分了內外 Inside and Outside
行者道：「此間不是我們說話處，請陛下與我師出宮上殿，娘娘等各轉回宮，召我師弟八戒、沙僧來保護師父，我卻好去降妖。一則分了內外，二則免我懸掛。謹當辨明，以表我一場心力。」國王依言，感謝不已。遂與唐僧攜手出宮，徑至殿上。眾后妃各各回宮。一壁廂教備素膳，一壁廂召八戒、沙僧。須臾間，二人早至。行者備言前事，教他兩個用心護持。這大聖縱觔斗雲，飛空而去。那殿前多官，一個個望空禮拜不題。行者道：「此间不是我们说话处，请陛下与我师出宫上殿，娘娘等各转回宫，召我师弟八戒、沙僧来保护师父，我却好去降妖。一则分了内外，二则免我悬挂。谨当辨明，以表我一场心力。」国王依言，感谢不已。遂与唐僧携手出宫，径至殿上。众后妃各各回宫。一壁厢教备素膳，一壁厢召八戒、沙僧。须臾间，二人早至。行者备言前事，教他两个用心护持。这大圣纵觔斗云，飞空而去。那殿前多官，一个个望空礼拜不题。
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said: "This is no place for us to be talking. Let Your Majesty and my master come out of the inner palace and go up to the hall; let Her Majesty and the rest go back to their own quarters; and summon my brothers Eight Rules and Sha the Monk to protect my master, so that I can go off and subdue the fiend."
He takes command of the palace, and nobody argues. ⚠ 降 in 降妖 is xiáng, to subdue — the reading the chapter's own title wants when it speaks of seizing a false frame. The bare chain reads it as jiàng, to descend, and gets it wrong at this one site out of nine. 八戒 means Eight Prohibitions, the eight rules a lay Buddhist keeps on fast days — a joke of a religious name for a pig who breaks most of them. 沙僧 is simply Sha the Monk, the sand monk, named for the river of sand he was hauled out of.
"For one thing it will keep inside and outside apart, and for another it will spare me the worry. I shall clear the matter up properly, and so show what a whole effort of mine is worth."
Two reasons, and the first is about propriety rather than tactics. 分了內外 — separating inner from outer — means getting the women of the household out of the part of the palace where men and business belong. Wukong of all people is invoking the rules of a respectable house, and he is doing it because it makes his master easier to guard. ⚠ 一場 takes cháng, the reading for a whole bout or spell of something, not the chǎng of a walled venue. It is the third and last of this chapter's three, and all three needed ruling by hand.
The king did as he said and thanked him without ceasing. Then, taking the Tang monk by the hand, he came out of the inner palace and went straight up to the hall; and the consorts all went back to their own quarters.
The palace reorganises itself in one sentence, and the king is still holding on to the monk. 攜手 — hand in hand — is a warmer word than the situation strictly needs, and the book has been quietly building this relationship for two chapters. The king likes Tripitaka. That is why the marriage nearly happened and why the afternoon has been so painful for him.
On the one side he had a vegetarian meal made ready, and on the other he summoned Eight Rules and Sha the Monk; and in a moment the two of them arrived.
一壁廂 is a lovely vernacular idiom: on the one side of the wall, used for two things being set going at once. Modern Chinese would say one thing on one hand and another on the other; the Ming storyteller says one thing over by this wall and another over by that one. The vegetarian meal is ordered in the same breath as the bodyguards, which is the book being funny about its own priorities. The pig is being summoned to protect the master, and dinner is being got ready for the pig.
Pilgrim told them everything that had happened and charged the two of them to guard him with all their care. Then the Great Sage leapt on his somersault cloud and flew off into the air, and the many officers before the hall bowed towards the sky as he went, of which no more need be said.
He hands over and goes, and the officials bow to an empty sky. ⚠ 觔斗 is the somersault, and the second character takes dǒu. The bare chain gives the dòu of fighting — which is to say the machinery gets the name of Wukong's own signature cloud wrong, and gets the stars in 一天星斗 right without help. The somersault cloud covers a hundred and eight thousand li in one leap, which is the distance from China to the Buddha's paradise, and is the reason he can search a mountain two provinces off and be back before dinner.
Wukong spends this passage doing administration, and it is a strange and rather touching thing to watch. He clears the room, separates the women from the men, posts two guards on his master, explains his reasoning, and leaves. Every instruction is sensible and a reigning monarch obeys every one of them without a murmur.
The reason he gives for the reorganisation is the interesting one. Not that the demon might come back — though he says that too — but that it will spare him the worry. He is arranging the furniture of the palace so that he can stop thinking about it, which is what a person does when they have one job left and want a clear head for it.
And then the two brothers arrive, having been off-stage for the whole chapter, and the storyteller gives their arrival five characters and their briefing eight. The book knows exactly who this chapter belongs to. Eight Rules will get his moment later, and it will not be a dignified one.