That monkey, there among the hills, could already walk and run and leap; it ate the grasses and trees, drank from the mountain streams, gathered mountain flowers and sought out the fruit of the trees.

卻會 (què huì) is 'was even able to,' marking how quickly the creature came into its powers. 食草木，飲澗泉，採山花，覓樹果 is a four-beat parallel catalogue (覓 mì, 'to seek out') of the wild diet that sets up the carefree life to come.

With wolves and creeping things it kept company, with tigers and leopards it ran in a pack, with river-deer and stags it made friends, and with gibbons and monkeys it was kin.

A second four-beat parallel, this one of companions; 與…為伴／為群／為友／為親 escalates from mere company to kinship, with 為 throughout read wéi ('to be, to act as'). 狼蟲 is a general phrase for 'wolves and wild things,' 獐 (zhāng) is the river-deer or muntjac, and 獼 (mí) is the macaque of 獼猴.

By night it lodged beneath the rocky cliffs, and by morning it roamed among the peaks and caves.

夜宿…朝遊 is a balanced day-and-night couplet; 朝 is read zhāo ('morning,' set against 夜 'night'), not cháo, and 宿 (sù) is 'to lodge for the night.'

Truly it was a case of: 'In the mountains there is no calendar; when the cold has passed, one knows not the year.'

A widely-quoted couplet on timeless mountain seclusion. 甲子 (jiǎ zǐ) is the first pair of the sixty-term sexagenary cycle and so stands for the reckoning of dates; 子 here is the cyclical sign zǐ (full tone), not the neutral suffix. The lines place the monkey's existence outside human time — a paradisal note the chapter will soon disturb.

One day, when the weather was blazing hot, it was escaping the heat with the troop of monkeys, all of them frolicking in the shade of the pines.

一朝 (yì zhāo) is 'one day' (朝 again zhāo; 一 takes its yì sandhi before the first tone). 避暑 is 'to escape the summer heat,' and 頑耍 (wán shuǎ) is 'to play, to romp' — 頑 here is the colloquial 'play' sense, not 'stubborn.'

Just look at them, every one:

你看他 ('just look at him/them') is the vernacular storyteller's formula that hands the scene to the audience and cues the set-piece. 一個個 (yí gè gè) is 'each and every one.'

Leaping the trees, scaling the branches; picking the blossoms, seeking the fruit;

The set-piece is a 賦-style rhythmic catalogue of monkey play, built from short parallel phrases. 攀 (pān) is 'to climb, to grasp and pull oneself up.'

flinging pellets, playing at knucklebones;

彈子 takes 彈 in its noun reading dàn ('pellet, marble'), not the verb tán. 邷麼兒 (wǎ me er) is a colloquial name for a children's game played with pebbles or knucklebones (compare 抓子兒).

scampering in sand-pits, stacking up little pagodas;

砌 (qì) is 'to build up, to stack' — here raising toy pagodas of sand; 窩 (wō) is a hollow or pit.

chasing dragonflies, swatting at grasshoppers;

蜻蜓 (qīng tíng) is the dragonfly. 𧈢蠟 (bā lǎ) is an obsolete regional name for a winged insect akin to a dragonfly, locust, or grasshopper — paired here with the dragonfly of the previous phrase.

paying court to Old Heaven, bowing before the bodhisattvas;

參 here is cān in the sense 'to pay respects, to call upon' (as in 參拜), not shēn ('ginseng') or cēn. The mock-piety of monkeys 'worshipping' is part of the comedy; 菩薩 (pú sà) is bodhisattva.

tugging at kudzu-vines, weaving little caps of grass;

籐 is a variant of 藤 (téng, 'vine') and 葛 (gé) is the kudzu. 編草帓 (biān cǎo mò) is 'weaving a grass kerchief,' 帓 being a head-cloth or band; some editions print 編草帽 (mào, 'hat').

catching lice, biting and pinching them;

虱子 (shī zi) are lice. The 維基文庫 text reads 咬又掐 ('bite and pinch'); some editions read 咬虼蚤 ('bite fleas') — we follow Wikisource. 掐 (qiā) is 'to pinch with the nails.'

grooming their furry coats, cleaning out their claws.

毛衣 here is the animals' 'coat of fur,' not a knitted garment — the monkeys groom one another. 剔 (tī) is 'to pick or clean out'; 指甲 (zhǐ jiǎ) are the nails or claws.

some nestling close, some rubbing together;

The pattern X的X ('some doing X, some doing X') runs through this closing stretch, painting a jostling crowd. 挨 here is āi ('to press close, to nestle'), not ái; the 的 is colloquial. 擦 (cā) is 'to rub.'

some shoving, some pressing down;

The same X的X pattern; 壓 (yā) is 'to press, to bear down on.'

some pulling, some dragging:

The reduplications end on a colon leading into the concluding couplet; 扯 (chě) and 拉 (lā) are near-synonyms, 'to pull, to drag.'

