大聖逃遁 The Great Sage Takes Flight
卻說真君與大聖變做法天象地的規模，正鬥時，大聖忽見本營中妖猴驚散，自覺心慌，收了法象，掣棒抽身就走。真君見他敗走，大步趕上道：「那裡走？趁早歸降，饒你性命。」大聖不戀戰，只情跑起。將近洞口，正撞著康、張、姚、李四太尉，郭申、直健二將軍，一齊帥眾擋住道：「潑猴！那裡走？」大聖慌了手腳，就把金箍棒捏做繡花針，藏在耳內。搖身一變，變作個麻雀兒，飛在樹梢頭釘住。那六兄弟慌慌張張，前後尋覓不見，一齊吆喝道：「走了這猴精也！走了這猴精也！」却说真君与大圣变做法天象地的规模，正斗时，大圣忽见本营中妖猴惊散，自觉心慌，收了法象，掣棒抽身就走。真君见他败走，大步赶上道：「那里走？趁早归降，饶你性命。」大圣不恋战，只情跑起。将近洞口，正撞着康、张、姚、李四太尉，郭申、直健二将军，一齐帅众挡住道：「泼猴！那里走？」大圣慌了手脚，就把金箍棒捏做绣花针，藏在耳内。摇身一变，变作个麻雀儿，飞在树梢头钉住。那六兄弟慌慌张张，前后寻觅不见，一齐吆喝道：「走了这猴精也！走了这猴精也！」
逐句解 Line by line
Now while the True Lord and the Great Sage, in their Heaven-and-Earth magnitude, were locked in combat, the Great Sage suddenly saw the fiendish monkeys of his own camp scattering in panic,
規模 here means scale or dimensions — both of them are still wearing their giant forms. And then the monkey glances down. That glance is the turning point of the chapter: his attention breaks, and his resolve goes with it.
and feeling his own heart grow flustered, he withdrew his magic form, snatched up his cudgel, and broke off to flee.
收了法象, withdrew the magic semblance — he shrinks back out of cosmic size. 心慌 is the heart in a flutter, and it is worth marking the moment: this is the first time in the chapter that the monkey is afraid.
Seeing him break and run, the True Lord strode after him, calling, "Where do you think you're going? Surrender now, and your life will be spared!"
那裡走, where do you think you are going (那 is nǎ), is the standard shout of a pursuer in this kind of book — you can hear it in every Chinese opera chase. 趁早歸降, surrender while you still can (降 is xiáng).
The Great Sage had no heart for more fighting and simply ran for it.
不戀戰, unwilling to cling to the battle, and 只情跑起, just took to his heels. The swaggering Great Sage is now running, undignified, and the comedy of the chase begins here.
As he neared the cave mouth, he ran square into the four Marshals Kang, Zhang, Yao, and Li and the two Generals Guo Shen and Zhi Jian, who together led their troops to block him, shouting, "Brazen ape! Where do you run?"
撞著, collided with (著 is zháo). Having routed the troop, Erlang's six brothers are now standing between the monkey and his own front door. The trap is closing, and he did not see it being set.
Thrown into a panic, the Great Sage pinched his gold-banded cudgel down to an embroidery needle and tucked it into his ear.
慌了手腳, hands and feet flustered — thrown into complete confusion. Shrinking the cudgel to an embroidery needle and tucking it behind his ear is the monkey's signature trick, first seen in Chapter 3; here it means he is about to transform and would rather not be carrying a large iron bar while doing so.
With a shake of his body he transformed into a sparrow and perched, still, on the tip of a treetop.
麻雀兒, a little sparrow — the first transformation of the chase, and a superbly unheroic choice. 釘住, perched fixed (釘 is dìng, as of a nail driven in): he freezes absolutely still and hopes to be overlooked.
The six brothers, all in a fluster, searched high and low and could not find him, and cried out together, "The monkey-fiend's got away! The monkey-fiend's got away!"
慌慌張張, all flustered and flurried. The brothers' baffled double cry — 走了這猴精也, twice over — is the joke: the all-conquering Seven Sages have lost their quarry to a small bird sitting a few feet above their heads.
With this passage the chapter changes genre: the epic duel of giants gives way to a comic chase, and the register drops accordingly from the sublime to the breathless. The hinge is psychological, and precisely observed. The monkey, locked in his cosmic form, glances down and sees his own troop being routed; 自覺心慌, feeling his heart grow flustered, he loses his nerve for the first time in the chapter, shrinks out of giant size and runs. It is a small but telling moment of characterisation — the swaggering Great Sage, who has mocked every opponent he has met, breaks not from defeat in single combat but from the sight of his scattered followers.
What follows is the beginning of the famous transformation-contest, and its opening is staged as pure slapstick. The fleeing monkey runs straight into Erlang's six brothers, who have circled round to block his cave; cornered, he shrinks his cudgel to a needle, stows it in his ear — the trick we first saw in Chapter 3 — and turns himself into a sparrow on a treetop. The brothers, the conquering Seven Sages, are reduced to baffled searchers crying that the monkey-fiend has got away, while their quarry sits motionless a few feet above their heads. The comedy lies in the disproportion, vast powers foiled by a small bird, and it sets the pattern for the whole chase.
Beneath the comedy the allegory turns a corner as well. The duel of strength has reached its limit; now begins the duel of 變化, transformation, in which the contest is no longer of power but of protean cunning — and here the 心猿, the restless shape-shifting mind, is most fully itself. To flee by becoming a sparrow, a fish, a bird, a temple, is the very nature of an unsettled mind, which evades capture by never holding one form long enough to be caught in it. Erlang's task, and the chapter's, is to track that quicksilver changeability to its end. The transformation-contest opening here is thus not a digression but the heart of the matter: it dramatises exactly how slippery the mind is, and how only a discernment equal to its cunning — helped, in the end, by Heaven's mirror and Laozi's ring — can pin it down. (For the needle-in-the-ear trick and the cudgel's origin, see Chapter 3.)