原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
今日甚時分 What Hour Is It Now
三藏道：「悟空，今日甚時分了？」行者道：「有申時前後。」三藏道：「悟空，今日甚时分了？」行者道：「有申时前后。」
逐句解 Line by line
三藏道：「悟空，今日甚時分了？」
三藏道：「悟空，今日甚时分了？」
Tripitaka said, "Wukong, what hour of the day is it now?"
甚 is the question-word here, shén, standing in for 什麼. 時分 is a stretch of the day rather than a point in it.
行者道：「有申時前後。」
行者道：「有申时前后。」
Pilgrim said, "Somewhere about the hour of shēn."
申 shēn is the ninth of the twelve double-hours, running from three in the afternoon to five. 前後 makes it an estimate, thereabouts — which is as precise as anybody gets without a clock.
Nineteen characters, and the whole rest of the chapter turns on them. It is late afternoon. There is not time to reach the palace, and there is time to climb a pagoda before the night is out.
The exchange also does a small piece of characterisation without comment. Tripitaka asks the time because he is working out whether he can still get an audience today, and Pilgrim answers to the double-hour without being asked how he knows.