二將守門 The Two Generals Guard the Gate
當日天晚，各取披掛，他兩個介冑整齊，執金瓜、鉞斧，在宮門外把守。好將軍！你看他怎生打扮：当日天晚，各取披挂，他两个介胄整齐，执金瓜、钺斧，在宫门外把守。好将军！你看他怎生打扮：
逐句解 Line by line
That day, as evening came, each took up his armor; the two of them, mailed and helmeted, grasped their golden maces and battle-axes and stood guard outside the palace gate. Fine generals! See how they were arrayed:
介冑, mail and helmet, is full armor; the 金瓜 is a melon-headed mace and the 鉞斧 a broad battle-axe, both ceremonial weapons of the guard rather than field kit. The narrator's aside — see how they were arrayed — is a showman's cue. 將 in 將軍, 'general,' is jiàng, and the 賦 describing the two follows.
On their heads golden helmets gleaming bright; on their bodies mail like dragon-scales.
金盔 is the golden helmet and 鎧甲龍鱗 is mail of overlapping plates, 'like dragon-scales' — a detail with an edge on it, considering what these men are guarding against.
The heart-guarding mirror-plates flash with auspicious cloud; the lion-and-barbarian clasps drawn tight, the embroidered sashes fresh as rosy dawn.
護心寶鏡 is the round mirror-plate that protects the chest, and 獅蠻 a belt-clasp worked with a lion. The details pile into sheer armored magnificence, which is the point: the ghost is meant to see this.
This one, phoenix eyes turned heavenward, makes the very stars afraid; that one, ring-round eyes flashing like lightning, sets the moonlight afloat.
鳳眼, phoenix eyes, and 環睛, ring-round eyes, tell the two warriors apart by their glare — and it is by the glare that they stay recognizable, centuries later, on a million painted doors. 朝 in 朝天, 'toward heaven,' is cháo, and 那 is nà.
They were in truth heroes and stalwarts, meritorious ministers of old — who came at last to be called, for a thousand years, the Guardians of the Gate, and to serve, through all the ages, as the gods of the door.
The rhapsody breaks frame to say outright what these two will become. 戶尉, door-warden, and 門神, door-god, are the posts they end up holding in folk religion — and 'end up' is the right phrase, since 落得, with 得 read de, carries a faint shrug in it: after all those victories, this is what they came to.
The chapter arrives at the scene folk memory has made its most famous. The two generals, 秦叔寶 and 尉遲敬德, put on full armor and take up their ceremonial maces to stand the night watch at the emperor's gate, and the 賦 renders them in a blaze of martial splendor: golden helmets, dragon-scale mail, mirror-plates flashing with cloud, eyes that frighten the stars and set the moonlight afloat.
The rhapsody's closing couplet steps outside the story to name what these warriors will become: 千年稱戶尉，萬古作門神, for a thousand years the Guardians of the Gate, through all the ages the gods of the door. Historical generals of the Tang founding, they pass here into the permanent iconography of Chinese folk religion, their armored portraits pasted on gateways to ward off evil down to the present day. In the middle of an imperial ghost-story the novel pauses to explain an image every reader already knew from their own front door.