又到瀛洲 On to Yingzhou
行者道：「既然無方，老孫告別。」帝君仍欲留奉玉液一杯，行者道：「急救事緊，不敢久滯。」遂駕雲復至瀛洲海島，也好去處。有詩為證。詩曰：行者道：「既然无方，老孙告别。」帝君仍欲留奉玉液一杯，行者道：「急救事紧，不敢久滞。」遂驾云复至瀛洲海岛，也好去处。有诗为证。诗曰：
逐句解 Line by line
The pilgrim said, “Since there’s no remedy, old Monkey will take his leave.”
既然無方 ("since there is no cure"); 告別, "to take one’s leave." Wukong wastes no time once a door has closed — the deadline presses.
The Sovereign Lord still wished to detain him with a cup of jade nectar, but the pilgrim said, “The rescue is urgent — I dare not linger.”
玉液 ("jade fluid"), an immortal drink; 急救事緊 ("the urgent rescue is pressing"); 不敢久滯 ("dare not tarry long," 滯 = zhì). Even an immortal’s hospitality cannot delay him.
So he mounted his cloud and came next to the sea-isle of Yingzhou — another fine place indeed.
瀛洲 (Yíng zhōu), the third of the three sacred isles of the eastern sea, after Penglai and Fangzhang; 海島, "sea-island." Wukong presses on to the last of the three.
There is a poem to prove it:
有詩為證 ("there is a poem in witness"), the storyteller’s formula; 為證 read wéizhèng.
The poem says:
詩曰 ("the poem says"), heading the verse that describes Yingzhou.
Pearl-trees, exquisite, shine through the purple haze; the palaces of Yingzhou reach up to touch the heavens.
珠樹 ("pearl-trees," the jeweled trees of the immortal isles); 玲瓏 ("exquisite, delicately wrought"); 瀛洲 (Yingzhou), the third and last of the three sacred isles; 接諸天, "joining the many heavens."
Green hills and emerald waters, and the bright bloom of jasper flowers; jade nectar, and Kunwu steel hard as iron and stone.
琪花 ("jasper flowers," the immortals’ blossoms); 玉液 ("jade fluid," an elixir-drink); 錕鋘 (kūn wú, the legendary fine steel of Mount Kunwu, from which peerless swords were forged), 鋘 read wú.
The five-hued jade-cock crows to the sea-borne sun; the millennial cinnabar phoenix drinks the vermilion mist.
碧雞 ("jade cock"), a numinous bird of legend; 丹鳳 ("cinnabar phoenix"); 吸朱煙, "inhaling the red vapor" — the phoenix feeding, as immortals do, on pure emanations rather than food.
Men of the world can never fathom the scene within the gourd; beyond all forms, its springtime light endures a hundred million years.
壺中景 ("the scene within the gourd") again invokes the immortal’s flask-paradise, a world hidden within a vessel; 象外 ("beyond phenomena"), past the reach of ordinary perception; 億萬年, "hundreds of millions of years," the timeless spring of the deathless.
The Fangzhang episode ends as it must — with Wukong hurrying on, empty-handed but undeterred. His brisk refusal of Donghua’s parting cup of "jade nectar" underscores the pressure of Tripitaka’s deadline: an immortal’s hospitality, which any lesser being would seize, is a luxury he cannot afford. Island by island the cure is refused, and now he presses on to Yingzhou, the last of the three sacred isles.
As at each new landfall, a descriptive verse unfurls the splendors of the isle — pearl-trees and jasper flowers, the jade-cock and cinnabar phoenix, the fabled Kunwu steel. The recurring image of the "scene within the gourd" (壺中景), a whole paradise folded into a vessel and closed to mortal understanding, is apt for the last and innermost of the three isles: a "springtime light" that "endures a hundred million years," beyond the reach of the very death Wukong has come to undo.