停留長智 Delay Breeds Second Thoughts
沙僧在傍道：「哥哥說那裡話！常言道：『停留長智。』那妖精倘或今晚不睡，把師父害了，卻如之何？不若如今就去，嚷得他措手不及，方才好救師父。少遲，恐有失也。」八戒聞言，抖擻神威道：「沙兄弟說得是，我們都趁此月光去降魔耶。」行者依言，即吩咐寺僧：「看守行李、馬匹，待我等把妖精捉來，對本府刺史證其假佛，免卻燈油，以蘇概縣小民之困，卻不是好？」眾僧遵命。他三個遂縱起祥雲，出城而去。沙僧在傍道：「哥哥说那里话！常言道：『停留长智。』那妖精倘或今晚不睡，把师父害了，却如之何？不若如今就去，嚷得他措手不及，方才好救师父。少迟，恐有失也。」八戒闻言，抖擞神威道：「沙兄弟说得是，我们都趁此月光去降魔耶。」行者依言，即吩咐寺僧：「看守行李、马匹，待我等把妖精捉来，对本府刺史证其假佛，免却灯油，以苏概县小民之困，却不是好？」众僧遵命。他三个遂纵起祥云，出城而去。
逐句解 Line by line
Sha the Monk said from beside him, "What a thing for elder brother to say!
說那裡話 is a set exclamation — literally "where does that talk come from" — used to reject something out of hand, and 那 in it is nǎ, the rhetorical "where." A reading: 傍 is páng, beside. It is Sha Monk, the most deferential of the three, who contradicts Pilgrim, and that is why it carries.
"As the common saying goes, 'Delay breeds second thoughts.'
The chapter's second and last inner quotation, and like the first it is a citation rather than verse — matter the edition encloses in the inner brackets takes no verse flag whatever its shape. 停留長智 means that waiting gives the other side time to think, and to think is to think of something. A reading: 長 here is zhǎng, to grow or increase — wits growing — and it is the one site in this whole chapter where the automatic reading of that character happens to be right.
"If those demons should not sleep tonight, and do our master harm — what then?
如之何 — what is to be done — is Sha Monk's characteristic register, slightly formal even in an argument. The fear is exact: the demons are saving Tripitaka to eat with the others, and any change of plan kills him.
"Better to go now, and make such an uproar that they are caught unprepared — that is the way to rescue our master.
措手不及 — no time to get a hand to it — is still current Chinese for being caught on the wrong foot. A reading: 得 in 嚷得他措手不及 is the neutral joint hanging the result on the verb.
"Delay a little, and I fear there may be a loss."
Nine characters, and they are the chapter's own argument turned around at last. Everything that has gone wrong in this chapter came from a pause. Sha Monk is the first character to say so, and he says it about tonight.
Hearing this, Eight Rules roused his divine might and said, "Brother Sha speaks rightly. Let us all take this moonlight and go and subdue the fiends."
Pig, of all people, voting to skip a night's sleep. A reading: 降 in 降魔 is xiáng, to subdue — the reading chapter 4 seals at 降魔大元帥 — and not the jiàng of descending, which is the same character and its reading at 降祥 earlier in this chapter.
Pilgrim agreed, and at once instructed the monks of the monastery: "Mind the baggage and the horse, and wait till we have caught the demons and can prove to the prefect of this place that they are counterfeit buddhas — so as to do away with the lamp-oil and relieve the hardship of the small folk of the whole county. Would that not be well?"
The chapter's moral accounting, and it is Pilgrim who does it. He is not going back for revenge or even, in this sentence, for his master. He is going to produce evidence — 證其假佛, prove them counterfeit buddhas — so that the levy can be cancelled and 概縣小民, the small folk of the whole county, are relieved. Those are the two hundred and forty households, and this is the only line in the chapter that remembers them.
The monks obeyed.
Four characters. They have done nothing else all chapter.
So the three of them rose up on auspicious clouds and went out of the city.
The chapter's last action, and it is a departure by night. 祥雲, auspicious cloud, is the same word the town used of what came down over the bridge — but this time the thing riding it is what it appears to be.
Sha the Monk, who defers to everyone, contradicts Pilgrim — and he is right. The proverb he produces, 停留長智, delay breeds wits, means that waiting gives the other side time to think of something. He is arguing against a night's sleep, and behind the argument is the whole chapter: everything that has gone wrong here began with a pause that nobody could see any harm in.
Then Pilgrim gives the order, and it is the moral high point of the chapter. He is not going back for revenge, and in this sentence not even for his master. He is going to catch the demons and 證其假佛 — prove them counterfeit buddhas — to the prefect, so that the lamp-oil levy can be lifted and the 概縣小民, the ordinary people of the whole county, are relieved of it.
Those are the two hundred and forty households from the arithmetic four thousand characters ago: each serving a year, each laying out two hundred taels of silver, each 吃累, worn down by a levy nobody could question. In a chapter full of people who cannot see past appearances, the monkey is the only one who thinks to add up who has been paying.