無媒不可 No Match Without a Go-Between
驛丞又奏道：「主公之論，乃萬代傳家之好。但只是御弟三徒兇惡，不成相貌。」女王道：「卿見御弟怎生模樣？他徒弟怎生兇醜？」驛丞道：「御弟相貌堂堂，丰姿英俊，誠是天朝上國之男兒，南贍中華之人物。那三徒卻是形容獰惡，相貌如精。」女王道：「既如此，把他徒弟與他領給，倒換關文，打發他往西天，只留下御弟，有何不可？」眾官拜奏道：「主公之言極當，臣等欽此欽遵。但只是匹配之事，無媒不可。自古道：『姻緣配合憑紅葉，月老夫妻繫赤繩。』」女王道：「依卿所奏，就著當駕太師作媒，迎陽驛丞主婚，先去驛中與御弟求親。待他許可，寡人卻擺駕出城迎接。」那太師、驛丞領旨出朝。驿丞又奏道：「主公之论，乃万代传家之好。但只是御弟三徒凶恶，不成相貌。」女王道：「卿见御弟怎生模样？他徒弟怎生凶丑？」驿丞道：「御弟相貌堂堂，丰姿英俊，诚是天朝上国之男儿，南赡中华之人物。那三徒却是形容狞恶，相貌如精。」女王道：「既如此，把他徒弟与他领给，倒换关文，打发他往西天，只留下御弟，有何不可？」众官拜奏道：「主公之言极当，臣等钦此钦遵。但只是匹配之事，无媒不可。自古道：『姻缘配合凭红叶，月老夫妻系赤绳。』」女王道：「依卿所奏，就着当驾太师作媒，迎阳驿丞主婚，先去驿中与御弟求亲。待他许可，寡人却摆驾出城迎接。」那太师、驿丞领旨出朝。
逐句解 Line by line
The warden further submitted, 「Your Majesty's reasoning is a good thing that will be handed down for ten thousand generations.
傳家之好 — a good that is passed down within a house — is the language of lineage, and it takes the queen's dynastic argument at its own valuation before raising an objection.
Only the imperial brother's three disciples are fierce and evil to look on, and have no proper appearance.」
相貌 takes 相 as *xiàng*, appearance. 不成相貌 is idiomatic — they do not amount to a proper set of features — and it is the first practical difficulty anyone has raised.
The queen said, 「How did the imperial brother appear to you, minister? And how fierce and ugly are his disciples?」
模樣 is *mú*, not the *mó* of 模範 that pypinyin supplies; the graph sits outside every guard set and was caught by the pre-authoring probe. 卿 is the sovereign's familiar address to a minister. The J3 join takes the seven-graph quote-closing tail backwards onto the question that opens the speech.
The warden said, 「The imperial brother's countenance is noble and his bearing handsome; he is truly a son of the celestial dynasty of a superior realm, a figure out of the Middle Kingdom in the Southern Continent.
天朝 takes 朝 as *cháo*. 男兒 takes 兒 as *ér*, the person-morpheme, not the diminutive suffix. 中華 is *huá*. 南贍 is 南贍部洲, Jambudvīpa, the southern continent of Buddhist cosmography in which China lies — the warden is placing Tripitaka on the map of the world, not merely praising him.
Those three disciples, however, are hideous of form, and their features are like goblins.」
相貌 again takes *xiàng*. 如精 — like a 精, a spirit or goblin — is a lay person's word, and the irony is that it is very nearly accurate.
The queen said, 「If that is so, issue his disciples their provisions, countersign the passport, and send them off toward the Western Heaven; keep only the imperial brother here. What objection can there be?」
領給 takes 給 as *jǐ*: in classical administrative and military usage 給 means to provide or supply (供給, 補給), and 領給 is the formal issue of travel provisions, rations and funds — not a document. 倒換 takes 倒 as *dǎo*. The queen's solution is administrative: the disciples are a documentation problem and are disposed of with the documents. It is also, as she does not say, the removal of Tripitaka's entire protection.
The officials bowed and submitted, 「Your Majesty's words are entirely apt; we your servants receive and obey them.
極當 takes 當 as *dàng*, the 'apt, fitting' reading — against the *dāng* of 知當 and 當駕 elsewhere in this batch. 欽此欽遵 is the set formula of compliance that closes a received edict.
Only in the matter of a match, it cannot be done without a go-between.
匹配 is the formal word for a marriage pairing. The objection is not moral but procedural, which is the passage's whole comic method: every step toward Tripitaka's ruin is taken correctly.
From of old it has been said: A marriage bond is joined upon the token of the red leaf; the Old Man of the Moon binds husband and wife with a scarlet cord.」
繫 is *xì*, the literary 'to bind'. The couplet is a proverb quoted inside a speech, marked with 『』and carrying no verse tag of its own, so the passage stays three-chip prose. 紅葉 alludes to the palace lady who floated a poem on a leaf down the moat and married the man who found it; 月老 is the deity who ties the ankles of destined couples with a red cord.
The queen said, 「It shall be as my ministers submit. Let the Grand Preceptor in attendance act as go-between and the warden of the Posthouse of Welcomed Yang preside over the match; let them go first to the posthouse and ask the imperial brother for his hand.
就著 takes 著 as *zhuó*, the causative-dispatch reading ruled corpus-wide — to set someone to a task. 當駕 takes 當 as *dāng*, in attendance upon the imperial carriage. 驛中 takes 中 as *zhōng*. 求親 is to ask formally for a marriage, and the direction of the asking is the joke: it is the woman's court that sues.
When he has consented, We shall set forth the imperial equipage and go out of the city to receive him.」
擺駕 is to marshal the sovereign's carriage and train. The queen assumes consent and plans the procession in the same sentence, which is characteristic: she has not once considered that the answer might be no.
The Grand Preceptor and the warden received the edict and left the court.
領旨 is to receive an imperial command; 出朝 takes 朝 as *cháo*, the court. The sentence closes the audience and launches the embassy that the next passage will follow back to the posthouse.
The objection the warden raises is the funniest thing in the chapter so far, because of what it is not. Presented with a proposal to detain a foreign monk and marry him to the sovereign, her single reservation is that his companions are unsightly. Nobody at this court asks whether Tripitaka wishes to be married. The question does not arise, and its absence is the sharpest satire in the passage.
The queen's remedy is worth attending to as policy. She separates the man from his escort by giving the escort exactly what it came for — provisions, a countersigned passport, safe conduct west — and keeps the one person she wants. It is an elegant solution, entirely lawful, and it would work. That the disciples are the only thing standing between Tripitaka and the rest of his life in Western Liang is a fact the queen has grasped and Tripitaka has not.
Then the ministers raise the procedural point, and the episode reveals its shape. No match without a go-between; and so a go-between is appointed, along with an officer to preside, and a proverb is produced to authorise the whole arrangement. The red leaf and the scarlet cord are the standard furniture of Chinese marriage lore, invoked here to lend the abduction of a celibate monk the dignity of destiny. The novel lets the citation stand without comment, which is more damaging than mockery would be.
The passage ends with two officials walking out of a throne room carrying an edict, and that image is the chapter's real threat. Tripitaka has faced demons who wanted to eat him and sorcerers who wanted to steal his powers, and he has survived them all with a disciple's help. What is coming for him now is a marriage proposal with the full apparatus of a functioning state behind it, and there is nothing in it for Wukong to hit.