原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
同心戮力 Wait Until The Light Comes
望兄長且饒打，待天明和你同心戮力，尋師去也。」行者雖是神通廣大，卻也明理識時。望兄长且饶打，待天明和你同心戮力，寻师去也。」行者虽是神通广大，却也明理识时。
逐句解 Line by line
望兄長且饒打，待天明和你同心戮力，尋師去也。」
望兄长且饶打，待天明和你同心戮力，寻师去也。」
"I beg you, elder brother, spare the beating for now; wait till daylight and we will join hearts and put our strength together, and go looking for our master."
長 is zhǎng in the word for elder brother. 同心戮力, one heart and joined strength, is a formal phrase from the histories, and Sha Monk reaches for it to close his case.
行者雖是神通廣大，卻也明理識時。
行者虽是神通广大，却也明理识时。
Pilgrim, for all his wide magic powers, was also a reasonable creature who knew the moment.
明理識時, understanding principle and recognising the time, is high praise in Chinese and it is the narrator's own verdict, not anyone's dialogue.
Sha Monk's case ends with a plan rather than a plea — wait for light, work together, go and find him — and that is why it succeeds where argument would not have.
The narrator's verdict on Pilgrim is unusually generous and it is worth noticing where it falls. Not when he fights, not when he boasts, but when he is talked down from beating his brothers and accepts that he was wrong.
Knowing the moment is a phrase from the political histories, normally used of ministers who understand when to advance and when to retire. Applied to a monkey standing in a garden with a cudgel, it is both a joke and entirely serious.