Now the monster, having lost the bout and withdrawn, had just caught his breath when he heard again someone thrusting through the water with a splash.

聽得 … 推得, 'heard' and 'shoving' (得 de in both). The demon has only just got his breath back from the first fight when the water starts moving again. The two enemies are about to meet a second time, this time on the river-bed.

He rose up of a sudden to look, and it was Bajie, rake in hand, driving through the water.

執了鈀推水, 'rake in hand, driving through the water' — Bajie in his own element at last, and come to pick the fight the plan requires him to lose.

The monster raised his staff and cried out to his face: 'You monk, where do you think you're going? Watch out for a beating!'

那和尚, 'you there, monk' (那 nà), and 那裡走, 'where do you think you're going?' — the same character, now nǎ, the question word. 仔細看打, 'mind the blow,' is stock combat swagger; in this pairing 仔 is read zǎi, not zǐ.

Bajie brought up his rake to parry and said: 'What sort of monster are you, that you dare block the road here?'

甚麼妖精, 'what sort of fiend' (甚 shén), and 擋路, 'blocking the road.' It is an ordinary challenge, thrown out without much thought — and it is the question that unlocks the longest speech in the chapter.

The fiend said: 'So you don't know me. I am no ordinary demon or goblin, nor one of mean surname and no name.'

不認得我, 'don't recognise me' (得 de). Then the denial that makes everything interesting: 不是那妖魔鬼怪, 'I am not one of your demons and goblins' (那 nà), and no nobody with a mean surname either. He is insulted at being taken for the sort of thing he is currently behaving exactly like.

Bajie said: 'If you're no demon or goblin, then how is it you take lives here?

Bajie, to his credit, spots the contradiction at once. 傷生 is 'to injure the living,' to take life. If you are no demon, then what are you doing eating people here?

'Tell me truly your name and surname — out with it plainly — and I'll spare your life.'

端的甚麼姓名, 'what exactly is your name?' — with 的 read dì in this pairing, and 甚 as shén. The bargain is blunt: name yourself and live. What he gets back is a great deal more than a name.

The monster said: 'I —'

那怪道 (那 nà), and then a single bare character, 我 — 'I' — and the quotation opens into twenty-six couplets of song, fifty-two lines in all. The closing bracket does not arrive until the very end of it. A demon has been asked his name and has decided to give his whole life instead.

From my youth I was born with a vigorous spirit; ten thousand lǐ through Heaven and Earth I roamed at large.

The song opens where such self-tellings always open: a wild youth. 乾坤萬里, 'ten thousand lǐ of Heaven and Earth' — where 乾 is qián, half of the pairing that names the cosmos, not gān, 'dry.'

A hero, I made my dread name known through all the world; a gallant, I set the mould that bold men copied.

顯威名, 'made his fearsome name known,' and 做模樣, 'set the pattern' that other bold men copied. Standard boasting — but it is being laid down deliberately, so that the fall has something to fall from.

Through the myriad realms and Nine Provinces I went as I pleased; over the Five Lakes and Four Seas I barged where I would.

九州, the Nine Provinces, and 五湖四海, the Five Lakes and Four Seas: the two stock ways of saying 'everywhere in the Chinese world.' He roamed the lot (行 xíng).

All because, to learn the Way, I wandered to the sky's edge; only to seek a master, I roved earth's wide reaches.

The turn from vagabond to seeker. 學道, 'to study the Way,' and 只為尋師, 'only in order to find a master' (為 wèi, for the sake of). Everything from here to the promotion is a course of religious training, told in earnest.

Year on year, robe and bowl I kept close to my side; day upon day my heart and spirit I let not stray.

衣缽, 'robe and begging-bowl,' is the kit of a disciple and the standard shorthand for what a master hands on. 心神不可放, 'the heart-spirit must not be let loose': the discipline is attention, held without a break.

Along the land I cloud-wandered some scores of times; everywhere I ambled a hundred journeys and more.

