At these words the fiend threw down his muckrake, made a deep bow with his hands clasped, and said:

唱個大喏: to make a deep bow with clasped hands and a spoken salutation. 喏 is read rě. The rake goes down first — the gesture of a soldier surrendering, not a monster yielding.

"Where is this scripture-seeker? I beg you take the trouble to present me."

Two 那 in one breath, with different readings: 那取經人 is demonstrative nà, 在那裡 interrogative nǎ. 累煩, to trouble someone with a request.

The Pilgrim said: "What do you want with him?"

Wukong is unmoved. The whole scene turns on his refusal to accept a conversion he has not tested.

The fiend said: "It was the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin who exhorted me to good, and I received her precepts from her, and here I have kept the fast and abstained from flesh,

勸善, exhorted to good — the same word used of Guanyin's commission in chapter eight. 戒行, the observance of the precepts. 持齋把素, keeping fast and abstaining from meat.

and she bade me follow that scripture-seeker to the Western Heaven, to worship the Buddha and seek the scriptures, that my merit might redeem my crime and I might come at last to the true fruit.

將功折罪, to set merit against crime and cancel it — the legal formula again. 還得正果: 還 is hái, "moreover," and 得 is dé, to obtain.

She bade me wait for him these several years, and no word of him has come.

等他這幾年 — the pathos is real. Guanyin recruited him in chapter eight; between that chapter and this one, ten have passed, and he has been waiting.

Today, since you are his disciple, why did you not say at once that this was the business of the scriptures, instead of leaning on your ferocity and coming to my door to strike me?"

何不早說: the reproach is just. Wukong never asked. 倚兇強, to lean on one's ferocity — the fiend uses of Wukong the very phrase he used of himself in the rake-poem (倚強便撒潑).

The Pilgrim said: "Do not play the trickster and try to soften me, thinking to make it a way of escape.

詭詐欺心, deceitful and self-deceiving. 欲為脫身之計: 為 is wéi, "to make."

If you truly mean to guard the Tang Monk, with nothing false in it, then swear an oath to Heaven, and I will take you to see my master."

朝天發誓, to swear facing Heaven. The demand for an oath is the demand of a magistrate, not a monk.

The fiend flung himself down on his knees and, bowing towards the void like a pestle in a mortar, knocked his head on the ground and said again and again:

望空似搗碓的一般 — bowing at the empty air like a pestle pounding in a mortar. 似 is sì. The simile is agricultural and undignified, and it is the point of him.

"Amitābha Buddha! Namo Buddha! If this is not my true heart and honest meaning, then let me offend against the statutes of Heaven and have my carcass hacked into ten thousand pieces."

南無 is the transcription of Sanskrit namo: 無 is read mó. 劈屍萬段, to have the corpse split into ten thousand pieces — the standard self-imprecation of the vernacular oath.

Seeing him swear and pledge himself, the Pilgrim said: "If it is so, then set a light to this dwelling of yours and burn it, and I will take you."

賭咒發願, to swear and to vow. The condition Wukong imposes is not verbal: burn the house. Nothing is accepted here on the strength of words.

The fiend did indeed gather brushwood of reed and thorn, kindled a fire, and burned that Cloud-Ladder Cave until it looked like a broken kiln.

點著一把火: 著 is zháo, the resultative — the fire caught. 燒得像個破瓦窰: 得 is de. 窰 = 窯, a kiln.

Then he said to the Pilgrim: "I have nothing left to hinder me. Lead me away."

無罣礙, "nothing to hinder or obstruct" — anāvaraṇa, and one of the key phrases of the Heart Sutra, which the pilgrims will receive at the end of this very chapter. Bajie says it first, and says it of a burnt house.

The Pilgrim said: "Give me that muckrake to carry." The fiend handed him the rake.

拿著 — continuous 著, zhe. Disarming him is the second condition, and it is imposed without comment.

The Pilgrim plucked out a hair, blew on it with his immortal breath, and cried: "Change!"

The hair-transformation, Wukong's most domestic magic. He has used it to make monkeys, sleep-insects, and now a rope.

It turned into a three-ply hempen rope. He came up and bound the fiend's hands behind his back.

三股麻繩, a three-ply hempen cord. 綁剪, to pinion the arms behind the back.

The fiend really did put his hands behind him and let himself be tied as the other pleased.

真個倒背著手 — he really did put his hands behind him. The submission is complete and volunteered, which makes what follows worse.

Then the Pilgrim took him by the ear and hauled him along, calling: "Quick march, quick march!"

揪著耳朵: the ear. The gesture is not that of a captor with a prisoner but of a farmer with a hog, and the novel knows it.

The fiend said: "Gently, will you! Your hand is heavy. You are pulling till the root of my ear aches."

輕著些兒: sentence-final imperative 著, zhe — "gently, will you." 揪得我耳根子疼: complement 得, de.

The Pilgrim said: "Gently is not to be had; I cannot indulge you. As the saying goes, 'A good pig needs hard handling.'

善豬惡拿, "a good pig is hard-handled" — a proverb, quoted in dialogue, and therefore prose, not verse. Wukong has chosen it for the graph 豬.

Wait till you have seen my master, and if your heart is true, then you shall be let go."

果有真心 — the condition is still, and remains, the heart. Three tests have been set: an oath, a fire, and a rope, and none of them has been believed.

So the two of them, half cloud and half mist, went straight back to the Gao Farm. There is a poem in evidence:

有詩為證: 為 is wéi. The lead-in closes the prose segment; the quatrain follows as verse.

Metal's nature, hard and strong, can overcome the Wood; the Mind-Monkey has subdued the Wood-Dragon and brought him home.

The quatrain restates the episode in the vocabulary of the Five Agents. 金 (Metal) is Wukong; 木 (Wood) is Bajie, and the 木龍 is the wood-dragon. 降得: 降 is xiáng, to subdue, and 得 the complement de.

Metal follows, Wood complies, and the two are wholly one; Wood cleaves to Metal's benevolence, and all is set to work.

金從木順 — the mutual conquest becomes a mutual accommodation. 皆為一 takes 為 as wéi. 金仁: metal, ordinarily the agent of severity, is credited here with rén, benevolence.

One host, one guest, and no partition between; three crossings, three conjunctions, and a hidden subtlety within.

一主一賓, host and guest, is alchemical shorthand for the ruling and assisting agents in a conjunction. 三交三合, the three crossings and conjunctions of the elixir.

Nature and feeling rejoice together, the Chaste and the Primal are gathered; together they bear witness to the West, and the word is not belied.

貞元 are the last and first of the four qualities of the Book of Changes hexagram Qian — the end that is also the beginning. 同證西方: to bear joint witness in the West. The quatrain's claim is that Wukong did not defeat Bajie; the two agents entered into their proper relation.