Beneath the green pine woods they romp as they please; by the green stream's edge they bathe at their leisure.

The set-piece closes with a balanced seven-character couplet. 任他頑 ('let them play as they will,' 頑 again the 'play' sense) and 隨洗濯 ('bathe as they please'; 濯 zhuó, 'to wash') frame the troop's freedom — the keynote of carefree nature against which the novel's later disciplines will be set.

When the troop of monkeys had played a while, they went off to bathe in the mountain stream.

一會 (yí huì, 'a little while') takes 一 in its yí sandhi before the falling tone of 會; 山澗 (shān jiàn) is a mountain ravine-stream and 洗澡 (xǐ zǎo) is 'to bathe.'

Seeing how that stream of ravine-water came rushing down, truly as if boiling and gushing and splashing over,

股 (gǔ) is the measure word for a stream or current of water. 滾瓜湧濺 is a vivid coinage for churning, foaming water — suggesting something boiling, welling up and splashing; 似 here is sì ('like, as if').

As the old saying goes: 'Birds have the speech of birds, and beasts the speech of beasts.'

古云 ('the ancients say') introduces a proverb justifying what follows — that the monkeys can confer among themselves. 禽 (qín) is 'fowl, birds' and 獸 (shòu) 'beasts'; the parallelism is exact.

The monkeys all said: 'This stream of water — there's no telling where it comes from.

那裡 here is interrogative 'where,' so 那 is read nǎ (the older written form of 哪), not nà ('that'); 都道 (dōu dào) is 'all said.'

Today, with time on our hands and nothing to do, let's follow the stream up to its head and trace it to its source — let's go and have some fun!'

趕閑無事 (gǎn xián wú shì) is 'being at leisure with nothing to do' (閑 = 閒, 'idle'). 溜頭 (liū tóu) is the upper reach, the head of the stream's run; 耍子 (shuǎ zi) is colloquial 'to play,' and 耶 (yē) is a lively sentence-final particle.

With a single shout, all of them — leading the young ones along, calling to brothers younger and elder — came running together,

拖男挈女 ('hauling the boys, leading the girls') and 呼弟呼兄 ('calling younger and elder brothers') are set four-character phrases for a whole community moving as one; 挈 (qiè) is 'to lead by the hand, to bring along,' and 一齊 (yì qí) is 'all together.'

following the stream and climbing the slope, straight to the place of its source — and there it was, a cascading waterfall, a flying spring. And this is what they saw:

之處 again takes 處 as the noun chù ('place'). 瀑布飛泉 (pù bù fēi quán) pairs 'waterfall' with 'flying spring,' and 但見那 ('and this is what they saw') is the storyteller's standard cue introducing a descriptive poem.

A single sweep of white rainbow rises; a thousand fathoms of snow-white waves take flight.

The waterfall is described in eight lines of five-character regulated verse. 一派 (yí pài) is 'one stretch, a whole sheet of'; 尋 (xún) is an old measure of about eight 尺, so 千尋 simply means 'immensely high.' The 'white rainbow' and 'snow waves' render the spray and foam.

The sea-wind blows, yet cannot break it off; the river-moon shines, and still it holds its place.

吹不斷 takes the 不 in its bú sandhi before the falling tone of 斷 ('to sever'). 還依 (hái yī) is 'still remains, abides as before.' The 'sea-wind' and 'river-moon' set the falls in a vast watery cosmos, anticipating the claim that this water runs all the way to the sea.

Its cold breath divides the blue-green peaks; its overflow moistens the emerald haze.

嶂 (zhàng) is a steep, screen-like mountain; 翠微 (cuì wēi) is a fixed poetic term for the hazy blue-green of distant hills (the Wikisource reading, not the 翠薇 some editions print). 餘流 is the water's 'overflow,' and 潤 (rùn) is 'to moisten.'

Babbling and pouring, it earns the name 'waterfall' — truly like a hanging curtain drawn across.

潺湲 (chán yuán) is the sound and motion of flowing water; 名瀑布 uses 名 verbally, 'is named / deserves to be called a waterfall.' 掛簾帷 ('a hung-up curtain'; 掛 guà, 'to hang' — the Wikisource reading, where some editions print the variant 挂) gives the very image that will name the cave behind it: the 水簾洞, the Water-Curtain Cave, revealed in the next passage.