拜借芭蕉 To Borrow The Banana Fan
行者上前迎著合掌道：「女童，累你轉報公主一聲：我本是取經的和尚，在西方路上，難過火焰山，特來拜借芭蕉扇一用。」那毛女道：「你是那寺裡和尚？叫甚名字？我好與你通報。」行者道：「我是東土來的，叫做孫悟空和尚。」行者上前迎着合掌道：「女童，累你转报公主一声：我本是取经的和尚，在西方路上，难过火焰山，特来拜借芭蕉扇一用。」那毛女道：「你是那寺里和尚？叫甚名字？我好与你通报。」行者道：「我是东土来的，叫做孙悟空和尚。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim stepped forward to meet her, put his palms together and said, 'Little maid, may I trouble you to take word in to the Princess: I am a monk who goes to fetch the scriptures. On the westward road I cannot get past the Mountain of Flames, and I have come expressly to beg the loan of the banana-leaf fan.'
累 is lěi, to trouble or impose upon, not the lèi of weariness. Pilgrim drops the sworn-brother familiarity of a moment ago the instant a servant appears and goes over to 公主, the Princess — the title the woodcutter gave her, not the demon-name.
The hairy girl said, 'Which temple's monk are you? What is your name? I must have it to announce you.'
The first 那 is deictic, the second interrogative — 那毛女 is nà, 那寺裡 is nǎ, six graphs apart. 甚 is the interrogative shén. Her three clauses are one speech, rejoined here from the units the source's question marks divide.
Pilgrim said, 'I am from the Land of the East, and I am called the monk Sun Wukong.'
He gives the name straight, without title or embellishment. Whether the household will recognise it is the question the next block answers, and the answer is that it recognises it very well.
The register changes the moment there is a person to address. The man who was bellowing 'Brother Bull' at the door now puts his palms together, calls the servant 女童, apologises for the trouble, and asks her to take word in to 公主, the Princess. He has adopted the woodcutter's advice inside a single line.
The request itself is a small masterpiece of omission. He is a monk fetching scriptures; he cannot get past the Mountain of Flames; he has come to beg the loan of the fan. Every word is true and the whole of the difficulty is left out. There is no mention of the Red Boy, of Guanyin, or of the fact that the lady of the house has excellent reason to want him dead.
The maid's reply is the ordinary machinery of a household — which temple, what name, so that she can announce him — and Pilgrim answers it plainly: 孫悟空. He could have given a false name and the novel has shown him do stranger things. He does not, and the next block will show what the name is worth in this house.