雲遊, 'to travel like a cloud,' is the term of art for a seeker drifting from teacher to teacher — no fixed address, no fixed school. 閑行 (行 xíng), 'roaming at leisure,' says it again.

And thus at last I came to meet a Perfected One, who opened for me the Great Way's bright golden light.

才得遇, 'only then managed to meet' — with 得 as dé, to attain, not the toneless one. A 真人, a 'Perfected One,' is a Daoist adept of the highest grade, and meeting one is the hinge of the whole life. What follows is the syllabus.

First I gathered in the Infant and the Fair Maid; then I set loose the Wood-Mother and the Metal-Duke.

This is where the song goes technical, and it is worth knowing that the vocabulary is deliberately opaque. Inner alchemy wrote its recipes in code names, so that a text could sit in the open and still be unreadable without a teacher. 嬰兒 ('the Infant') and 金公 ('the Metal-Duke') are two names for the same thing: true lead, the yang principle, seated in the kidneys. 姹女 ('the Fair Maid') and 木母 ('the Wood-Mother') are two names for true mercury, the yin principle, seated in the heart. Bringing the pair together is what makes the elixir. 將 here is jiāng, the little syllable that puts an object in front of its verb.

From the Hall of Light the kidney-water flowed to the Flowery Pool; up the Storied Tower the liver-fire was cast to the heart.

The body as a landscape, which is how this tradition maps it. 明堂, the 'Hall of Light,' is a point in the head; 華池, the 'Flowery Pool,' is the reservoir of saliva in the mouth; 重樓, the 'Storied Tower,' is the windpipe (重 is chóng, 'layered,' not zhòng, 'heavy'). Running 腎水 ('kidney-water') and 肝火 ('liver-fire') round that circuit is the refining itself. Nothing is being swallowed; the laboratory is the practitioner.

My three thousand merits complete, I bowed before Heaven's face; with steadfast heart I paid court, turned toward the radiance.

三千功滿, 'three thousand merits complete' — cultivation is audited, and there is a number. 朝禮, 'to pay court in homage' (朝 cháo), is the ceremony of being admitted to the celestial civil service.

The Jade Emperor then advanced me in rank, and with his own mouth enfeoffed me Curtain-Raising General.

And here is the job. 封為捲簾將, 'enfeoffed as Curtain-Raising General' (為 is wéi, 'as'; 將 is jiàng, the rank) — the 捲簾大將 who lifted the curtain in front of the throne. It sounds like a doorman's post and is nothing of the kind: proximity to the Jade Emperor is the whole currency of that court, and he had more of it than almost anyone.

Within the Southern Heaven's Gate I stood honoured; before the Hall of Divine Mists I was styled among the highest.

我為尊, 'I was the honoured one' (為 wéi), and 吾稱上, 'I was reckoned among the highest' (稱 chēng). 靈霄殿 is the same throne-hall the battle-rhapsody named a few pages back, when neither fighter recognised the other.

At my waist hung the tiger-head tally; in my hand I gripped fast the demon-quelling staff.

虎頭牌, the 'tiger-head tally,' is a badge of military authority — the thing you show to prove you may give orders. And 降妖杖 (降 xiáng, to subdue) is the very staff he is swinging at Bajie in this scene. It was issued to him for putting demons down. He is now using it as one.

On my head a golden helm flashed back the sun; over me armour shone bright as glowing sunset-cloud.

金盔 and 鎧甲, golden helmet and armour, finish the portrait of the celestial officer in full dress. Four couplets later he will be standing on the execution ground without any of it.

Coming and going, I led the van that guarded the carriage; in and out at court I attended, and stood above the rest.

護駕我當先, 'I led the guard on the imperial carriage,' and 隨朝予在上, 'in attendance at court I stood above the rest' (朝 cháo). This is the top of his career, and the song holds it for exactly one couplet before the banquet arrives.

