東方朔現 Dongfang Shuo Appears
孫行者靦面相迎，叫聲：「帝君，起手了。」那帝君慌忙回禮道：「大聖，失迎。請荒居奉茶。」遂與行者攙手而入。果然是貝闕仙宮，看不盡瑤池瓊閣。方坐待茶，只見翠屏後轉出一個童兒。他怎生打扮：孙行者腼面相迎，叫声：「帝君，起手了。」那帝君慌忙回礼道：「大圣，失迎。请荒居奉茶。」遂与行者搀手而入。果然是贝阙仙宫，看不尽瑶池琼阁。方坐待茶，只见翠屏后转出一个童儿。他怎生打扮：
逐句解 Line by line
Sun the pilgrim, a touch bashful, came forward to greet him, calling out, "Sovereign Lord — my salutations!"
靦面 (tiǎn miàn) is shame-faced, abashed. It is a startling word to find attached to Wukong, and worth stopping on: the creature who once fought the armies of heaven is a little shy here. 相迎 is to go forward to meet, 相 = xiāng; 起手 is the salute made with raised cupped hands.
The Sovereign Lord hastily returned the courtesy: "Great Sage — forgive my failing to meet you."
失迎, I failed to come out and meet you, is the standard apology of a host caught unprepared -- offered here to a notorious troublemaker, which is the joke.
"Pray step into my humble dwelling and take some tea."
荒居 is my poor abode, a self-deprecation used regardless of how magnificent the house actually is. 奉茶, to serve tea, is where every Chinese social occasion begins.
So, hand in hand with the pilgrim, he went in.
攙手而入 is to go in arm in arm -- the same verb used when Zhenyuan gripped Wukong at the start of the chapter, but with none of the menace this time.
Truly it was a shell-gated immortal palace, its jasper pools and jade towers more than the eye could take in.
貝闕 is cowry-shell gate-towers, the poetic address of a palace under or beside the sea. 瑤池瓊閣 is jasper pools and jade pavilions. In 看不盡, cannot look one's fill, 不 shifts up to bú because the fourth-tone 盡 follows it -- a tone change that happens automatically in speech.
They had just sat down to await the tea when, from behind a kingfisher screen, a young boy came out.
翠屏 is a kingfisher-green folding screen, and something is about to come out from behind it. 童兒 is a young lad, 兒 the suffix er.
And how was he got up?
怎生打扮, and how was he got up, is the set formula that introduces a head-to-toe description of somebody's appearance. Think of it as the camera panning down.
He wore a Daoist robe that shimmered like drifting sunset; a silken sash bound his waist, its light scattered bright.
道服 is Daoist vestments; 絲絛 (sī tāo) is a silk cord-belt; 錯落 is scattered, strewn about with light.
On his head a silk kerchief, set with the Dipper's stars; on his feet straw sandals, for roaming the immortal peaks.
綸巾 (guān jīn) is a silk head-cloth, worn by scholar-recluses and famously by Zhuge Liang; 綸 takes the reading guān in this compound rather than the usual one. 佈斗星 is arrayed with the stars of the Dipper, 斗 = dǒu. 芒履 are straw sandals -- the outfit runs from courtly headgear down to peasant footwear, which is the point.
He refined the primal truth and shed his native shell; and when the work was done, he had his heart's content.
煉元真, refine the primal reality, and 脫本殼, slough off the original husk, are stages of Daoist self-cultivation -- the husk being the mortal body, discarded like a cicada's shell. 功行 is merit and practice, 行 = xíng.
He saw through to the source of essence, breath, and spirit; his master knew him true, without the least mistake.
精氣神, essence and breath and spirit, are the three treasures of inner alchemy, the raw materials the adept works on. 認得 is to recognise, 得 the toneless de; 無虛錯 is without falsehood or error.
Fleeing fame, he now enjoys a life without bound; the sixty-year cycles, round upon round, can lay no hold on him.
逃名, to run away from fame, is the recluse's ideal, and a rather grand thing to claim in a poem about yourself. 甲子週天 is the sixty-year cycle circling the heavens, 子 the cyclical zǐ -- the traditional Chinese calendar counts in sixties, so this stands for time itself. 管不著 is cannot get a grip on him, 著 = zháo, marking that the grip fails to take hold. Before the second-tone 著, 不 keeps its base tone bù.
Round the winding gallery, up the treasure-tower — thrice he has filched the immortal peaches of heaven.
And here is the detail the whole verse has been building toward: 蟠桃三度摸, thrice pilfered the immortal peaches. Dongfang Shuo's legend is that he stole the Queen Mother's peaches three separate times. Wukong, the most famous peach-thief in the pantheon, is sitting in the room.
Amid a haze of fragrant cloud he stepped from the kingfisher screen — this little immortal was none other than Dongfang Shuo.
縹緲 (piǎo miǎo) is faint, dim, ethereal. 東方朔, Dongfang Shuo, was a real courtier of Emperor Wu of Han, celebrated for his wit and his impudence, whom folklore later promoted to immortal and confirmed as an incorrigible thief.
The audience with Donghua is conducted in the full panoply of courtesy -- mutual salutes, the host's self-deprecating humble dwelling, the entering arm in arm -- and, remarkably, Wukong greets the great immortal a touch bashful (靦面). It is a rare and telling detail: before a deity of this rank, even the Great Sage who once stormed Heaven goes momentarily shy. The novel calibrates its cosmic hierarchy through one word of body language.
The second appearance-verse introduces Dongfang Shuo, the historical wit and court favourite of Emperor Wu of Han who passed, in legend, into the ranks of the immortals. The poem puts its weight on the detail that will drive the next scene -- that he thrice filched the peaches of heaven -- making him the natural foil for Wukong, himself the most notorious peach-thief in the pantheon. Two celestial rogues, one room.