人世訪道 Seeking the Way in the World of Men
也是他運至時來，自登木栰之後，連日東南風緊，將他送到西北岸前，乃是南贍部洲地界。持篙試水，偶得淺水，棄了栰子，跳上岸來。只見海邊有人捕魚、打雁、穵蛤、淘鹽。他走近前，弄個把戲，妝個𡤫虎，嚇得那些人丟筐棄網，四散奔跑。將那跑不動的拿住一個，剝了他的衣裳，也學人穿在身上。搖搖擺擺，穿州過府，在市廛中學人禮，學人話。朝餐夜宿，一心裡訪問佛、仙、神聖之道，覓個長生不老之方。見世人都是為名為利之徒，更無一個為身命者。正是那：也是他运至时来，自登木栰之后，连日东南风紧，将他送到西北岸前，乃是南赡部洲地界。持篙试水，偶得浅水，弃了栰子，跳上岸来。只见海边有人捕鱼、打雁、穵蛤、淘盐。他走近前，弄个把戏，妆个𡤫虎，吓得那些人丢筐弃网，四散奔跑。将那跑不动的拿住一个，剥了他的衣裳，也学人穿在身上。摇摇摆摆，穿州过府，在市廛中学人礼，学人话。朝餐夜宿，一心里访问佛、仙、神圣之道，觅个长生不老之方。见世人都是为名为利之徒，更无一个为身命者。正是那：
猴王參訪仙道，無緣得遇。在於南贍部洲，串長城，遊小縣，不覺八九年餘。猴王参访仙道，无缘得遇。在于南赡部洲，串长城，游小县，不觉八九年余。
逐句解 Line by line
It was also that his luck had come and his time was ripe: after he had mounted the wooden raft, for days on end a strong southeast wind blew,
運至時來 — his fortune arrived, his moment came — frames what follows as arranged rather than lucky, the same idea as the "heaven-sent wind" of the departure poem. And note the meteorology: a southeast wind, blowing him northwest. Even the weather is taking him where he needs to go. 栰 = 筏, a raft.
and carried him to the shore in the northwest — and this was the land of the Southern Continent of Jambudvīpa.
The wind sets him down on 南贍部洲 (Jambudvīpa), the human world — the address the gibbon gave him. In the four-continent scheme he has crossed west from his native 東勝神洲.
Testing the water with his pole, he chanced on a shallows, abandoned the raft, and leapt ashore.
持篙試水, sounding the depth with his pole, and 偶得淺水, chancing on a shallow patch, are the 維基文庫 reading; some editions have 持栰近岸, bringing the raft in to shore. Either way the detail is a delight: the creature who leapt blind through a waterfall now checks how deep the water is before stepping out of the boat.
There he saw people along the shore catching fish, hunting geese, digging clams, and panning salt.
Four humble coastal trades in four words: catching fish, shooting geese, digging clams, panning salt. 穵 (wā) is a variant of 挖, to dig; 蛤 (gé) is a clam; 淘 (táo) is to wash out. These are the first human beings the monkey has ever laid eyes on, and every one of them is working.
He went up close, played a trick, and pulled a fierce tiger-face,
弄個把戲 is playing a trick, and 妝個𡤫虎 is pulling a fierce, beast-like face to startle the onlookers (妝 zhuāng, to get oneself up as). The character 𡤫 (read qiā) is a rare one, preserved in the 維基文庫 and 識典古籍 texts; other editions print a different form for the same idea of a snarling tiger-face.
so frightening them that they dropped their baskets and threw down their nets and scattered in flight.
嚇得 (嚇 xià) is "frightened them so badly that." They 丟筐棄網, drop their baskets and abandon their nets, and bolt. This is the first of many scenes in which ordinary people take one look at Sun Wukong and run, and the novel never quite stops finding it funny.
Seizing one who could not run, he stripped off the man's clothes and, imitating people, put them on himself.
He seizes the one who cannot run, strips him, and puts the clothes on. 剝 is the colloquial bāo and 裳 the neutral-tone shang; 不 shifts to bú before the falling tone of 動. Note what has just happened. The would-be immortal's first act among human beings is a mugging, and the humanity he puts on is literally stolen.
Swaggering along, he passed through districts and prefectures, and in the marketplaces learned human manners and human speech.
搖搖擺擺 is a swagger. 穿州過府 takes him through districts and prefectures, and 市廛 is the market quarter (廛 chán, a trader's plot). There he copies 人禮 and 人話, human manners and human speech — learning to be a person the way an actor learns a part.
Eating by day and lodging by night, with single-minded purpose he sought after the Way of the Buddhas, immortals, and holy sages, and a recipe for deathless long life.
