莫費氣力 Do Not Waste Your Strength
這行者引八戒,趕至門首吆喝,內無人答應。八戒使鈀築時,莫想得動。行者知之,道:「八戒,莫費氣力,他把門已堵了。」八戒道:「堵了門,師仇怎報?」行者道:「且回上墓前,看看沙僧去。」这行者引八戒,赶至门首吆喝,内无人答应。八戒使钯筑时,莫想得动。行者知之,道:「八戒,莫费气力,他把门已堵了。」八戒道:「堵了门,师仇怎报?」行者道:「且回上墓前,看看沙僧去。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim brought Bajie up to the gate and hollered at it, and there was no answer from within.
吆喝, to holler, takes 喝 as hè, the shouting reading. 答應, to answer, takes 應 as yìng. Seventeen characters, and the whole war has stopped because nobody will come to the door.
Bajie put his rake to it, and there was no hope of shifting it.
莫想得動 is a fine tight phrase — do not even imagine getting it to move. The parse cuts after the first two characters, so 得 is de, the light hinge marking whether a thing can be managed at all; a sealed chapter earlier in the novel carries the identical phrase and reads it the same way. The rake that punched a hole through this door an hour ago now does nothing.
Pilgrim understood, and said, "Bajie, do not waste your strength. He has blocked the gate already."
知之, understood it, is a compact literary turn dropped into ordinary speech — Wukong works out what has happened without needing to be told. He is the first to accept that force has stopped being useful.
Bajie said, "With the gate blocked, how is the master to be avenged?"
師仇怎報, how is the master's wrong to be repaid, is the question the whole second half of the chapter answers — and it answers it in a way neither of them expects, because the wrong they are trying to avenge has not actually happened.
Pilgrim said, "Let us go back up to the grave first and look in on Sha Monk."
Thirteen characters, and the fight is over for now. 看看 doubled makes it casual, look in on him — after a battle, a rout and a blocked door, the next move is to go and check on the brother left sitting by a mound of earth.
The chapter has spent thirteen passages building to a battle and then makes the battle irrelevant with a pile of rocks. Wukong can fight anything that will fight him, and the fiend has simply declined.
Bajie's question about avenging the master is the hinge of the whole chapter. He asks how the wrong is to be repaid, and the honest answer — which nobody in the scene can give — is that there is no wrong yet. Tripitaka is tied to a tree behind the cave, and the next stretch of the story begins when Wukong stops trying to break in through the front.