原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
駕雲上天 He Rode a Cloud Up
那郡侯膽戰心驚道：「孫老爺那裡去了？」八戒笑道：「駕雲上天去了。」那郡侯胆战心惊道：「孙老爷那里去了？」八戒笑道：「驾云上天去了。」
逐句解 Line by line
那郡侯膽戰心驚道：「孫老爺那裡去了？」
那郡侯胆战心惊道：「孙老爷那里去了？」
The prefect, trembling with alarm, said, "Where has His Honour Sun gone?"
那 is nǎ — where. The pair 那裡 is read nǎ lǐ when it asks and nà lǐ when it points, and this chapter uses it both ways. 孫老爺, His Honour Sun, gives Pilgrim the same title the prefect's own staff give the prefect. The man has just promoted a monkey to his own rank.
八戒笑道：「駕雲上天去了。」
八戒笑道：「驾云上天去了。」
Bajie laughed. "Ridden a cloud up to heaven."
駕雲, to drive a cloud, is transport rather than miracle in this novel — the way one might say caught a train. Bajie's flatness is the joke.
The prefect is terrified; Bajie is bored. It is the reliable comedy of the second half of this novel, where the pilgrims' everyday is everyone else's apocalypse.
But look at what the prefect calls him. His Honour Sun — the form of address used for a commissioned official, and specifically the one his own runners use for him. He has been on his knees in the street, given up the seat of honour, and now hands over his own title. The man is systematically emptying himself of rank, and the novel has not once made him look foolish for it.