遞相揪住 Both Plead Their Case
這兩個遞相揪住道：「菩薩，這廝果然像弟子模樣。才自水簾洞打起，戰鬥多時，不分勝負。沙悟淨肉眼愚蒙，不能分識，有力難助，是弟子教他回西路去回覆師父。我與這廝打到寶山，借菩薩慧眼，與弟子認個真假，辨明邪正。」这两个递相揪住道：「菩萨，这厮果然像弟子模样。才自水帘洞打起，战斗多时，不分胜负。沙悟净肉眼愚蒙，不能分识，有力难助，是弟子教他回西路去回覆师父。我与这厮打到宝山，借菩萨慧眼，与弟子认个真假，辨明邪正。」
逐句解 Line by line
The two of them, gripping each other by turns, said: "Bodhisattva, this fellow does indeed resemble your disciple's own likeness.
Two mouths, one plea, and the narration never once separates them. 遞相 is dì xiāng, each in turn, one after the other.
We fell to fighting from the Water-Curtain Cave onward, and have battled a long while without dividing victory from defeat.
不分勝負, not dividing win from loss — the same 分 that runs through 不能分識 in the next line, meaning to tell apart rather than to split up.
Sha Wujing's fleshly eyes are dull and benighted; he could not tell us apart, and having strength could yet lend no help. So your disciple bade him go back to the westward road and report to our master.
The 肉眼 is the eye of flesh, the ordinary organ, and it is set here against the 慧眼, the eye of wisdom, which they are about to ask for. 教 is jiào, to tell someone to do something.
I have fought this fellow all the way to your treasure mountain to borrow the Bodhisattva's eye of wisdom, that she may tell your disciple's true from false and make plain which is deviant and which upright."
慧眼 huì yǎn is the eye of wisdom, second of the five eyes in Buddhist reckoning — the faculty that looks through appearance to what is really there. It is exactly the right thing to ask for, and it will not be enough.
The entire plea is spoken twice at once and the text refuses to say which mouth is which. 這兩個遞相揪住道 gives one verb of speaking to two subjects, and every sentence after it is grammatically singular — 弟子, your disciple — while coming out of two throats. The reader is put in exactly the Bodhisattva's position.
What they ask for is a faculty rather than a verdict: 借菩薩慧眼, lend us the eye of wisdom. It is the right request in principle, and the chapter will spend itself showing that the faculty does not stretch this far. Setting the 慧眼 against Sha Monk's 肉眼 a sentence earlier invites us to expect a difference of degree — better eyes, better seeing. That expectation is about to collapse.
The plea also incriminates absolutely nobody. Every fact in it is true of both speakers: both fought from the Water-Curtain Cave, both went unrecognised by Sha Monk, both came here. A false claimant who says only true things has produced testimony that no cross-examination can break, and the novel seems well aware of it.