The next day the monkeys did indeed go gathering: immortal peaches and rare fruits, digging up yams and hoeing Solomon's-seal,

果去 ('did indeed go,' 果 adverbial). They gather the wild bounty of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit: 刨 (páo) is 'to dig up,' 斸 (zhú) 'to hoe, to dig out,' and 黃精 (Solomon's-seal) and 山藥 (yam) are roots prized in Daoist dietetics — fitting fare for a quest after long life.

with sprays of fragrant orchid, magic herbs and exotic flowers, every kind of thing, all set out neat and trim,

香蕙 (xiāng huì) is a fragrant orchid (蕙 a variety of 蘭). 般般件件，整整齊齊 ('every single kind, all neat and orderly') is a doubled colloquial phrase for completeness.

laying out the stone benches and stone tables and ranging the immortal wine and viands. And this is what one saw:

仙酒仙餚 ('immortal wine and dishes'; 餚 = 肴, 'cooked viands'). 但見那 ('and this is what one saw') cues the descriptive 賦 that follows — here the celebrated catalogue of fruits.

Gold globes and pearl pellets, red-bursting and yellow-plump.

The fruit-賦 opens with metaphor before naming anything: 金丸珠彈 ('golden globes and pearl pellets,' 彈 dàn, a pellet) and 紅綻黃肥 ('red and bursting, yellow and plump,' 綻 zhàn, 'to split open') are the colours and forms of ripe fruit in the abstract, picked up by name in the lines that follow.

Gold globes, pearl pellets — winter cherries, their colour truly sweet and fair;

臘櫻桃 are 'winter cherries' (臘 là, the twelfth month). The 賦 now attaches its opening image to a specific fruit, the 'golden globes' becoming cherries.

red-bursting, yellow-plump — ripe plums, fragrant and tart to the taste.

熟梅子 ('ripe plums'; 子 the neutral suffix). The line completes the couplet begun above, pairing 'yellow-plump' with the plums.

Fresh longans, flesh sweet and skin thin;

龍眼 (lóng yǎn, 'dragon-eyes,' the longan). 皮薄 reads 薄 as báo ('thin'), the colloquial reading, not bó.

fire-lychees, pit small and pulp red.

火荔枝 ('fire-lychees,' a red variety of lychee); 核 (hé) is the pit and 囊 (náng) the pulp-sac.

Crabapples, jade-green fruit offered on the bough; loquats in pale husks held up with their leaves.

林檎 (lín qín) is the Chinese crabapple or wild apple; 枇杷 (pí pá) the loquat. 緗苞 ('pale-yellow husks,' 緗 xiāng, light yellow) and 擎 (qíng, 'to hold up') keep the fruit pictured still on the branch.

Rabbit-head pears and chicken-heart dates, that quench thirst, dispel care, and cure the wine's after-ache.

兔頭梨子 ('rabbit-head pears') and 雞心棗 ('chicken-heart jujubes') are named for their shapes. 解酲 (jiě chéng) is 'to relieve a hangover,' 酲 (chéng) being the after-effects of wine — apt at a banquet.

Fragrant peaches and softened apricots, sweet as jade nectar and gem-broth;

爛杏 ('softened apricots,' 爛 làn, over-ripe). 玉液瓊漿 ('jade fluid and gem-broth,' 瓊 qióng) is a stock phrase for the nectar of the immortals.

crisp plums and bayberries, tart and lush as rich cream and curd.

楊梅 (yáng méi) is the bayberry or 'Chinese strawberry.' 酸蔭蔭 is a reduplicative 'lushly tart'; 脂酥膏酪 ('grease, cream, fat, curd'; 酥 sū, 酪 lào) likens the fruit's richness to dairy.

Red-fleshed, black-seeded ripe watermelons; four-lobed, yellow-skinned great persimmons.

紅囊黑子 ('red flesh, black seeds'; 子 here zǐ, 'seeds,' full tone). 四瓣 (sì bàn, 'four lobes,' 瓣 a segment) describes the great persimmons (柿子, 子 here the neutral suffix zi).

Pomegranates split open, their cinnabar grains like fire-crystal beads;

石榴 (shí liú) is the pomegranate, whose seeds the 賦 likens to grains of cinnabar (丹砂) and fire-crystal beads — the alchemist's red mineral glimpsed in a fruit.

taro and chestnuts cut apart, firm flesh in lumps of golden agate.

芋栗 are taro and chestnuts (剖開, 剖 pōu, 'to cut open'); their flesh is likened to golden 瑪瑙 (mǎ nǎo, agate). The 維基文庫 text reads 堅硬肉團 ('firm flesh in lumps'); some editions read 黃肉團欒.

Walnuts and ginkgo, good to serve with tea; coconuts and grapes, fit to be made into wine.

