松陰莊院 The Farmstead in the Pines
好大聖，把金箍棒揝一揝，萬道彩雲生。那馬看見拿棒，恐怕打來，慌得四隻蹄疾如飛電，颼的跑將去了。那師父手軟勒不住，盡他劣性，奔上山崖，才大達辿步走。師父喘息始定，擡頭遠見一簇松陰，內有幾間房舍，著實軒昂，但見：好大圣，把金箍棒揝一揝，万道彩云生。那马看见拿棒，恐怕打来，慌得四只蹄疾如飞电，飕的跑将去了。那师父手软勒不住，尽他劣性，奔上山崖，才大达辿步走。师父喘息始定，擡头远见一簇松阴，内有几间房舍，著实轩昂，但见：
逐句解 Line by line
What a Great Sage! — with a single clench of the gold-banded cudgel, a myriad shafts of colored cloud sprang forth.
好大聖 “What a Great Sage!” is the storyteller's formulaic exclamation. 金箍棒 (jīngūbàng) the gold-hooped cudgel; 揝 (zǎn) “to grip, to clutch”; 萬道彩雲 “ten thousand streamers of iridescent cloud.”
The horse, seeing the cudgel raised and fearing a blow, took fright — its four hooves swift as flying lightning — and went whistling off at a gallop.
慌得 reads the resultative de (“so frightened that…”). 疾如飛電 “swift as flying lightning”; 颼的 (sōu de) the onomatope of rushing. In 跑將去了 the 將 is the verbal complement jiāng (“ran off”).
The Master, his hands gone weak, could not rein him in and let the beast have its wilful head; up the mountain scarp it bolted, and only then eased to a heavy, plodding stride.
勒 here reads lè (勒馬, “to rein in a horse”), not the colloquial lēi of drawing a cord taut. 盡他劣性 — 盡 (jìn) “to give full rein to,” 劣性 “unruly nature.” 大達辿步 a lumbering gait; 辿 (chān) “to tread slowly.”
When the Master's panting had at last settled, he raised his head and saw far off a cluster of pine-shade, within which stood several buildings, truly grand and imposing. Behold:
一簇松陰 “a clump of pine-shadow.” 著實 reads zhuó shí, the adverbial “truly, solidly”; 軒昂 (xuān'áng) “lofty, imposing.” 但見 “one saw only —” is the tag ushering in the descriptive verse.
The gate hung with kingfisher cypress; / the homestead nestled by green hills.
The 4-4 opening of an estate-賦. 翠柏 “emerald cypress,” poised against the 青山 “green hills.”
A few pines, soft and swaying; / several bamboo-stalks, dappled and mottled.
冉冉 (rǎnrǎn) “gently drooping”; 斑斑 (bānbān) “dappled,” the mottled bamboo-skin. 數 is shù (“several”).
By the hedge, wild chrysanthemums glow, frost-touched and bright; / at the bridge, secluded orchids mirror crimson in the stream.
凝霜艷 “beauty congealed with frost”; 映水丹 “reflecting cinnabar-red upon the water.” A parallel couplet of autumnal color.
Whitewashed walls of daubed clay; / an encircling enclosure of laid brick.
粉泥 “whitewash-plaster.” 圍圜 (wéi huán) “an encircling wall”; 圜 reads huán (“to surround”), reinforcing 圍.
The high hall, how splendid and grand; / the great mansion, how serene and still.
甚 reads shèn, the intensifier “very, exceedingly.” 大廈 “the great house.” The couplet's ease of tone prepares the sting of the next.
No ox or sheep in sight, no cock or hound; / it must be that, the autumn harvest gathered, the farm-work lies at rest.
不見 — 不 takes sandhi bú before 見. 秋收 “the autumn ingathering”; 農事閑 “farm-labor at leisure.” The absent livestock quietly foreshadows the household's uncanny stillness.
The passage turns on one act of comic cruelty: Wukong clenches the cudgel merely to threaten, and the dragon-horse — recalling that, for now, it is only a horse — bolts in terror up the slope, nearly unseating Tripitaka. The joke rebounds on Bajie, whose complaint about the pace provoked it, and it deposits the pilgrims, willy-nilly, at the threshold of the testing episode.
The descriptive 賦 that follows is a set-piece of the estate-viewed-from-without type, built of tightly parallel couplets that move from gate and hills inward to walls and hall. Its surface is idyllic — pine-shade, frost-bright chrysanthemum, orchid mirrored in the stream — the very image of prosperous rural retirement.
But the closing couplet plants the first unease. The absence of any living creature — no ox, sheep, cock, or hound — is explained away as seasonal quiet, yet the reader alert to the novel's method will catch the note of the uncanny: this too-perfect, too-empty household is the disguised handiwork of the Bodhisattvas, and its stillness is that of a stage set for a trial.