怎生得去 How Else Is She to Travel
三藏沉吟道：「我那裡好與他同馬？」──「他怎生得去？」三藏道：「教八戒馱他走罷。」三藏沉吟道：「我那里好与他同马？」──「他怎生得去？」三藏道：「教八戒驮他走罢。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka hesitated and said, "How could I properly share a horse with her?" — "Then how is she to get there?"
The 那裡 here is the question word again, with 那 as nǎ — how could I, not over there. 沉吟 is to pause and turn something over, half aloud. It is the first time in the chapter he has hesitated before speaking. The second question is set off by a dash pair in the original and its speaker is not named: it reads either as Pilgrim putting it straight back, or as the master asking himself.
Tripitaka said, "Have Bajie carry her on his back."
The solution he reaches for is to hand the problem to somebody else. The light ba again, and again it is not really a suggestion.
The exchange is unusually bare — a hesitation, an unattributed question, a decision — and the bareness makes it feel like thinking rather than arguing.
What Tripitaka arrives at is characteristic. He will not carry the awkwardness himself and he will not send her away, so he assigns her to the disciple with the least authority to refuse. Pilgrim asked the question precisely to see what his master would do with it.