恐怕污了 Afraid Of Dirtying My Cudgel
是我跟到那裡，見他脫了衣服下水，我要打他，恐怕污了棍子，又怕低了名頭，是以不曾動棍，只變做一個餓老鷹，叼了他的衣服。他都忍辱含羞，不敢出頭，蹲在水中哩。我等快去解下師父走路罷。」是我跟到那里，见他脱了衣服下水，我要打他，恐怕污了棍子，又怕低了名头，是以不曾动棍，只变做一个饿老鹰，叼了他的衣服。他都忍辱含羞，不敢出头，蹲在水中哩。我等快去解下师父走路罢。」
逐句解 Line by line
"I followed them there, and when I saw them take their clothes off and go into the water I wanted to hit them — but I was afraid of fouling my cudgel, and afraid too of bringing my name down. So I never used the cudgel at all: I just turned into a starving old eagle and made off with their clothes."
Four 了 in fifty characters, all the light le marking things done. 子 takes the light zi in 棍子. 污 is to foul or defile — the objection is not that killing them is wrong but that the weapon would be dirtied by it.
"They are all swallowing their shame and hiding their faces, not daring to come up, squatting there in the water."
中 is zhōng, in. 忍辱含羞 is two matched two-character phrases for the same state — bearing the humiliation, holding in the shame. The final 哩 is a colloquial flourish: still at it, as we speak.
"Let us go quickly and cut the master down, and get on the road."
罷 is bà, the softening word. Eleven characters, and it is the right plan: the objective was never the monsters.
He gives his reasons for not killing them and they are exactly the reasons he gave himself a few passages ago, in the same order: the cudgel would be fouled, his name would be lowered.
The word for fouling is the giveaway. It is about defilement, not about wrong — the weapon would be dirtied by contact. Nowhere in this account, to himself or to his brothers, does the question of whether seven creatures deserve to die come up.
And then he proposes the sensible thing: go and cut the master down while they are stuck in the pool with no clothes. He has bought time and he wants to spend it on the rescue. Eight Rules is about to disagree.