寬洪海量 Broad as the Sea Itself
老怪報怨道:「都是你定的甚麼『分瓣分瓣』,卻惹得禍事臨門。怎生結果?」先鋒道:「大王放心,且休埋怨。我記得孫行者是個寬洪海量的猴頭,雖則他神通廣大,卻好奉承。老怪报怨道:「都是你定的甚么『分瓣分瓣』,却惹得祸事临门。怎生结果?」先锋道:「大王放心,且休埋怨。我记得孙行者是个宽洪海量的猴头,虽则他神通广大,却好奉承。
逐句解 Line by line
The old fiend rounded on him in complaint: "It is all this Parting the Petals, Parting the Petals of yours, and now the trouble is at our own gate. How is this to end?"
The king blames his strategist, which is what kings in this novel do the moment a plan goes wrong. In 惹得, to provoke something into happening, 得 is de, hanging the consequence off the verb. Notice he cannot even be bothered to say the stratagem's full name — he just repeats the first half of it twice, with audible contempt.
The vanguard said, "Set your mind at rest, Great King, and spare me the reproaches.
埋怨 is to grumble at somebody, and the first character 埋 is mán — a reading that has nothing to do with the far commoner burial sense the same character carries five other times in this chapter, all of them shortly and grimly relevant.
As I recall, Sun the Pilgrim is a monkey head of broad and oceanic capacity. Great as his powers are, he is fond of being flattered.
This is the hinge of the entire first half of the chapter. 寬洪海量 praises somebody as broad-minded and ocean-sized in tolerance, and the vanguard means it as a weakness, not a compliment — a man who thinks well of himself can be handled. 奉承 is to flatter, literally to receive and hold up.
The vanguard has correctly identified Wukong's one exploitable flaw, and it is not a fighting weakness. It is vanity. Everything that happens for the next several pages follows from a monster working out that the strongest creature on the mountain can be slowed down by being called sir.
The plan is also a good piece of character reading. Wukong genuinely does stop when he is addressed respectfully — we will watch him do it within two passages, and he will hold Bajie back to listen.