The Pilgrim, changed into that pill, was after all a trifle the larger.

終是略大些兒 — the whole plan rests upon it, and the narrator says it twice.

The Bodhisattva marked which it was, took up the glass tray, and went straight to the mouth of the fiend's cave to look. It was indeed thus:

認定, to fix which is which. The rhapsody that follows is the fifth of the chapter, and the last.

Deep cliff and perilous peak, cloud rising above the ridge;

The unit is cut at ；; the two halves are a matched pair, and are kept as separate units, as elsewhere in this chapter.

grey cypress and green pine, wind sighing among the trees.

颯, the sound of wind in leaves — the same graph that dressed the Bodhisattva two passages ago.

Deep cliff and perilous peak — truly a haunt of fiends, where the smoke of men is scarce;

人煙少: 少 reads shǎo. The rhapsody now repeats its own first two units and finishes each of them, and the two completions are opposite verdicts on the same place.

grey cypress and green pine — a place, too, where a true immortal may hide and cultivate, and feeling for the Way abounds.

仙真修隱, a true immortal cultivating in seclusion; 道情多, feeling for the Way in abundance. The same cliff that hides fiends shelters adepts, and the poem declines to choose.

The hill has its gorge, the gorge its spring; the murmuring water sobs like a sounding zither, and one might wash the ears in it;

咽 reads yè, to sob, not the yàn of swallowing that pypinyin supplies — though the graph will appear in that sense, and that reading, three segments hence. 洗耳 alludes to Xu You, who washed his ears after hearing himself offered the empire.

the cliff has its deer, the wood its cranes; the faint immortal piping stirs among the peaks, and the heart may take its delight.

仙籟 answers the 萬籟 of the night rhapsody. 間岑, among the small peaks.

This is a fiend-immortal with a portion allotted him, brought down to bodhi; the great vow, boundless, letting fall its pity.

有分: 分 reads fèn, an allotted portion, not the fēn of dividing. 降菩提 keeps jiàng, to be brought down, parallel to 垂 in the answering clause. 弘誓 is the great vow of the Bodhisattva; 惻隱, the heart that cannot bear the suffering of another, is Mencius. The verdict is passed before she reaches the gate.

The Bodhisattva looked, and rejoiced secretly in her heart. "This creature of evil karma has taken possession of this mountain cave — and yet he has something of a portion in the Way."

占, zhàn, to seize and hold. 道分: 分 is again fèn, a portion allotted. Five thousand graphs of garden, letter, couplet and courtesy have been leading to these three words, and it is the Bodhisattva who says them.

And so within her heart there was already a compassion.

因此心中已是有個慈悲 — and so there was already a compassion in her heart. The decision to spare the bear is taken here, at the gate, before he has swallowed anything.