The monkeys clapped their hands and cried in praise: 'Fine water! Fine water! So this place runs all the way down to the foot of the mountain and joins the waves of the great sea.'

稱揚 (chēng yáng) is 'to praise, to extol' (稱 here chēng); 此處 again takes 處 as the noun chù ('place'). The monkeys' delight that the stream 'joins the waves of the great sea' is the first hint of the cave's geomantic importance — a watercourse linking the mountain to the ocean.

Then they said: 'Whoever among us has the skill to bore in, find the source, and come out again unhurt — him we shall honour as our king.'

那一個…者 is a correlative construction, 'that one who…, whoever…' — 那 read nà, functioning as an indefinite 'whichever.' 鑽 (zuān) is 'to bore into, to worm one's way in,' and 拜他為王 takes 為 as wéi ('to crown him as king'). The challenge — merit proven, kingship the reward — is a folktale motif the novel will load with allegorical weight.

They called it out three times, when all at once, out from the press of them leapt a stone monkey, who answered the cry with a shout: 'I'll go in! I'll go in!'

叢雜 (cóng zá) is the jostling thicket of monkeys. 應聲 takes 應 as yìng ('in response to the call'), not yīng ('ought'). That the volunteer is precisely the nameless 石猴, the stone-born one, marks him out — though he still has no name.

What a monkey! And this too was his doing:

好猴 ('what a monkey!') is the storyteller's admiring exclamation, and 也是他 ('it was he all along') cues the verse that follows, lending the moment a touch of fated inevitability.

This day his fair name shines forth; the hour has come, his fortune flows.

The quatrain frames the leap as destiny. 時來大運通 plays on the proverb 時來運轉 ('when the time comes, fortune turns'): the hour has arrived and the monkey's luck is in flood.

By destined bond he comes to dwell here; ordained to reign, he enters the immortal hall.

有緣 ('to have karmic affinity,' 緣 the Buddhist bond of cause) makes his coming to the cave fated rather than chance. 王遣入仙宮 is compressed and read here as 'destined to be king, he enters the immortal hall' — the 仙宮 ('immortal palace') being the cave itself, which the verse already dignifies as a paradise.

Watch him: he shut his eyes, crouched low, and with one heave of his body sprang straight into the waterfall's spring,

瞑目 (míng mù) is 'to close the eyes'; 將身一縱 uses 將 as the coverb jiāng ('with, taking') — 'with one heave of his body' — distinct from 將 jiàng ('general') met earlier. 縱 (zòng) is 'to spring, to launch,' and 徑 (jìng) is 'straightaway, directly.'

then snapped his eyes open and raised his head to look — and within there was neither water nor wave, but a bright, clear span of bridge.

睜睛 (zhēng jīng) is 'to open the eyes wide.' Here 那裡邊 is demonstrative 'in there' (那 nà), unlike the interrogative 那裡 ('where,' nǎ) of the previous passage — context alone tells them apart. 一架 uses 架 (jià) as the measure word for a bridge.

He steadied himself, settled his nerves, and looking closely again, saw that it was a bridge of iron plate.

住了身，定了神 ('steadied himself, settled his nerves') is a paired colloquial idiom; 仔細 (zǐ xì) is 'carefully.' The iron-plate bridge (鐵板橋) is the first wrought structure the monkey meets — spirit-made rather than man-made.

The water beneath the bridge came rushing through a gap in the rock, pouring down inverted and screening the bridge's gateway.

沖貫 (chōng guàn) is 'to rush through and pierce'; 石竅 (shí qiào) is the aperture in the rock. 倒掛 takes 倒 as dào ('inverted, hanging downward'), not dǎo — the falling water 'hangs upside down' to curtain the gateway, the very image that will give the cave its name.

