這媽媽兒 That Old Lady Is Formidable
八戒打仰道：「這媽媽兒卻也利害，怎麼就降這般惡物？」行者笑道：「我問他有甚兵器破他金光，他道有個繡花針兒，是他兒子在日眼裡煉的。八戒打仰道：「这妈妈儿却也利害，怎么就降这般恶物？」行者笑道：「我问他有甚兵器破他金光，他道有个绣花针儿，是他儿子在日眼里炼的。
逐句解 Line by line
Eight Rules gaped up after her. "That old lady is formidable! How did she subdue such a vile creature so easily?"
打仰 is to tip the head back and stare upward — a whole gesture in two characters. 媽媽 reduces its second syllable, as every doubled kinship word does, and the 兒 on the end is a familiar diminutive. Calling a bodhisattva 媽媽兒 — the old lady — is Eight Rules being himself. 降 is xiáng, to subdue: the seventh of the chapter's eight, of which only 降階, coming down a flight of steps, is the other band.
Pilgrim laughed. "I asked her what weapon she had to break his golden light, and she said she had an embroidery needle, refined by her son inside the eye of the sun."
甚 is shén, what — and this is the sixth and last of the chapter's six interrogative ones, against two occurrences read shèn. Nothing in the writing distinguishes them; the sense does it every time. 兒 keeps its full tone at both occurrences here, as at all thirty-three in the chapter.
Eight Rules stares upward and calls a bodhisattva "the old lady", and the book lets him. 這媽媽兒 is affectionate, familiar and completely improper, and it is exactly what he would say. He is the character who never adjusts his register for anybody, which is why he is funny and why he keeps getting into trouble.
His question is a good one, though. How did she do that so easily? Pilgrim fought the thing for sixty bouts, was trapped, cooked, concussed and driven twenty li underground. She pointed at it.
And the answer Pilgrim is about to give is the best joke in the chapter, because it is not magic at all. It is natural history.