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 is to take one's leave. Wukong does not linger once a door has shut; the clock is running.
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, is an immortal's drink, and turning it down is a real sacrifice. 急救事緊 is the urgent rescue presses; 不敢久滯 is dare not tarry, 滯 = zhì.
So he mounted his cloud and came next to the sea-isle of Yingzhou — another fine place indeed.
瀛洲 (Yíng zhōu) is Yingzhou, the third and last of the sacred isles. 海島 is sea-island. Two down, one to go, and the reader can feel the pattern closing.
There is a poem to prove it:
有詩為證, there is a poem in witness, 為證 read wéi zhèng.
The poem says:
詩曰, the poem says, heads the verse describing Yingzhou.
Pearl-trees, exquisite, shine through the purple haze; the palaces of Yingzhou reach up to touch the heavens.
珠樹 are pearl-trees, the jewelled growths of the immortal isles -- and worth noticing, given that the chapter turns on a tree. 玲瓏 is exquisite, finely wrought. 接諸天 is 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 are jasper flowers; 玉液 is jade fluid again. 錕鋘 (kūn wú) is the legendary steel of Mount Kunwu, from which the peerless swords of antiquity were supposedly forged; 鋘 is read wú.
The five-hued jade-cock crows to the sea-borne sun; the millennial cinnabar phoenix drinks the vermilion mist.
碧雞, the jade cock, is a bird of legend; 丹鳳 is the cinnabar phoenix. 吸朱煙 is inhaling the vermilion vapour -- immortal creatures feed on pure emanations rather than food, which is both an elegant idea and a convenient one for a paradise with no kitchens.
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 inside the gourd, brings back the flask-paradise from the Fangzhang verse -- a whole world folded into a vessel, and closed to anyone outside it. 象外 is beyond phenomena, past the reach of ordinary perception. 億萬年 is hundreds of millions of years: the springtime that never ends.
The Fangzhang episode ends as it must, with Wukong hurrying on empty-handed. His brisk refusal of Donghua's parting cup of jade nectar measures the pressure he is under: an immortal's hospitality, which any lesser creature would seize with both hands, 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.
As at each landfall, a descriptive verse unrolls the splendours of the isle -- pearl-trees and jasper flowers, the jade cock and cinnabar phoenix, the fabled steel of Kunwu. The recurring image of the scene inside the gourd, a whole paradise folded into a vessel and shut to mortal understanding, suits the last and innermost of the three isles: a springtime light enduring a hundred million years, wholly beyond the reach of the death Wukong has come to undo.