拜辭南海 Parting From Potalaka
這行者與沙僧拜辭了菩薩，縱起兩道祥光，離了南海。原來行者觔斗雲快，沙和尚仙雲覺遲，行者就要先行。沙僧扯住道：「大哥不必這等藏頭露尾，先去安根。待小弟與你一同走。」大聖本是良心，沙僧卻有疑意。真個二人同駕雲而去。不多時，果見花果山。这行者与沙僧拜辞了菩萨，纵起两道祥光，离了南海。原来行者觔斗云快，沙和尚仙云觉迟，行者就要先行。沙僧扯住道：「大哥不必这等藏头露尾，先去安根。待小弟与你一同走。」大圣本是良心，沙僧却有疑意。真个二人同驾云而去。不多时，果见花果山。
逐句解 Line by line
The Pilgrim and Sha Monk took their leave of the Bodhisattva, raised two shafts of auspicious light, and quitted the Southern Sea.
Two lights, counted separately, for two travellers leaving together. Hold on to that arithmetic: the whole chapter is about to argue over whether it is counting two travellers or one traveller doubled.
Now the Pilgrim's cloud-somersault was swift and the Sand Monk's immortal cloud was slow to the feel, so the Pilgrim would go on ahead.
The somersault cloud is Wukong's party trick, and 觔斗 is the somersault — dǒu, though the automatic reading wants the dòu of the grain measure and the Dipper. Sha Monk's cloud is slower, or at any rate it feels slower to him: 覺遲, from jué, to feel.
Sha Monk caught hold of him and said: "Elder Brother, there is no need of this hiding of the head and showing of the tail, of going on first to lay a root.
Sha Monk is not asking, he is accusing. 藏頭露尾 cáng tóu lù wěi — hide the head, show the tail — is still the everyday Chinese for shifty behaviour, the way English says shifty-eyed. 安根, to set a root, means to get your groundwork in early; Sha Monk thinks his brother wants a head start so he can square things before anyone arrives.
Wait for your younger brother, and we shall go together."
Eight characters, one complete sentence, and it is a plea rather than a demand — the younger brother asking not to be left behind.
The Great Sage was of an honest heart at bottom; Sha Monk, however, harboured a doubt.
The narrator steps in and settles the moral facts himself: the Great Sage was honest, 本是良心; Sha Monk doubted, 卻有疑意. Nobody inside the story gets told this. The suspicion in this chapter is never the impostor's doing alone.
Truly the two of them mounted the clouds and went together.
真個, truly, in very fact — the narrator vouching for what he has just described. There is a small joke in the choice, because 真, true, and 假, false, are about to become the chapter's entire business.
In no great while the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit came into view.
The Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, 花果山, is Wukong's own home ground. He arrives at it, this once, as a stranger.
The chapter opens mid-stride, straight out of the Bodhisattva's refusal to say who is who. She has told them to go and look, and the looking starts in the second sentence. Nothing is settled by the journey itself; two figures simply move toward a place where a third is already waiting.
The squabble over the somersault cloud is the first of the chapter's many small tests of trust, and Sha Monk fails it in the direction of suspicion rather than of credulity. He will not let Wukong travel ahead unwatched. Then the narrator does something he rarely does and states the moral facts flat out: the Great Sage was honest, Sha Monk doubted. A reader who takes that sentence at face value already knows more than any character will know for the next four and a half thousand characters.
藏頭露尾 is an accusation of concealment, and it lands on the one figure in the whole episode who is concealing nothing. That is the chapter's particular cruelty. Suspicion attaches itself to the real article, because the real article is the only one whose behaviour anybody has a memory to compare it against.