No sooner had he said he would go than, formless and shadowless, he had leapt to that mountain of his and come to the cave mouth.

說聲去 — the words and the departure are simultaneous. 無形無影, without form or shadow, is the standing formula for Wukong's cloud-somersault.

One blow of the iron rod, and both leaves of the door were smashed to powder.

一頓, one bout, one round of blows. 打得粉碎: 得 is the resultative-manner complement de.

He shouted abuse into it: "You chaff-swilling lout, come out and have it out with old Sun!"

饢糠 — to stuff oneself with chaff, husk-food fit for swine. 夯貨, "lout," literally a lump of rammed earth. The two insults will be repeated at him three more times in as many lines.

The fiend was inside the cave, sleeping and puffing hard. Hearing the door struck and sounding,

喘噓噓的睡: he had gone back to bed and was snoring. The detail is not decorative — this is a monster who lost a seven-hour fight and went to sleep.

and hearing himself abused as a chaff-swilling lout, he could not master his rage.

惱怒難禁: 禁 is jīn, "to bear, to withstand," not jìn. What rouses him is not the broken door but the word "chaff."

He had no choice but to drag out his rake, rouse himself, and come running out, railing at the top of his voice:

只得 takes 得 as dé; 拖著鈀 takes 著 as zhe, continuous; 跑將出來 takes 將 as jiāng, the vernacular directional particle.

"You Ban-horsemaster, you are a right nuisance.

著實憊懶: 著 is the adverb zhuó, "downright." 憊懶, a Yuan–Ming word of abuse — shameless, tiresome, good-for-nothing.

What is this to do with you, that you should break down my gate?

有甚相干: 甚 is interrogative shén ("what"), and 相干 takes 相 as xiāng.

Go and consult the statutes: to force an entry through a main gate is a capital offence under the miscellaneous articles."

The fiend argues law. 律條 are the statutes; 雜犯死罪 is a real category of the Ming code — capital offences of the miscellaneous class, generally commutable. He has chosen the charge that carries the lightest penalty.

The Pilgrim laughed. "You idiot! Suppose I did break down the gate — I have a defence to plead.

辨處, a ground of defence (辨 = 辯). Wukong concedes the fact and disputes the sentencing, exactly as counsel would.

But you, who took a man's daughter by force, with no matchmakers and no witnesses,

And now the counter-indictment: 三媒六證, the matchmakers and witnesses required for a lawful betrothal.

and never a cup of tea nor a cup of wine of betrothal — you should be charged with a true capital crime, and beheaded."

茶紅酒禮: the tea and the wine of the betrothal ceremony. 真犯斬罪 answers 雜犯死罪 — a true capital crime, not a commutable one. The whole exchange is a mock trial fought with weapons.

The fiend said: "Enough idle talk. Look to this rake of old Hog's!"

老豬 — "old Hog," his own self-designation, formed on the model of Wukong's 老孫. It is the first time he uses it.

The Pilgrim held it off with his rod. "Is this the rake you use as a hired hand at the Gao farm, to dig the ground and plant the greens?

長工, a hired farmhand engaged by the year. Wukong's taunt is that the weapon is an agricultural implement, which of course it is.

What is there in it to frighten me?" The fiend said: "You mistake it. Is this rake a thing of the mortal world? Listen while I tell you:

The insult provokes the poem. 豈是凡間之物 — "is this a thing of the mortal world?" 你且聽我道來 is the lead-in, and stays inside the prose segment.

This was forged of the divine ice-iron; ground and polished to a finish, its brightness pure.

神冰鐵, divine ice-iron. The poem is a weapon-genealogy of the kind Homer gives the shield of Achilles: material, smith, ornament, cosmic correspondence, career.

Lord Lao himself plied the tongs and hammer; the Fire Star in person fed in the charcoal-dust.

老君 is Lord Lao, the deified Laozi, master of the eight-trigram furnace. 熒𤏘 writes 熒惑, the planet Mars, the fire-star. The graph 𤏘 (U+243D8) is a rare supplementary-plane character, and the only one in this chapter.

The Five Emperors of the Five Quarters bent their minds to it; the Six Ding and Six Jia spent their pains upon it.

The 五方五帝 are the emperors of the five directions; the 六丁六甲 are the twelve cyclical spirits of the sexagenary calendar, standing guardians of Daoist ritual.

They wrought its nine teeth of jade, hanging like fangs, and cast the double rings, leaves of gold pendent.

玉垂牙 — teeth of jade hanging like fangs; 金墜葉 — leaf-shaped gold pendants on the double rings. The rake is described as jewellery before it is described as a weapon.

