Wujing drew his precious staff, Bajie raised his nine-tooth rake, the Great Sage plied his iron cudgel, and all together they pressed forward, hemming the Great Immortal in mid-air, striking and hammering in a wild mêlée.

Three weapons at once, which the reader should recognise as an escalation: Wujing's 寶杖, treasure-staff, Bajie's 釘鈀, nine-toothed rake, and the iron cudgel. 圍住在空中, hemming him in mid-air. 亂打亂築, striking and hammering wildly — 築 being the verb for the rake, which pounds rather than cuts. 掣, chè, whipping a weapon out.

This fierce combat has a poem to prove it.

有詩為證, "there is a poem to bear witness," takes 為 as wéi, "to serve as." The chapter's second inset poem, and it arrives at the fight.

The poem says:

詩曰, "the poem says" — and the register changes.

Wukong knew not the Immortal Zhenyuan, / Coeval Lord of the world, whose art is deep and strange more still;

The poem opens by naming the mismatch: Wukong did not know who he was fighting. 鎮元仙, Zhènyuán, is the Great Immortal himself, Patriarch of the Earthly Immortals; 與世同君, Yǔshì-Tóngjūn, "Coeval Lord of the World," is his title. 妙更玄, miào gèng xuán, his art deeper and stranger still — 玄, the dark and profound, is one of the keywords of Daoist writing, and the word the Daodejing reaches for in its very first chapter to name what cannot be named.

three divine weapons plied their fury, / one deer-tail whisk floated free of itself;

The line the whole poem is built on: three divine weapons against one deer-tail whisk. 三件神兵, the three weapons; 一根麈尾, the single whisk, 自飄然 — drifting of its own accord, as if it were not involved. The contrast between 猛烈, fury, and 飄然, floating, is the fight in four words.

warding left and fending right, he moved with their coming and going, / guarding behind and meeting before, he turned and wheeled at will;

左遮右擋, warding left and blocking right, is the phrase used of him in the prose too. 任轉旋, rèn zhuǎn xuán, wheeling at will — 任 here is "as he pleases," a man moving entirely on his own terms.

night gone and morning come, they could not break away— / and lingering, on what day would they reach the Western Heaven!

And the closing line lifts the stakes off the fight altogether. 夜去朝來, night going and morning coming, with 朝 as zhāo, "morning" — time passing while nothing is resolved. 難脫體, no getting the body free. Then the question: 淹留何日到西天 — 淹留, yān liú, is being detained, held up somewhere you did not mean to stay — and if they are held up here, what day will they ever reach the West? For one line the poem puts the entire pilgrimage in doubt.