豈敢推託 How Would I Dare Refuse
行者道：「我因路過此方，見久旱民苦，特著你來此施雨求濟，如何推託？」龍王道：「豈敢推託？但大聖念真言呼喚，不敢不來。行者道：「我因路过此方，见久旱民苦，特着你来此施雨求济，如何推托？」龙王道：「岂敢推托？但大圣念真言呼唤，不敢不来。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "I was passing through this district, saw a long drought and a people in misery, and sent for you specially to come and grant rain and relieve them. Why are you making excuses?"
著 is zhuó here — the sending sense, the one that puts somebody up to something. It is a different word from the zhe that marks a continuing state, and this chapter uses both, along with a third reading. 推託 is to fob someone off with a pretext, and Pilgrim's choice of it is an accusation rather than a question.
The Dragon King said, "How would I dare make excuses?
He throws the word straight back. Repeating your accuser's own term before answering it is a very old rhetorical move and it survives intact into English.
"When the Great Sage recites the true words and calls, I dare not fail to come.
不敢不來 is a double negative — dare not not come. Chinese uses the shape for the same purpose English does: to make obedience sound like compulsion rather than willingness. He came because he had no choice, and he wants that on record.
Pilgrim accuses the dragon of stalling, and the dragon's reply is a small masterpiece of covering oneself. He came, he says, because a summons from the Great Sage cannot be refused — which is both flattering and a careful note that his attendance was not voluntary.
Anyone who has watched a competent official explain why a request is outside their remit will recognise the technique exactly. Nothing is refused. Everything is deferred upward.