, all the more.
Pilgrim said, “Brother, what are you driving him for? Let him walk slowly and have done with it.”
罷了 is a fixed little unit meaning and that is that. It came from 罷, to cease, plus 了, which marks the thing as done — which is why the 罷 is the verb bà and not the soft imperative ba you get at the end of a sentence in 過去罷. Going by position alone would give the wrong answer here, so the pair is handled as a pair.
Bajie said, “The day is getting late. We have been walking this mountain the whole day and my belly is empty. Let us all step out a little, find a house, and beg a meal there.”
將晚 puts 將 to work as a time word, jiāng, about to. 化些齋 is the beggar-monk's proper verb — 化 means to transform, and what is transformed is the giver's merit, not the food. Keep the ordinariness of the request in mind: the household they eventually reach will refuse them nothing, and will be destroyed for it.
Pilgrim, hearing this, said, “If that is how it stands, let me make him go faster.”
Again 教 as jiào, to make him do it. Wukong's readiness to fix a small problem by force is set up here in miniature, ten passages before he fixes a large one the same way.
He gave the gold-hooped staff a flourish and let out a single shout; and the horse slipped its rein and went off down the level road ahead, swift as a flying arrow.
喝 is hè, to shout — not hē, to drink. 似 keeps sì. Notice what does not happen: the staff is not brought down, and nobody is touched. The shout alone is enough. It is the last time in this chapter that a flourish of that staff will hurt no one.
This is comic filler in the ordinary sense, and it is also the chapter's whole argument in miniature. Bajie wants the horse to go faster and applies noise; the horse ignores him. Wukong wants the horse to go faster and applies the staff; the horse bolts. The difference between the two disciples is not motive but effectiveness, and the narrative has just demonstrated, harmlessly, that Wukong's method works and everybody else's does not.
Pilgrim's line to Bajie — let the animal go at his own pace and have done — is exactly the restraint the chapter will find him incapable of practising on his own account. He can counsel patience about a horse. Ten passages later, faced with two men who have tied his master to a tree, he will kill them both and then complain about being scolded for it.
The bolting horse is also the plot's engine. It carries Tripitaka out ahead of his disciples and straight into the ambush, so that when the robbers stop him he is alone and on foot. Wukong's shout is therefore the immediate cause of everything that follows, including his own expulsion — a piece of construction the chapter never points out and does not need to.