Bajie, hearing this, flew into a rage and cursed: 'You filthy thing! You've not a scrap of discernment.'

潑物 ('vile creature') and 沒一些兒眼色 ('without an ounce of perception') — Bajie's bluster answers the demon's cannibal boast blow for blow.

'Why, old Hog can still wring the water-froth out of himself — how dare you call me coarse and mean to mince me into paste?'

還掐出水沫兒 ('can still pinch out the water-foam'; 還 hái, 'still') is a vernacular boast of freshness and vigour; Bajie throws the demon's 剁鮓醬 ('mince into fish-paste') back in his face.

'It seems you've taken me for some old worn-out mule. Mind your manners — and take this rake from your grandsire!'

老走硝 is vernacular abuse for a spent, broken-down creature (a hide leached of its salt). 休得無禮 ('be not so rude'; here 得 dé, the modal 'may not,' as in 不得) and 這一鈀 ('this rake'; 鈀 pá) turn talk back to blows.

The monster, seeing the rake come, ducked it with a 'phoenix nodding its head,' and the two, fighting, drove up from the water to its surface,

鳳點頭 ('the phoenix nods its head') is a named evasive move from the martial repertoire; 鈀 pá. The fight rises from the river-bed (水中) to break the surface.

each treading the billows and mounting the waves. This bout was unlike the last — behold:

踏浪登波 ('treading billows, riding waves') sets the second duel on the water's face rather than beneath it; the tag 你看那 ('behold now'; 那 nà) introduces the second battle-rhapsody.

The Curtain-Raising General, the Marshal of the Heavenly Roof — each showed his powers, a marvel to behold.

捲簾將 ('Curtain-Raising General'; 將 jiàng, a rank) and 天蓬帥 ('Marshal Tianpeng') name the two combatants by their former celestial offices, as the first rhapsody did.

That one's demon-quelling staff came whirling down at the head; this one's nine-toothed rake flew quick as the hand could move.

降妖寶杖 ('demon-subduing staff'; 降 xiáng) and 著頭輪 ('whirling down onto the head'; 著 zháo, to land, to strike home). 鈀 pá. Staff against rake, weighed line for line.

Leaping the waves, they shook the hills and streams; heaving the swells, they darkened the very world.

振山川 ('shook mountains and rivers') and 昏世界 ('darkened the world') swell the brawl to cosmic scale — the hyperbole proper to the form.

Fierce as the Year-God ramming the banners; grim as the Death-Gate lifting the jewelled canopy.

太歲 ('the Year Star,' an ill-boding deity) and 喪門 ('the Gate of Mourning,' a baleful star; 似 shì) — the two are likened to inauspicious astral powers, heightening their menace.

This one, red-hearted and stern, guards the Tang Monk; that one, steeped in crime, has become a water-fiend.

The couplet's antithesis states the moral stake outright: 赤心凜凜保唐僧 ('with loyal heart, awe-inspiring, he guards the Tang Monk') against 犯罪滔滔為水怪 ('deep in guilt, he is become a water-fiend'; 為 wéi, to become; 那 nà).

One rake-blow claws nine gashes; when the staff strikes home, the very souls give way.

九條痕 ('nine furrows,' one for each tooth of the rake; 鈀 pá) and 魂魄敗 ('souls routed') render the weapons' terrible force.

Straining with a will, they grapple with relish; setting their hearts on it, each means to win the match.

喜相持 ('gladly locked together'; 相 xiāng) and 要賭賽 ('bent on the contest') — the fighters' shared appetite for the fight.

Reckon it up: it is all for the scripture-seeker's sake that their wrath surges to Heaven past all bearing.

只為取經人 ('only for the sake of the scripture-seeker'; 為 wèi) names the true stake of the brawl — the master's crossing — beneath its fury.

They churn the water till carp and perch shed their bright scales, and turtles and terrapins bruise their tender shells;

攪得那 ('churn it till'; 得 de, 那 nà). The catalogue of river creatures — 鯁鮊鯉鱖 and 龜鱉黿鼉 — takes the collateral havoc down into the depths. The unit closes on ； and is kept distinct from the next.

red shrimp and purple crabs all lose their lives, and the gods of the water-palace bow upward in dread.

水府諸神朝上拜 ('the gods of the water-mansion bow upward'; 朝 cháo) — even the river's deities are cowed, extending the disorder to the submarine court.

One hears only the waves rolling and tumbling like thunder-claps, sun and moon gone lightless, Heaven and Earth aghast.

波翻浪滾似雷轟 ('waves rolling like thunder'; 得 de, 似 shì) and 日月無光 ('sun and moon without light') end the rhapsody on cosmic upheaval — the brawl's grandest overstatement.