The Bodhisattva and the Guardian were not long in reaching Coiled-Snake Mountain.

不多時, "in no long while." The distance that cost the Guardian a chapter's suspense is crossed, for the Bodhisattva, in a phrase.

They halted their auspicious cloud in mid-air, and looking down beheld Sun the Pilgrim at the brink of the gorge, bawling abuse.

留住祥雲, "to halt the auspicious cloud." That she pauses in mid-air to watch him rage before descending is a small piece of characterisation: she has seen this before.

The Bodhisattva bade the Guardian call him up.

著 is causative, read zhuó.

The Guardian brought down his cloud-head and, passing Sanzang by, went straight to the gorge and said to the Pilgrim: "The Bodhisattva is come."

不經由三藏, "without going by way of Sanzang." The detail is quietly telling — the monk, whose pilgrimage this is, is not consulted, and will learn of the Bodhisattva's visit only after she has gone.

Hearing it, the Pilgrim sprang up on his cloud into the air,

聞得 takes the resultative 得 (de); 縱雲, "to spring up on a cloud." He does not descend to receive her; he leaps up to confront her.

and shouted at her: "You there, teacher of the Seven Buddhas, sovereign of the Compassionate Faith — how came you to contrive a scheme to injure me?"

七佛之師, "teacher of the Seven Buddhas [of the past]," and 慈悲的教主, "sovereign of the Compassionate Faith," are Guanyin's true honorifics — hurled here as sarcasm. 生方法兒, "to hatch a scheme." The blasphemy is breathtaking, and entirely in character.

Said the Bodhisattva: "Why, you insolent ape, you boorish red-rumped baboon!

我把你這個… is the exclamatory scolding construction, "Why, you —!" 馬流 (for 馬騮) and 赤尻, "red rump," are both southern slang for a monkey; 村愚, "boorish and stupid." The Bodhisattva answers abuse with abuse, and the exchange is the funnier for her doing it so well.

Time and again I have exerted myself to the utmost, delivered up a scripture-seeker, and charged him strictly to save your life.

再三盡意, "to exert oneself utterly, again and again" (盡 always jìn); 度 is Buddhist dù, "to ferry across, to deliver," and 度得 takes 得 as dé; 叮嚀, "to enjoin strictly."

How is it that you do not come to thank me for the gift of your living, but come instead to brawl at me?"

活命之恩, "the grace of one's life spared"; 嚷鬧, "to brawl, to make an uproar." The charge of ingratitude is just, which is why it fails to land.

Said the Pilgrim: "A fine turn you have done me!

弄得我好哩 — "you have done me a fine turn" — is bitterly ironic, with 得 resultative (de).

Once you had let me out, you might have left me to my freedom and my sport, and there an end.

逍遙自在, "free and unfettered," is the Zhuangzian ideal of untrammelled wandering; 耍子, "to play, to sport," reduces it at once to a monkey's idea of liberty. The collision of registers is the joke.

The other day you met me above the sea and rebuked me in a few words; you bade me come and serve the Tang monk with all my heart and strength — well and good.

迎著 takes the durative 著 (zhe): the Bodhisattva was coming toward him, intercepting him in mid-flight above the sea, and 迎著 names that continuing motion — as one 迎著風, "faces into the wind" — rather than a goal attained. Contrast 撞著, "to run up against" (zháo), earlier in the chapter; 傷了我幾句, "wounded me with a few words." 盡心竭力, "with all one's heart and all one's strength," is the language of loyal service — quoted back at her with resentment.

But why did you send him a flowered cap, and cozen me into wearing it upon my head to my torment?

花帽, the "flowered cap," concealed the golden fillet; 哄, "to cozen, to trick." The deception was Guanyin's, and Wukong is entirely right about it.

You made this fillet grow into old Sun's skull, and taught him besides to recite a scroll of some Tight-Fillet Spell,

箍子 is the fillet or band; 長在, "grew fast into" (長 read zhǎng). 緊箍兒咒, the "Tight-Fillet Spell," is the instrument by which Sanzang, who cannot fight, governs a disciple who cannot be fought. 甚麼 takes 甚 as shén.

and set that old monk reciting it over and over, till this head of mine ached and ached again. Is that not injuring me?"

