捧衣叩別 詩證圓成 Farewell; the Closing Poem
菩薩吩咐道：「悟空，你回去罷，好生伏侍唐僧，以後再休懈惰生事。」行者道：「深感菩薩遠來，弟子還當回送回送。」菩薩道：「免送。」行者才捧著袈裟，叩頭而別。菩薩亦帶了熊羆，徑回大海。有詩為證。詩曰：菩萨吩咐道：「悟空，你回去罢，好生伏侍唐僧，以后再休懈惰生事。」行者道：「深感菩萨远来，弟子还当回送回送。」菩萨道：「免送。」行者才捧着袈裟，叩头而别。菩萨亦带了熊罴，径回大海。有诗为证。诗曰：
畢竟不知向後事情如何，且聽下回分解。毕竟不知向后事情如何，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
The Bodhisattva gave her charge: "Wukong, go back now. Serve the Tang monk well, and hereafter be neither slothful nor a maker of trouble."
好生伏侍唐僧, serve the Tang monk well. 懈惰生事 is sloth and trouble-making: she names both the offences of the last two chapters, and the second of them is the fire.
The Pilgrim said, "I am deeply sensible that the Bodhisattva has come so far. Your disciple ought to see you a part of the way home." The Bodhisattva said, "Spare yourself."
弟子 takes the lexical 子, zǐ. 還當 keeps dāng, ought to. 回送回送 — doubling the verb makes the offer casual, and it is declined in two characters.
The Pilgrim then took up the cassock in both hands, knocked his head, and parted from her. The Bodhisattva too took the bear-fiend with her, and went straight back to the great sea.
捧著 takes zhe, held in both hands. 熊羆 — the narrator names the bear by his species in the last clause in which he appears, exactly as the bear named himself at the foot of his letter.
There is a poem to attest it. The poem says:
有詩為證, there is a poem to attest it: 為 takes the copular wéi. Because 詩曰： has prose in front of it here, it stays inside this line rather than standing on its own.
Auspicious light hangs thick and gathers to a golden image; ten thousand beams in riot, truly a thing to praise.
靄靄 is thick and hanging. 凝金像 — the light congeals into a golden image, which is precisely what a statue of the Bodhisattva is.
She succours the people of the world and lets her pity fall; she looks through all the Dharma-realm and shows the golden lotus.
憫恤 is pity and relief. The poem rhymes in -a: 誇, 瑕, 裟. This line ends on 蓮, which does not rhyme at all; the irregularity is there in the 世德堂本 and is encoded as it stands rather than tidied away.
Her coming now was chiefly for the sake of the scripture-bearing; her going leaves not one spot of flaw behind.
多為: 為 is wèi, for the sake of. 無落點瑕 — the poem asserts that nothing in the whole episode was blemished. Two creatures were beaten to death on a public road in the course of it.
The fiend subdued and made true, she returns to the great sea, and the Gate of Emptiness has its brocade cassock again.
降怪成真: 降 reads xiáng, to subdue. 空門, the Gate of Emptiness, is Buddhism; 復得 takes the acquisitive dé. The chapter opened with a robe and closes with it.
In the end there is no knowing how matters shall go hereafter. Listen to the explanation in the next chapter.
The storyteller's closing formula. 分解: 分 reads fēn, to divide something up and lay it out — which is to say, to explain.
Guanyin's last word to the Pilgrim is a reprimand for two faults, 懈惰 and 生事, sloth and trouble-making — and the trouble she means is the fire he set. He answers by offering to escort her home, is told not to bother, picks the cassock up in both hands and knocks his head on the ground. She takes the bear away with her. The chapter began with monks bowing at an empty sky and ends with a monkey bowing at a departing cloud, and in neither case does the one bowing quite know what he is bowing to.
Then the closing poem, which is a whitewash and knows it. 此去原無落點瑕 — her going leaves not one spot of flaw behind. But the road out of Black Wind Mountain has a snake-spirit torn into five or seven pieces lying on it, a small demon beaten flat as a pasty, and a grey wolf whose brains are on the ground and whose name and face were borrowed to poison his friend. The verse says the Gate of Emptiness has its brocade cassock back, and that is exactly and only what has happened. 空門復得錦袈裟。