原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
嘓嘓噥噥的 Grumbling Under His Breath
那八戒口裡嘓嘓噥噥的報怨行者道：「天殺的，我說要救便脫根救，如今卻又復籠蒸了。」那八戒口里啯啯哝哝的报怨行者道：「天杀的，我说要救便脱根救，如今却又复笼蒸了。」
逐句解 Line by line
那八戒口裡嘓嘓噥噥的報怨行者道：「天殺的，我說要救便脫根救，如今卻又復籠蒸了。」
那八戒口里啯啯哝哝的报怨行者道：「天杀的，我说要救便脱根救，如今却又复笼蒸了。」
That Bajie went grumbling and muttering away in his mouth, complaining at Pilgrim: "Curse it! I said if you were going to save us, save us by the root — and now here we are back in the steamer again."
嘓嘓噥噥 is two doubled sound-words in a row, the noise of somebody complaining just below the level where you could be asked to repeat it. 天殺的, heaven-killed, is a mild curse, about the strength of damn it. And he is quoting himself: 脫根救, rescue by the root, is the exact phrase he used before the lid came off.
Bajie was right and he is going to say so. He asked for a rescue with nothing left to grow back, he got one that lasted about an hour, and he is now tied up again and quoting his own words at the man responsible.
The chapter has been careful to earn this. Every delay was Wukong's — the horse, the passport, the objection to climbing walls — and every one of them was defensible, and the sum of them is four people back in the hall. The grumbling is not comic relief; it is the bill.