朝餐夜宿, eating by day and lodging by night (朝 zhāo, 宿 sù), covers years in four characters. Underneath the borrowed clothes nothing has changed: he is after 長生不老 (長 cháng), deathless long life, and 方 means a recipe or prescription. He is shopping for a formula.
But he saw that the people of the world were all folk bent on fame and profit, and not one among them cared for his own life and destiny. It was just as the lines say:
為名為利 is "for fame, for money" (為 wèi, for the sake of), and 為身命者 is one who cares about his own 身命 — body and life, meaning here the part of you that outlasts a career. The whole world is busy, and busy with the wrong thing. That is the poem's cue.
Striving for fame, snatching at gain — when will it ever cease? Up early, abed late, never their own masters.
A stock "vanity of the world" poem, and it needs less updating than most. 爭名奪利 — scrambling for name and gain (奪 duó, to snatch) — is still a live phrase, and 早起遲眠不自由, up early and to bed late and never your own master, needs none at all. (不 takes its bú tone before the falling tone of 自.)
Astride a donkey or mule, they pine for a fine steed; holding a chancellor's office, they covet a princedom.
Two pictures of a wanting that cannot be filled: riding a donkey or a mule and dreaming of a racehorse (驢 lǘ, 騾 luó, 駿 jùn), and holding the highest office in the empire while eyeing a title above it. Chancellor (宰相, 相 here xiàng) was as far as a career could take you; 王侯, prince and marquis, you had to be born to. Nobody in the poem ever arrives.
They fret only over food and clothes, deep in their toil — what do they fear that Yama will come to claim them?
The sting. They fret themselves ragged over food and clothes (耽 dān, absorbed in; 碌 lù), and spare no thought at all for 取勾 (= 勾取), the underworld's summons — the moment your name is hooked off the register of the living. The monkey wept over precisely that at a feast. These people cannot be bothered.
Bequeathing to sons and shielding grandsons, scheming after wealth and rank — and not a single one will turn his head.
繼子蔭孫 is passing wealth to sons and privilege to grandsons (繼 jì, 蔭 yìn; 子 in full tone zǐ, "son") — the one ambition with no natural stopping point, because there is always another generation to provide for. And 回頭, "turning the head," carries a Buddhist charge: to turn back from delusion, to wake up. Not one of them will.
The Monkey King sought after the immortals' Way but had no luck to meet them. Through the Southern Continent of Jambudvīpa,
Not that there were no masters — the bond was simply not there yet. 參訪 (參 cān) is the proper word for going to call on teachers, and 無緣得遇 says he lacked the 緣, the karmic connection, to meet any. In this book you find a teacher when you are due to, and not before.
threading along the Great Wall and roaming the little counties, eight or nine years slipped by before he knew it.
Most of a decade, disposed of in a single clause — the brevity is the verdict on the years. 串長城，遊小縣, threading along the Great Wall, wandering through little county towns (串 chuàn, to pass through one after another), and then 不覺八九年餘: eight or nine years and more slipped by before he noticed.
Here the Handsome Monkey King steps out of myth and into the human world, and Wú Chéng'ēn (吳承恩) shifts register to match — from the grandeur of the mountain's origins to broad social comedy. The would-be immortal lands among fishermen and salt-panners, frightens them with a beast-face, robs one of them of his clothes, and sets off through the towns of 南贍部洲 (Jambudvīpa) copying human manners and speech. The humour has a point in it: his first two acts as a "man" are a fright and a theft, and the humanity he puts on is stolen goods. Yet underneath, his purpose never wavers. He is still after the Way, and the deathlessness the gibbon promised him.
The episode is capped by a "vanity of the world" poem, 爭名奪利幾時休, a stock genre turned to a precise end. Worldly men rise early and sleep late, ride mules while dreaming of stallions, hold high office while coveting higher, and hand their schemes down to sons and grandsons, "not a single one willing to turn his head." The sting is in the comparison. These people fear nothing, not even 閻君 (Lord Yama) coming to collect them — which is exactly the terror that drove the monkey off his mountain. They have what he lacks, a settled place among their own kind, and they are spending it on nothing. He has only his fear of death, and it is making him wise. The closing 肯回頭, "willing to turn back," carries the Buddhist sense of turning away from delusion: the one thing the worldly will not do, and the one thing the monkey has already done.
The passage then quietly swallows most of a decade: 不覺八九年餘, "before he knew it, eight or nine years and more had passed." His search through the human world comes to nothing — the right karmic bond (緣) is not there — and the bare clause that disposes of those years is itself the comment on them. Andrew H. Plaks notes that the early chapters measure the monkey's progress in exactly such compressions of time. The empty years in Jambudvīpa are the blank that has to be crossed before he can reach 西牛賀洲 and the master waiting there. The quest now turns west.