He raised himself again onto the bridgehead, and walking on and looking about, found it for all the world like a dwelling-place — truly a fine spot. And this is what he saw:

欠身 (qiàn shēn) is 'to raise oneself up'; 一般 (yì bān) here means 'just like, the same as,' and 所在 (suǒ zài) is 'a place, a spot.' 但見那 again cues a descriptive set-piece — the 賦 that follows.

Blue-green moss heaped like indigo; white clouds afloat like jade; light shimmering in flake upon flake of rosy mist.

The cave-dwelling is rendered in a 賦-style passage of varied line-lengths. 翠蘚堆藍 ('moss heaped like indigo') and 白雲浮玉 ('cloud floating like jade') open a register of jewel-like beauty; 煙霞 (yān xiá), 'mist and rosy cloud,' is the standard air of a Daoist grotto-paradise.

Empty windows, a quiet chamber; the smooth stone benches and slabs aglow as though in flower.

虛窗靜室 evokes the calm of a hermit's cell. 滑凳板生花 — the polished stone benches and boards 'growing flowers' — describes the gleam and figured patterning of the stone, as if it were in bloom.

In a dripping grotto the dragon-pearls hang clustered; winding all about, the ground is strewn with rare blossoms.

乳窟 (rǔ kū) is a grotto hung with stalactites — 乳 'milk' for the dripstone — and 龍珠 ('dragon-pearls') the rounded concretions hanging there. 奇葩 (qí pā, 'rare blossoms'; 葩 pā, 'flower') sustains the imagery of an enchanted dwelling.

By the cliff a hearth and stove keep the marks of fire; against a table, jar and flagon show the scraps of a meal.

This couplet quietly implies a former inhabitant — old fire-marks, vessels with the remains of food. 傍崖 takes 傍 as bàng ('beside, alongside'); 樽罍 (zūn léi) are wine-vessels (罍 léi, a large jar); and 殽渣 is 'food-scraps,' 殽 read yáo (here equal to 肴, 'cooked viands'), not xiáo.

Stone seats and a stone bed, truly to be loved; a stone basin and stone bowls, more to be admired still.

石座石床…石盆石碗 — stone seat, bed, basin, bowls — itemize the ready-made furnishings that make the grotto 'a home.' 更 (gèng) is 'still more,' and 堪 (kān) is 'worthy to be.'

And there too a stalk or two of tall bamboo, three or five sprigs of plum in bloom,

一竿兩竿 uses 竿 (gān) as the classifier for stalks of bamboo; 修竹 (xiū zhú) is 'tall, slender bamboo.' Bamboo, plum, and pine — the conventional companions of the recluse — complete the picture of a refined dwelling.

and a few pines forever wet with rain — for all the world like a household.

渾然 (hún rán) is 'wholly, altogether'; 人家 (rén jiā, with 家 in its full tone, 'a household') gives the 賦 its punch-line — this wild grotto looks exactly like a human home, which is what makes it fit to be claimed and settled.

When he had looked his fill, he leapt across to the middle of the bridge and gazed left and right.

看罷 ('having finished looking,' 罷 bà) and 多時 ('a good while') are vernacular time-markers. He now crosses to the centre of the bridge — the threshold to the discovery that names the place.

There, dead in the centre, stood a stone tablet, and on the tablet, carved in a line of bold regular script, were the words: 'Blessed Land of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit; Grotto-Heaven of the Water-Curtain Cave.'

石碣 (shí jié) is an inscribed stone stele; 一行 takes 行 as háng ('a row, a line [of script]'), not xíng; 鐫 (juān) is 'to carve, to engrave.' The inscription names the cave with two Daoist terms of art — 福地 ('blessed land') and 洞天 ('grotto-heaven'), the paradisal grotto-worlds of Daoist sacred geography. The 丹道 (inner-alchemy) commentarial tradition, such as the Qing Xiyouji baihui xiangzhu (《西遊記百回詳註》), reads the 水簾洞 — a curtain of water hiding a bright interior — as an emblem of the hidden true nature: 外暗內明, 'dark without, luminous within.'