Its body is dressed with the Six Luminaries and marshalled to the Five Planets; its frame answers the four seasons and follows the eight nodes.

六曜, the Six Luminaries (sun, moon, and the five planets, variously counted); 八節, the eight nodes of the solar year. The correspondences are the standard cosmological furniture of ritual implements.

Its length and breadth, its high and low, fix heaven and earth; its right and left, its yin and yang, divide sun from moon.

短長 here means dimension, so 長 is cháng, not zhǎng. 乾坤 takes 乾 as qián.

The spirit-generals of the six lines are ranged upon it by celestial statute; the stars and constellations are set out in it after the Dipper.

六爻 are the six lines of a hexagram. 神將 is a divine general — 將 read jiàng, not jiāng. 依斗列: after the pattern of the Dipper, 斗 read dǒu.

It was named the Supreme-Treasure Gold-Steeped Rake, and presented to the Jade Emperor to guard the cinnabar gates.

上寶沁金鈀, "the Supreme-Treasure Gold-Steeped Rake" — its court name, as a ceremonial object. 名為 takes 為 as wéi.

Because I refined myself into a Great Luo immortal, it was reared for me as a companion of long life.

大羅仙, an immortal of the Great Canopy Heaven, the highest Daoist grade. 長生客 takes 長 as cháng.

By decree I was made Marshal, styled the Heavenly Reeds, and the muckrake was granted me as an imperial insignia.

御節, an imperial tally or insignia of office. The rake is thus not a farm tool that became a weapon but a regalia that has been reduced to a farm tool — the whole shape of Bajie's fall in one object.

Lift it, and fierce flame and fine radiance rise; bring it down, and a savage wind drives auspicious snow.

A conventional couplet of martial hyperbole, and rhythmically the poem's pivot: after it, the tenses turn to the past.

The spirit-generals of the Bureau of Heaven were all of them afraid; in the Courts of Earth, King Yama's heart and gall went cold.

天曹, the celestial bureaux; 閻羅, King Yama of the underworld courts. 神將 again jiàng. 盡 is jìn, "all."

Where in the mortal world is there such a weapon? In all the earth there is no iron of its kind.

人間那有: 那 is the rhetorical interrogative nǎ, "where is there —?"

It changes with my body as my heart may wish; it turns and tumbles as I please, at a word of the formula.

可心懷, as the heart may wish. The rake obeys a formula, as Wukong's rod obeys a wish — the two weapons are being deliberately measured against one another.

Hand in hand with me these many years, it has never left me; my companion these several seasons, never a day apart.

數載 takes 載 as zǎi, a year. 相攜 — hand in hand: the diction of companionship, not of arms.

At my three meals a day it is never set aside; at night, through a whole watch of sleep, never once laid by.

一宿, one night's sleep. 撇, to fling aside. The couplet is faintly absurd and entirely characteristic: he takes his rake to dinner.

It has gone with me to the Peach Assembly; it has attended court with me at the imperial gates.

The two 也曾 lines return to the Peach Assembly of the previous poem. 朝帝闕: 朝 is cháo.

All because I trusted to wine and turned to violence, all because I leaned on my strength and made a drunken scene,

仗酒, to presume upon drink; 倚強, to lean on one's strength. He assigns the blame twice and never to himself.

Heaven cast me down into the dust of the world, and in the lower world I worked out my fill of sin.

儘我作罪孽 — the graph is 儘, not 盡: "to the full of my measure." The distinction matters for the ruby, since 盡 is always jìn in this text.

In the stone cave my heart went wrong and I ate men; at the Gao Farm I found my pleasure and made a marriage.

The confession is dropped in without emphasis: 石洞心邪曾吃人, in the stone cave he ate men. The parallel line makes his marriage the sequel to his cannibalism, which is precisely what the Gao family have been spared knowing.

This rake — put out to sea, it overturns the dragon-lizard's den; taken up the mountain, it tears open the lair of tigers and wolves.

鼉 is the Yangtze alligator. The line has an extra foot in each half — the poem breaks its own metre exactly where the boasting is loudest.

Speak no more of the several weapons; among them all my rake is the keenest.

吾當 is a vernacular first person, "I, for my part." 切, keen-edged.

To close and take the victory, where is the difficulty? To gamble the fight and win the merit needs no saying.

相持, to close and grapple. 賭鬥 — to stake a fight, as one stakes a wager: the word used of the whole night's combat.

What care I if your head is bronze and your brains iron and your body all of steel? One stroke of the rake, and the soul is gone and the spirit leaks away."

The rake-poem ends where the head-poem of the next passage begins, on the invulnerability of Wukong's skull. The challenge is issued, and it will be taken up literally.