快都來拜謝 Come And Give Thanks
行者道：「你們那茶裡中了毒了。虧這毘藍菩薩搭救，快都來拜謝。」三藏欠身整衣謝了。行者道：「你们那茶里中了毒了。亏这毘蓝菩萨搭救，快都来拜谢。」三藏欠身整衣谢了。
逐句解 Line by line
"There was poison in that tea of yours," said Pilgrim.
中 is zhòng here — to be struck by, the reading in 中毒, to be poisoned. Not the zhōng of middle or inside that this chapter uses everywhere else. 中原音韻 files the character in 東鍾 under both a level and a departing tone, which is the split we still have. Twelve characters, and it is the first anybody but Pilgrim has been told what happened.
"We owe it to Bodhisattva Vairambha that we were saved. Come, all of you, and give thanks."
虧 means thanks to, owing to — the character's other sense is a deficit, and the two meet in the idea of being in somebody's debt. 搭救 is to lend a hand in a rescue, a plain vernacular compound with no religious flavour at all.
Tripitaka raised himself, straightened his robe and gave his thanks.
Eight characters, and both gestures are echoes. 欠身, the half-rise, is what the Daoist did at the tea table when he excused himself to go and fetch the poison — and, once between, what Pilgrim did on the road to straighten up and wipe his eyes. It occurs three times in the chapter and those are all of them. 整衣, smoothing the gown, is what the Daoist did when four monks surprised him at his pills, where the text writes it 整衣服. Both are performed here by a man who has just been poisoned by the person who performed them first.
Pilgrim explains, briefly, and organises the thanks. That is worth noting: he does not tell them about the spiders, the silk, the golden light, the twenty li underground, the widow, the thousand li or the needle. He tells them there was poison in the tea and that the lady saved them, and calls them over.
Tripitaka's response is the last and best of the chapter's echoes. 欠身整衣 — half-rise, straighten the robe — is exactly what the Daoist did twice, once to excuse himself while the poison was being weighed and once when the pilgrims first walked in on him. The gestures of courtesy are identical whether the man performing them is a murderer or a monk.
That has been the chapter's argument since the first gate. Manners tell you nothing. The abbey and the cave got the same tag, the same costume verse, the same 問訊 and the same 失迎, and the difference between them was never once visible in the etiquette.