著那老和尚 — 著 causative, zhuó, "to set [him] to." The doubled 念了又念 and 疼了又疼 mimic the recitation's grinding repetition.

The Bodhisattva laughed and said: "You monkey, you would not obey commands, you would not accept the true fruit;

不遵教令, "not to obey instruction"; 正果 (Skt. bodhi, the true fruit) is the goal of the religious life. She does not deny the trick; she justifies it.

and had I not bound you thus, you would be deceiving your superiors and defying Heaven again. How would you know good from ill?

拘係, "to bind, to hold in check"; 誑上欺天, "to deceive superiors and defy Heaven," restates the formal charge of his rebellion. 知甚好歹 takes 甚 as shén, "what."

If you blundered into calamity as you did before, who would take you in charge?

再似從前 — 似 read sì, "as before"; 收管, "to take in charge, to be answerable for." The argument is disciplinary, not theological, and none the weaker for it.

It needed just this ordeal to make you willing to enter the gateway of my yoga."

魔頭 is "an ordeal, a tormenting trial" (literally "a demon-chief"); 瑜伽 (yú qié) transliterates yoga, here the disciplined path itself. The Bodhisattva's claim is that the fillet is not punishment but method: the ordeal is the door.

Said the Pilgrim: "Well, let that pass; call it my ordeal if you must.

作做, "let it be reckoned as." Wukong concedes the point about the fillet — with poor grace, and only in order to press a fresh grievance.

But why did you take that guilty vile dragon and set it here to work its sorceries, and let it eat my master's horse?

成精, "to become a sprite, to work sorceries." He turns her own argument against her: if she binds him for his crimes, why station a condemned dragon where it may commit fresh ones?

That is to loose a wicked creature to do evil, and it is very ill done."

縱放歹人為惡, "to loose a wicked creature to do evil" — here 為 is wéi, "to do," not the wèi ("for the sake of") that follows in her reply. 太不善也, "it is very ill done": the monkey lectures the Bodhisattva on ethics.

Said the Bodhisattva: "That dragon I myself petitioned the Jade Emperor for, and begged to have him placed here, expressly to serve the scripture-seeker as a mount.

親奏玉帝, "petitioned the Jade Emperor in person"; 專為 takes 為 as wèi, "expressly for." Her answer is not a defence but a disclosure: the dragon was never an obstacle, but always the provision.

Consider: how should a common horse from the Eastern Land traverse these ten thousand streams and thousand hills?

凡馬, "a common horse," as against a dragon-horse; 歷得, potential 得 (dé). 萬水千山 inverts the usual 千山萬水 — Sanzang's own phrase when he wept over the loss.

How should it reach that Buddha-land of Vulture Peak?

靈山, Vulture Peak (Gṛdhrakūṭa), where the Buddha dwells; 佛地, "the Buddha-land." 佛 is always fó.

It needs this dragon-horse, and then only will the road be passable."

須是得, "it must have"; 方才去得, "only then can one go," both 得 read dé. The horse the pilgrimage lost was never adequate to the pilgrimage.

Said the Pilgrim: "But he so dreads old Sun that he lies hid and will not come out. What is to be done?"

潛躲不出, "to lie hidden and not come out"; 如之奈何, "what is to be done about it," a formal classical idiom, incongruous in Wukong's mouth. Force having failed, he asks for help.

The Bodhisattva called the Guardian and said: "Go to the brink of the gorge and cry aloud:

叫一聲, "to give one cry." What Wukong could not accomplish with cudgel, curses and the churning of a whole gorge, the Bodhisattva accomplishes by having the creature called by its name.

'Third Prince Jade Dragon, son of Dragon King Aorun — come forth! The Bodhisattva of the Southern Sea is here.'

玉龍三太子, "Third Prince Jade Dragon" (子 read zǐ) — the name and rank the dragon has not heard since his condemnation. The dragon fought a nameless demon; he will answer to a Bodhisattva who knows who he is.

Then he will come out."

他就出來了, "then out he will come." The flat certainty of it is the reproof.