Just as they were talking, a little demon on mountain patrol came in to report: "Great King, disaster! The junior officer who carried down the invitation has been beaten to death by Sun the Pilgrim beside the highroad,

巡山 is patrolling the mountain — the fiend keeps sentries out. 小校 is a junior officer, so the messenger the Pilgrim beat flat is posthumously awarded a rank he did not hold while alive. 路傍: páng.

and he, having caught the thread of it, has changed into the elder Jinchi and comes to cheat you of the Buddha-robe!"

綽著經兒 — 綽 is chāo, to snatch up, and 著 is the continuous zhe: he has got hold of the thread and is keeping hold of it while doing something else. 經兒 is the thread or gist of an affair, not a scripture.

Hearing this, the fiend said within himself, "I did wonder how that elder should come today, and come so speedily. It is he after all."

來得迅速 takes the manner-marking de. The fiend had reasoned his way to the truth an hour ago and let a good lie talk him back out of it; the confirmation now costs him nothing more than a 果然, so it was him after all.

He sprang up in haste, caught his spear, and thrust at the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim whipped the rod from his ear, showed his true form,

耳朵裡急掣出棍子 — the rod has been sitting in his ear throughout the tea. 現了本相: 相 is xiàng, an appearance or form.

parried the spear-point, leapt out of the middle hall, and fought his way from the courtyard to beyond the front gate.

中廳 and 天井中, both zhōng. The fight retraces, in reverse, the ceremonial approach of the previous passage: middle hall, courtyard, front gate.

The whole rabble of the cave were frightened out of their courage, and the household, old and young, out of their souls.

諕 writes 嚇 and reads xià; 得 is the linking de. 喪膽 takes sàng, to lose. 盡 is fixed at jìn. And 家間老幼 — old and young alike — means a household with children in it.

It was a fine contest there on the mountaintop, and quite another thing from the bout before. A fine fight:

前番 is the previous bout. 好殺, a fine fight, introduces the chapter's second battle-賦.

That Monkey King, bold of gall, passed himself for a monk; this black fellow, quick of wit, had hidden the Buddha-robe.

充和尚 is to pass yourself off as a monk; 隱佛衣 is to hide the robe. The couplet gives each combatant a single verb, and both verbs are deceits. The rhyme runs in -i and -ei: 衣, 池, 微, 威, 非, 輝, 稀, 歸, 圍.

Word went and word came, and the occasion was nicely turned; each met the moment as it fell, and neither missed a step.

應變: 應 reads yìng, to respond. 不差池: 差 is chā, a discrepancy or slip. The tone of 不 is computed from that character's dictionary tone chà and comes out bú.

The cassock he would see, and had no way to see it; the treasure lay dark and subtle, wondrous and fine.

玄微 and 妙微 put the rhyme-character twice inside one line. That is a licence the 賦 allows itself and regulated verse — the strict eight-line form with its fixed tone pattern — does not.

The little fiend on patrol spoke of disaster; the old fiend flew into rage and put forth his divine might.

The 賦 narrates what the prose has just narrated. That doubling is the convention, and its use is that it lets the verse assign motives the prose withheld.

They turned and fought their way out of Black Wind Cave: spear and rod contending to settle the right and the wrong.

辨是非, to settle right from wrong. It is a startling claim, given that the earlier battle-rhapsody signed off with 只為袈裟各不良, neither of them any good — and nothing has changed since except the venue.

The rod parried the long spear with a ringing clang; the spear met the iron rod and gave out light.

Sound and light, one to each half of the couplet. 響喨, liàng, is a clear ringing note; the second character is a variant way of writing 亮, bright. And 長槍 keeps cháng, long — this is a spear, not an elder.

Wukong's transformations are rare among men; the monster's powers are seldom seen on earth.

人間少: 少 reads shǎo, rare. The couplet praises the two of them in the same breath and in the same measure — the poem has stopped distinguishing between them.

The one would take the Buddha-robe to keep his birthday: would the other, lacking the cassock, consent to go quietly home?

不得袈裟 takes the acquisitive dé. This line runs to nine characters where its neighbours run to seven, and the couplet it forms with the next one breaks the metre of the whole piece. 善歸 is to go home in good part, without a fuss.

In this bitter fight they could not part their hands; and had a living Buddha come down to earth, he could not have broken the ring.

Nine characters again, closing a poem built of sevens. 活佛, a living Buddha — and one will in fact come down, though she is not a Buddha and she does not come to break the ring. 解不得圍: dé. One editorial note: the source divides these two lines at the question mark above, but both are complete as they stand and neither needs joining to its neighbour.