It was only because the Queen Mother sent down her peaches, and spread a feast at the Jasper Pool, inviting the generals,

The Queen Mother sends down her immortal peaches and lays on a banquet at the 瑤池, the Jasper Pool, for all the generals (邀眾將, 將 jiàng). Note that 降 is jiàng here, 'to send down, bestow' — its other reading, and the opposite end of the character from the xiáng 'subdue' of his staff three couplets above. Readers who know the novel will feel the ground tilt: nothing good has ever happened at a peach banquet.

that by mischance I let fall and shattered a crystal of jade, and every god of Heaven was struck aghast with dread.

And there it is. 失手打破玉玻璃: his hand slipped and he broke a piece of jade crystal — a cup, or a bowl. That is the entire crime. 魂飛喪, 'their souls flew off,' is how the assembled gods took it. The whole of his ruin, and the man-eating that follows from it, begins with dropping a glass at the office party.

The Jade Emperor straightway flew into wrath, and charged the Left Assistant Minister then in office: to strip my cap, my armour and my rank, and thrust my person out upon the killing-ground.

This unit runs to four lines rather than the usual two. The 左輔相, the 'Left Assistant Minister' — 相 here is xiàng, the ministerial office, not xiāng — is ordered to carry out the sentence: 卸冠脫甲摘官銜, strip the cap, the armour and the rank, and then 將身推在殺場上, 'take his person and shove it onto the killing-ground' (將 jiāng). The cap, the armour and the rank are the three things the song has just spent several couplets describing.

I owed it all to the Great Bare-Foot Immortal, who stepped from his rank to petition, and had me set free.

赤腳大天仙, the Great Bare-Foot Immortal, 越班啟奏 — 'broke rank to petition': he stepped out of the line of courtiers to speak up out of turn, which is the whole point of the detail. Somebody risked something. The death sentence was lifted (將吾放, 將 jiāng). Heaven in this book is a bureaucracy, and mercy inside it looks like this: a colleague filing an objection.

Spared from death and brought back to life, no punishment set upon me, I was banished to the eastern bank of the Flowing Sands.

饒死回生, 'spared from death and brought back to life,' and 遭貶流沙, 'banished to the Flowing Sands.' The commuted sentence is exile, and exile is how a celestial officer turns into the thing in the river.

When full, I lie drowsing here within this mountain; when hungry, I go churning the waves to hunt for food.

飽時困臥, 'when full, lie about torpid'; 餓去翻波, 'when hungry, go stir the waves.' Two states, and nothing between them. The song has spent twenty-one couplets on discipline, merit and rank, and disposes of his present existence in a single couplet about eating and sleeping.

The woodcutter who meets me keeps his life no longer; the old fisherman who sees me loses his body outright.

樵子, a woodcutter, and 漁翁, an old fisherman (子 here is the light zi). These are the two figures classical Chinese poetry uses for the innocent man living quietly by his labour. He names them as his victims and does not pause over it.

Back and forth I have devoured men in plenty; over and over I have wrought a plague of slaughter.

吃人多, 'devoured many men,' stated flatly. 傷生瘴 casts the killing as a 瘴, a miasma — the pestilent vapour that was thought to rise off southern marshland. Not murders. A climate.

You dare bring your violence to my very door; today my belly has something to look for.

And the song turns outward, on Bajie. 行兇到我門, 'bringing violence to my own gate' (行 xíng). Having just narrated a career of eating strangers, he presents himself as the injured householder.

Don't tell me you're too coarse and rank to taste: once I hold you fast, at my leisure I'll mince you into paste.

粗糙不堪嘗, 'too coarse to be worth tasting,' anticipates the obvious objection to eating a pig. 剁鮓醬 disposes of it: 'chopped into fish-paste' — 鮓 is salted, fermented fish, so this is not a vague threat but a recipe. The closing bracket falls here, sealing fifty-two lines of autobiography that began with somebody asking his name.