高肩擔子 He Found the Shoulder Pole
卻表唐僧師徒們早起，又有那一班人供奉。長老吩咐收拾行李，扣備馬匹。獃子聽說要走，又努嘴胖唇，唧唧噥噥，只得將衣缽收拾，找出高肩擔子。沙僧刷洗馬匹，套起鞍轡伺候。行者將九環杖遞在師父手裡，他將通關文牒的引袋兒掛在胸前，只是一齊要走。員外又都請至後面大廠廳內，那裡面又鋪設了筵宴，比齋堂中相待的更是不同。却表唐僧师徒们早起，又有那一班人供奉。长老吩咐收拾行李，扣备马匹。呆子听说要走，又努嘴胖唇，唧唧哝哝，只得将衣钵收拾，找出高肩担子。沙僧刷洗马匹，套起鞍辔伺候。行者将九环杖递在师父手里，他将通关文牒的引袋儿挂在胸前，只是一齐要走。员外又都请至后面大厂厅内，那里面又铺设了筵宴，比斋堂中相待的更是不同。
逐句解 Line by line
Now the tale turns to the Tang monk and his disciples, up early, with the same troop of people waiting on them again. The elder gave orders to get the luggage together and saddle up the horse.
卻表 is a storyteller's opener — now the tale turns to — and it is the third one this chapter uses. It opened with one of them after the lyric, uses this one here to start the departure morning, and will use a third in a few hundred characters to cut away from Kou Hong to the road. One of each, evenly spaced, in a chapter about a household. 供奉 means to wait on, to provide for. The plain reading gives the word for laying out an offering to a god instead. Measured across the novel, all seven of these are people serving people.
The idiot, hearing they were to go, pushed out his snout and puffed up his lips, muttering and grumbling, but he got the robe and bowl together all the same and dug out the high shoulder-pole. Shaseng washed down the horse and had the saddle and bridle on and ready.
Each of the four does his own job without being told, and the chapter lists them in order. This is what fourteen years looks like: a routine nobody has to discuss. 努嘴胖唇 — snout pushed out, lips puffed up — occurs once in the whole novel, and so does 高肩擔子. Bajie sulks and packs at the same time, which is his entire character in one sentence. 衣缽 is robe and bowl, the two things a monk is supposed to own. It is the standard phrase for a monastic's whole property, and it is what they are loading onto a pole after a fortnight in a house with three dedicated halls.
Wukong put the nine-ringed staff into his master's hand, and hung the pouch with the travel warrant round his own neck. They were all set to go together.
九環杖 is Tripitaka's staff, given to him at the start of the journey along with the cassock — nine rings on an iron head, the pilgrim's staff of the old descriptions. It appears three times in the whole novel. And Wukong takes the 通關文牒 himself. The travel warrant is the document that has to be presented and stamped at every court on the road, the most valuable object the party owns, and the disciple who wears it on his chest is the one who was a prisoner under a mountain for five hundred years. Nobody comments on the arrangement. It is simply how they travel: the master carries the staff of his office, and the monkey carries the papers.
The squire invited them all through to the great open hall at the back, where another banquet had been laid out — and quite unlike the one in the refectory.
比齋堂中相待的更是不同 — quite unlike the entertainment in the refectory. The chapter is telling you to compare, and the comparison is the point: the first banquet was a meal for four monks, this one is a public occasion for a hundred guests. 大廠廳 is a great open hall — the word occurs once in the whole novel. Kou Hong has a room in his house big enough for the entire neighbourhood, and this is the first time in the chapter it has been mentioned. 鋪設 is the verb again, the fourth of the chapter's five, and the second since the packing began. Not one of them is the shopfront.
The four of them pack, and the packing is the best short portrait of the party in the chapter. Bajie sulks and does his job; Shaseng brushes the horse and has the tack on before anyone asks; Wukong hands his master the staff and takes the passport himself. Nobody speaks except to give the order.
It is worth setting this beside what they are leaving. A fortnight in a house with a chapel finer than a monastery's, a library, three halls kept for guests, and a man who wanted to feed them for a month. What goes back on the pole is a robe and a bowl.
And then, before they can get out of the door, one more room. The squire has a hall at the back big enough for a hundred people and he has had it laid since midnight. The chapter is not finished with them yet.