不識起倒 He Knows Not Rising From Falling
大聖道：「既蒙寬恩，感謝不盡。但尚有一事奉瀆，萬望周濟周濟。」牛王罵道：「這猢猻不識起倒，饒了你，倒還不走，反來纏我。甚麼周濟周濟？」大圣道：「既蒙宽恩，感谢不尽。但尚有一事奉渎，万望周济周济。」牛王骂道：「这猢狲不识起倒，饶了你，倒还不走，反来缠我。甚么周济周济？」
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage said, "Since I have received so generous a pardon, my thanks are beyond telling."
⚠ 不盡 is the chapter's flagship sandhi site. 盡 is held at jìn corpus-wide, but mechanical sandhi has already run against its base reading jǐn, third tone, and bakes 不 as bù. Because the graph following 不 has been re-toned, 不 must be lifted to bú by explicit fixspec. This is the second of only two sandhi overrides in the chapter so far.
"But there is yet one matter with which I must trouble you, and I earnestly beg your help in it, your help in it."
奉瀆 is the humble form for imposing on a superior — literally to profane by offering. 一事 takes yí before the fourth-tone 事. The doubled 周濟周濟 will be thrown back at him verbatim in the next segment.
The Bull King railed, "This ape does not know rising from falling! I let you off, and instead of going you turn back and pester me. What help, what help?"
⚠ 倒 takes both readings four graphs apart. In 起倒 it is dǎo, the fall paired with the rise, and the idiom 不識起倒 means to have no sense of when to stop; in 倒還不走 it is the adverb of contrariety, dào. Positional specs are required. 甚 is shén.
The Great Sage has been pardoned and instantly asks for a favour, and the Bull King's exasperation is the most human note he is given in the chapter. 不識起倒 — he cannot tell rising from falling — is exactly right: the Great Sage has no instinct for when an advantage has been taken as far as it will go.
The passage turns on a single repeated phrase. 周濟周濟, begged in the second segment, comes back as 甚麼周濟周濟 in the third, and the doubling that was deferential in the asking is contemptuous in the echo. The novel uses this device constantly in quarrels — the opponent's own words returned with the courtesy stripped out — and it used it earlier in this chapter when the Great Sage turned 陪 back on the Jade-Faced Princess.