Sun the pilgrim, a touch bashful, came forward to greet him, calling out, “Sovereign Lord — my salutations!”

靦面 (tiǎn miàn, "shame-faced, abashed"), a rare flicker of diffidence in the brash Wukong; 相迎 ("to go to meet," 相 = xiāng); 起手, a salute with raised, cupped hands.

The Sovereign Lord hastily returned the courtesy: “Great Sage — forgive my failing to meet you.”

失迎 ("to have failed in welcoming [a guest]"), a formula of polite apology; the immortal receives even a notorious visitor with due ceremony.

“Pray step into my humble dwelling and take some tea.”

荒居 ("my poor abode"), a self-deprecating term for one’s home; 奉茶, "to serve tea," the ritual of hospitality.

So, hand in hand with the pilgrim, he went in.

攙手而入 ("to enter arm in arm"), a gesture of warm familiarity between host and guest.

Truly it was a shell-gated immortal palace, its jasper pools and jade towers more than the eye could take in.

貝闕 ("cowry-shell gate-towers"), a poetic figure for a sea-immortal’s palace; 瑤池瓊閣, "jasper ponds and jade pavilions." In 看不盡 ("cannot look one’s fill"), the sandhi of 不 raises to bú before the fourth-tone 盡.

They had just sat down to await the tea when, from behind a kingfisher screen, a young boy came out.

翠屏 ("kingfisher-green screen"), a painted folding screen; 童兒 ("a young lad," 兒 the suffix er). The boy is Dongfang Shuo, whose portrait the next verse gives.

And how was he got up?

怎生打扮 ("how [was he] dressed"), a set formula introducing a descriptive verse of a character’s appearance.

He wore a Daoist robe that shimmered like drifting sunset; a silken sash bound his waist, its light scattered bright.

道服 ("Daoist vestments"); 絲絛 (sī tāo, "a silk cord-belt"); 錯落, "scattered, interspersed [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, a silk head-cloth, famously worn by scholar-recluses), 綸 read guān in this compound; 佈斗星 ("arrayed with the stars of the Dipper," 斗 = dǒu); 芒履, "straw sandals."

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 ("to refine the primal reality") and 脫本殼 ("to slough off the original husk," i.e., the mortal body) are stages of Daoist self-cultivation; 功行 ("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, breath, and spirit"), the three treasures of inner alchemy; 認得 ("to recognize," 得 the complement de); 無虛錯, "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 flee from renown"), the recluse’s ideal; 甲子週天 ("the sexagenary cycle circling the heavens," 子 the cyclical zǐ) stands for the passage of the years; 管不著 ("cannot get a grip on him," 著 = zháo, marking attainment) — time itself cannot touch him. 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.

蟠桃三度摸 ("thrice pilfered the immortal peaches") alludes to the legend of Dongfang Shuo, said to have stolen the Queen Mother’s peaches three times — the very jest Wukong is about to make.

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, "faint and dim, ethereal"); 東方朔 (Dongfang Shuo), the witty courtier of Emperor Wu of Han, folklorized as an immortal and inveterate peach-thief.