胡桃銀杏 are walnuts and ginkgo nuts, 'good to pass with tea' (傳 chuán); 椰子葡萄 coconuts and grapes, 'fit to make into wine.'

Hazel, pine-nut, torreya and crabapple heaped high on plates; tangerine, cane, mandarin and orange filling the tables.

A line of four nuts — 榛松榧柰 (hazel, pine-nut, torreya, and 柰 a crabapple; 榧 fěi) — heaped on plates (盛 here chéng, 'to fill'), answered by four citrus and cane — 橘蔗柑橙 — laid out on the tables.

Well-stewed yam, soft-boiled Solomon's-seal,

熟煨山藥 ('well-stewed yam,' 煨 wēi, to simmer in embers) and 爛煮黃精 ('soft-boiled Solomon's-seal') turn the medicinal roots into cooked dishes.

pounded poria and Job's-tears — in a stone pot, over a low fire, slowly simmered to a broth.

茯苓 (fú líng, the fungus poria) and 薏苡 (yì yǐ, Job's-tears) are, like the yam and Solomon's-seal, classic foods of Daoist longevity practice; pounded and simmered in a stone pot, they make the banquet itself a kind of life-prolonging regimen. 羹 (gēng) is a thick broth.

Though the world of men have its rarest delicacies, how could they match the mountain monkeys' deeper peace?

珍饈 (zhēn xiū) is 'rare delicacies.' The 賦 closes by exalting the monkeys' simple mountain joy over the dainties of the human world — a last note of the lost Eden before the king leaves it; 寧 here is níng, 'peace, contentment.'

The monkeys honoured the Handsome Monkey King with the high seat, and ranged themselves below in order of age and rank,

各依齒肩 ('each according to age and standing'; 齒 'teeth,' hence seniority, 肩 'shoulder,' hence rank) repeats the court order established at the crowning.

and one by one they came forward in turn to offer wine, offer flowers, offer fruit; and they drank deep for a whole day.

The triple 奉酒、奉花、奉果 ('offering wine, flowers, fruit') has the air of a farewell rite; 痛飲 (tòng yǐn) is 'to drink one's fill,' and 一日 takes 一 in its yí sandhi before the falling tone of 日.

The next day the Handsome Monkey King rose early and gave the order: 'Little ones, break me some dead pine and weave it into a raft;

教 here is jiào, 'to tell, to order' (not jiāo, 'to teach'). 栰子 is a raft (栰 = 筏); 折 (zhé) is 'to break off.' The would-be immortal sets out on the humblest of craft.

take a bamboo pole for a punt, and gather some fruit and the like — I am about to set off.'

作篙 ('for a punt-pole,' 篙 gāo). 我將去也 takes 將 as jiāng ('I am about to go').

He did indeed mount the raft alone, pushed off with all his might, and drifting and rocking, headed straight out into the waves of the great sea,

儘力撐開 ('pushed off with all his strength'; 儘 = 盡, 撐 chēng, 'to pole, to prop'). 徑向 ('straight toward,' 徑 jìng); 飄飄蕩蕩 ('drifting and rocking') conveys the little raft on the open sea.

riding the heaven-sent wind to cross to the land of the Southern Continent of Jambudvīpa. This setting-out was just as the lines tell:

趁天風 ('riding the heaven-sent wind,' 趁 chèn). 南贍部洲 (Nán-shàn-bù-zhōu) is Jambudvīpa, the southern of the four continents of Buddhist cosmography — the human world, where the gibbon said the deathless masters dwell.

A Heaven-born immortal monkey, deep in spiritual power, leaves his mountain and rides a raft on the heaven-sent wind.

The poem caps the departure. 道行 is read dào héng ('spiritual attainment, magical power'), 行 here héng, not xíng; 隆 (lóng) is 'abundant, deep.' Already the verse credits the untaught monkey with a destiny of high cultivation.

Drifting over oceans, crossing seas, he seeks the immortals' Way; with set resolve and a focused heart he would build a great work.

立志潛心 ('with set will and focused mind'; 潛 qián) and 建大功 ('build a great work') frame the journey as a spiritual undertaking.

Having the lot and the bond, he is done with worldly wishes; without care, without worry, he goes to meet the Primal Dragon.

有分有緣 ('having the allotted lot and the karmic bond'; 分 here fèn, one's portion). 會元龍 ('to meet the Primal Dragon') — 元龍 a figure for the great hidden master, or the primal force, he is destined to encounter.

It may be he will surely meet one who knows his heart, who will lay bare the source so that the ten thousand methods are understood.

知音 ('one who knows the tone,' the true friend or perfect understander, from the tale of Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi). 說破源流，萬法通 ('lay bare the source, and the ten thousand methods are mastered') anticipates the teaching of Patriarch Subodhi — and chimes with the chapter heading, 源流出, 'the source flows forth.'