初居洞府 Beginning Life at the Cave
話表美猴王得了姓名，怡然踴躍，對菩提前作禮啟謝。那祖師即命大眾引孫悟空出二門外，教他灑掃應對、進退周旋之節。眾仙奉行而出。悟空到門外，又拜了大眾師兄，就於廊廡之間安排寢處。次早，與眾師兄學言語禮貌、講經論道、習字焚香。每日如此。閑時即掃地鋤園、養花修樹、尋柴燃火、挑水運漿。凡所用之物，無一不備。在洞中不覺倏六七年。话表美猴王得了姓名，怡然踊跃，对菩提前作礼启谢。那祖师即命大众引孙悟空出二门外，教他洒扫应对、进退周旋之节。众仙奉行而出。悟空到门外，又拜了大众师兄，就于廊庑之间安排寝处。次早，与众师兄学言语礼貌、讲经论道、习字焚香。每日如此。闲时即扫地锄园、养花修树、寻柴燃火、挑水运浆。凡所用之物，无一不备。在洞中不觉倏六七年。
逐句解 Line by line
The tale now takes up how the Handsome Monkey King, having won himself a name, was filled with joy and leapt about, and made his bows before Bodhi to give thanks.
話表 (huà biǎo) is how a storyteller picks the thread back up after a break — "the tale now relates that…", cousin to 話說 and 卻說. The novel was performed long before it was printed, and formulas like this one are the seams where the performance still shows. 美猴王 is the title he won in 第一回, and 菩提 is short for his master 須菩提祖師, Subodhi. 得 here is the full-tone dé, to obtain — 得了姓名, having got himself a name — not the toneless de, nor děi, "must."
The Patriarch straightaway ordered the assembly to lead Sun Wukong out past the second gate and to instruct him in the disciplines of sprinkling and sweeping, of answering when addressed, and of stepping forward and back.
And the first thing the master does with his newly named disciple is put him on chores. 灑掃應對進退 is the standard Confucian syllabus for a beginner — sprinkling and sweeping, answering when spoken to, stepping forward and back — lifted almost word for word from the Neo-Confucian account of 小學, elementary learning. It is the primary-school curriculum, handed to a creature born out of a rock. 教 is jiāo here, to teach a thing to someone, not jiào, to cause, or "a teaching"; 掃 is the verb sǎo, not sào as in 掃帚, a broom; 應 is yìng, to respond, not yīng, "ought." The 世德堂本 gives the name in full as 孫悟空, where some reprints shorten it to 悟空.
The host of immortals carried out the command and withdrew.
眾仙 are Subodhi's senior disciples, and 奉行 (fèng xíng) is to carry out an order. 行 is xíng, to do or go, not háng, a row or a trade.
Wukong, once outside the gate, again bowed to all his elder brothers-in-study, and there among the corridors and side-galleries he settled his sleeping quarters.
師兄 are his elder brothers in study — senior fellow-disciples. 廊廡 (láng wǔ) are the roofed walkways and covered side-rooms flanking a hall, 廡 being a building's wings. So the new pupil's bed is made up in a corridor. 處 is the noun chù, place, in 寢處, sleeping quarters, not the verb chǔ; 間 is jiān, the space between, not jiàn, a gap.
The next morning, together with his elder schoolmates, he took up speech and the forms of courtesy, the expounding of scriptures and the discussion of the Way, the practice of writing and the burning of incense. So passed each day.
次早 is the next morning, short for 次日早晨. Then the daily round — manners and speech, calligraphy, incense — and 講經論道, which gives the school away in four characters. 經 covers Buddhist sūtras and the Confucian classics both; 道 is the Daoist Way; and they are studied in one breath with nobody sorting them. 與 is yǔ, "with," not yù, to take part in, nor the classical closing yú; 論 is lùn, to discuss, not lún as in 《論語》.
In his idle hours he swept the grounds and hoed the garden, raised flowers and trimmed trees, sought out firewood and kindled the fire, drew water and carried gruel.
Eight verbs, every one of them menial. 鋤 (chú) is to hoe, and 漿 (jiāng) is a thin liquid or starchy slop, so 運漿 beside 挑水 means hauling water and swill. 挑 is tiāo, to carry on a shoulder-pole, not tiǎo, to poke or provoke. It is worth remembering the woodcutter of the previous chapter, who did this same work and could not walk away from it.
Of everything that was wanted, there was not one thing left unprovided.
無一不備 is a double negative — not one thing not provided — meaning simply that everything was seen to. It also makes a tidy little tone puzzle. 備 is a falling tone, which lifts 不 to bú; and that risen bú in turn lifts 一 to yì. The phrase reads wú yì bú bèi, each shift setting off the next.
In the cave, before he was aware of it, six or seven years had flickered by.
倏 (shū) means in a flash, as in 倏忽 — and the opening stretch of the apprenticeship goes by in five characters. The 世德堂本 has 倏 standing alone, without the 然 that some modern retellings insert. 覺 is jué, to notice, so 不覺 is "without realising" — not jiào, sleep, as in 睡覺.
Chapter One ended on a kind of coronation: a nameless stone creature was given the dharma-name 悟空, "Awakened to Emptiness." Chapter Two opens by handing him a broom. The master's first instruction is 灑掃應對進退 — sprinkling and sweeping, answering when spoken to, advancing and withdrawing — which is not mystical training at all but the ordinary Confucian syllabus for a schoolboy, taken almost verbatim from the Neo-Confucian account of elementary learning. And then years of it: sweeping, hoeing, fetching firewood, hauling water. The deflation is deliberate and very funny, and it is also the chapter's first lesson, taught before a word of doctrine is spoken.
What the disciples actually study gives the school away. They 講經論道, expound scriptures and discourse on the Way, in a single phrase — Buddhist sūtras and Confucian classics both under 經, the Daoist Way under 道 — and nobody pauses to sort them into their proper rooms. Andrew Plaks identifies this easy mixing as the novel's habitual intellectual key, and the school's address says the same thing in code. The master lives in the 斜月三星洞, "Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars," on the 靈臺方寸山, "Mountain of the Numinous Terrace and the Square Inch." Both 方寸 and 靈臺 are old words for the heart-mind, and a crescent moon set over three dots simply draws the character 心, xīn. The whole apprenticeship happens, allegorically, inside the monkey's own head — which is why later chapters call him the 心猿, the mind-monkey, the restless attention that cultivation has to break in.
The inner-alchemy commentators read the chapter break as deliberate architecture. The Qing exegete Liu Yiming (悟元子) opens his notes here by observing that Chapter One set out only the source of the Great Way and the cultivation of mind and nature, and never said how the thing was to be done; Chapter Two exists to spell out the method, point by point. Six or seven years of unremarkable chores before a single secret changes hands dramatises a principle that tradition holds dear — the slow, near-invisible groundwork that has to precede any sudden breakthrough. And the narrator's compression of those years into one clause, 倏六七年, "in a flash, six or seven years," is his own quiet way of saying that the real business has not begun.