豬祖宗 You Do Not Know Your Ancestor
妖精硬著膽喝道：「你是那裡來的？叫甚名字？快早說來，饒你性命。」八戒笑道：「我的兒，你是也不認得你豬祖宗哩。妖精硬着胆喝道：「你是那里来的？叫甚名字？快早说来，饶你性命。」八戒笑道：「我的儿，你是也不认得你猪祖宗哩。
逐句解 Line by line
The fiend hardened his gall and shouted, "Where have you come from?
硬著膽 — stiffening the gall bladder — is the Chinese seat of courage doing the work English gives the spine. 著 is zhe, held stiff while he speaks. 那 is nǎ, where. The detail that matters is that he has to harden it.
What is your name?
甚 is shén, the question word. Four characters, and it is the standard demand before a fight in this novel — name yourself, so that killing you counts for something.
Say it quickly and I will spare your life."
Eight characters, and this is a boundary case in how the text is cut: a tail of seven or fewer that closes a speech gets folded back into the line before it, and at eight it stands as its own unit. This one stands.
Bajie laughed. "My boy, you do not even know your own Pig Ancestor.
我的兒 — my child — is an insult, not an endearment: he is claiming a generation's seniority over the creature threatening him. 認得 puts 得 at dé, the full reading after a verb of recognising. 豬祖宗, Pig Ancestor, he has invented on the spot.
The fiend has to work up his nerve to ask, and the answer he gets is a man calling him son. Bajie is outnumbered, alone, and thoroughly in his element.
He is also stalling with style. He was asked for a name and is about to give ten lines of verse instead, most of it about a job he lost.