When the woman had seen his three companions, she was the more delighted, and with all courtesy invited them into the hall.

三眾, the three disciples. 以禮邀入, invited them in with all courtesy. Watch her pleasure rise as the number of men in her hall goes from one to four.

One by one they exchanged greetings, and when the courtesies were done she asked each to take his seat and sip tea.

一一相見, greeting one another one by one, with 相 as xiāng. 禮畢, the salutations done; 敘坐, to be seated in proper order of rank.

From behind the screen there suddenly appeared a serving-girl with looped side-buns and dangling tresses, bearing a golden tray and white-jade cups; the fragrant tea breathed a warm vapor, and rare fruits gave off a delicate scent.

丫髻垂絲 is twin looped buns with loose strands hanging — the standard hairstyle of a young maidservant, and a detail that tells a Ming reader her age and station at a glance. 托著 takes the running 著 (zhe), holding. 盞 is a small cup; 異果, rare fruits.

The girl swept back her colored sleeves — her fingers slender as spring bamboo-shoots — raised the jade cups, and passed the tea up in offering.

綽彩袖, sweeping the bright sleeves back. 春筍纖長, slim and long as spring bamboo shoots, is the standard image for a woman's fingers, and here 長 is cháng, long — not the zhǎng, senior, of 長老. 擎 is to hold something up.

To each of them in turn she made her bows.

一一拜了, bowed to each of them in turn. Even the maid has been rehearsed.

The tea over, the woman gave orders besides to prepare a vegetarian meal.

辦齋 is to lay on a meatless meal, the correct food for monks. Every move so far has been impeccably pious, which is what makes it work.

Tripitaka, raising his folded hands, said, "Aged bodhisattva — your honored surname?"

啟手 is to raise the clasped hands in polite address; 高姓, your esteemed surname, is the ordinary courteous way to ask a name. 老菩薩, aged bodhisattva, flatters a householder — and in this case happens to be true.

"And what is the name of this fine place?"

貴地, your esteemed locale. In 甚地名 the 甚 is shén, standing for 什, what — not the intensifier shèn, very, that turned up in the estate poem.

The woman said, "This region is a land of the Western Continent of Cattle-Gift."

西牛賀洲 (Xīniú Hèzhōu) is Aparagodānīya, the western of the four continents of Buddhist geography. The pilgrims have been travelling in it since chapter eight, and Vulture Peak lies at the far end of it.

"This poor widow's maiden family is surnamed Jia, and her husband's family surnamed Mo."

Here is the joke the chapter never explains and expects you to catch. 小婦人 is her self-diminishing this-poor-woman. Her maiden surname is 賈 (Jiǎ), which sounds exactly like 假, false; her husband's is 莫 (Mò), which as a word means none, not, don't. She has just introduced herself as False, married into Nothing. Nobody in the room notices.

"In my youth, by misfortune, my father- and mother-in-law died early, and my husband and I kept and carried on the ancestral estate."

公姑 is a husband's parents, the father- and mother-in-law. 守承祖業 is to guard and carry on the family patrimony. The tale of early losses is doing groundwork for the wealth she is about to describe.

"We had family wealth by the myriad strings of cash, and good fields by the thousand qǐng."

家貲萬貫 is a fortune of ten thousand strings of cash, a string being the thousand coins threaded on a cord. A 頃 (qǐng) is a land measure of a hundred 畝 (mǔ), so a thousand of them is a fantasy number, and meant to sound like one.

"In our fate as man and wife there was no son; we bore only three girls."

命裡無子, fated to have no son, takes 子 as the full noun zǐ. 止生 is bore only; 女孩兒, daughters. In a system where property passed through sons, having none is the hinge her whole proposal swings on.

"The year before last, in great misfortune, I lost my husband as well."

大不幸, a great calamity; 喪了丈夫, was bereaved of her husband. Two deaths in two lines. The pathos is beautifully managed and completely staged.

"I have kept my widowhood, and this year my mourning is fulfilled."

居孀 is to keep one's widowhood; 服滿 is the mourning period completed. This is the technical point that makes everything else possible: with the mourning done she may lawfully remarry, and so she raises the subject.

"There is left behind, to no purpose, all this land and estate, with no kin or relative besides — only we, mother and daughters, to take it in charge."

空遺下, left behind to no purpose, with 遺 as yí; 眷族親人 is kinfolk and relations; 娘女們承領, we womenfolk take it in charge. An enormous estate with no male heir and no relatives to claim it — this is the sharpest hook on the line.

"I would marry out to another, yet I cannot bear to give up the estate."

嫁 is jià, said of a woman marrying out of her family. 難捨, hard to give up, with 難 as nán. She states the problem so that her solution sounds like the only one.

"Now that the elder has graced us with his coming — you being, I suppose, a master and three disciples, four in all, and we a mother with daughters, likewise four — I have a mind to keep the estate and take in husbands: the four of you would suit exactly."

And there it is. 長老下降, the elder condescends to come, takes 長 as zhǎng and 降 as jiàng, to descend. 坐山招夫 is to sit on your estate and recruit husbands into it — the uxorilocal marriage in which the man moves in and the property stays put. 恰好, fits exactly. Four of them, four of us: she has counted, and she says so.

"I do not know whether your honored wishes would consent, or how you would have it."

尊意, your esteemed intention; 肯否如何, whether willing, and how. A demure closing formula wrapped round a proposal that has just startled four monks out of their skins.

Tripitaka, hearing this, played deaf and feigned dumb; he closed his eyes and stilled his heart, and sat wordless, making no reply.

推聾妝啞 is to play deaf and act dumb, and here 啞 is yǎ, mute — not the yā exclamation the same character carries later in the chapter. 瞑目寧心, shut the eyes and still the heart. This is Tripitaka's first line of defence, and it is not an argument. It is refusing to be in the conversation at all.