瀛洲九老 The Nine Elders of Yingzhou
那大聖至瀛洲，只見那丹崖珠樹之下，有幾個皓髮皤髯之輩，童顏鶴鬢之仙，在那裡著棋飲酒，談笑謳歌。真個是：那大圣至瀛洲，只见那丹崖珠树之下，有几个皓发皤髯之辈，童颜鹤鬓之仙，在那里著棋饮酒，谈笑讴歌。真个是：
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage reached Yingzhou, and there beneath the cinnabar cliffs and pearl-trees he saw several white-haired, hoary-bearded figures — immortals with children’s faces and cranelike temples — playing go, drinking wine, and laughing over their songs.
丹崖珠樹 ("cinnabar cliffs and pearl-trees"), the scenery of the immortal isle; 皓髮皤髯 ("white hair and hoary beard") and 童顏鶴鬢 ("a child’s face, crane-white temples") are set phrases for the aged-yet-youthful immortal. 著棋 ("to play go," 著 = zhuó, to place [stones]).
Truly it was a scene like this:
真個是 ("truly it was…"), a storyteller’s lead-in to a descriptive verse.
Auspicious clouds brimming with light, propitious haze afloat with fragrance.
The rhapsody (賦) opens with paired four-character phrases; 祥雲 and 瑞靄 ("auspicious cloud," "propitious mist") are the standard atmosphere of an immortal realm.
Bright luan-birds cry at the cavern mouth; dark cranes dance upon the mountain crest.
彩鸞 ("many-hued luan") and 玄鶴 ("dark crane"), the immortals’ companion birds, frame the scene at cave and peak.
Green lotus-root and water-peaches serve as their wine-relish; interlacing pears and fiery jujubes grant a thousand autumns of life.
按酒 ("food taken with wine"), the immortals’ fare; in 為按酒 ("to serve as / to be used to accompany the wine"), 為 takes its purposive verbal reading wèi (廣韻 于偽切, "to serve for, to help"), distinct from the copula wéi. 交梨火棗 ("crossed pears and fire-jujubes") are legendary Daoist fruits of immortality.
Not one of them has heard a summons in cinnabar; yet each is enrolled by immortal talisman.
丹詔 ("a vermilion decree"), an imperial or celestial summons; 仙符有籍 ("registered by immortal charm") — the elders answer to no earthly court, but stand recorded in the rolls of the immortals.
At ease, they drift as the waves may carry them; free and unbound, they yield to the pure and secluded.
逍遙 ("carefree wandering," the ideal of the 莊子); 散淡 ("loose and placid," untrammeled), 散 read sǎn. The lines paint the immortals’ perfect liberty.
The circling sixty-year cycles can lay no hold on them; in all the earth, in heaven and earth, they are only free.
周天甲子 ("the sexagenary cycle round the heavens," 子 the cyclical zǐ) stands for time itself; 乾坤 ("heaven and earth," 乾 = qián). Time and space alike cannot constrain them.
Dark gibbons offering fruit attend them, pair by pair, in fond devotion;
玄猿 ("dark gibbons"); 參隨 ("to attend in train," 參 = cān, to wait upon). The very beasts of the isle serve the elders in loving attendance.
White deer with flowers in their mouths bow down before them, two by two, in close and tender fellowship.
啣花白鹿 ("white deer holding flowers," 啣 = 銜); 綢繆 ("closely bound, intimate," 甚 = shèn, "very"). The tableau of docile, devoted creatures completes the picture of a paradise at peace.
The last of the three isles is introduced, like the others, with a set-piece of description — but here in the form of a 賦, a rhapsody of paired four-character phrases, richer and more ornate than the regulated verse used for Penglai and Fangzhang. Its subject is the Nine Elders of Yingzhou, glimpsed at their timeless leisure: playing go, drinking, singing, attended by devoted gibbons and deer.
The rhapsody’s theme is perfect freedom. The elders answer to no "vermilion decree," and neither the "circling cycles" of time nor the whole expanse of "heaven and earth" can constrain them; they "drift as the waves may carry them," wholly at liberty. It is the Daoist ideal of 逍遙, carefree wandering, made concrete — and it stands in pointed contrast to Wukong, who arrives among these unbound immortals harried by a three-day deadline and the threat of a headache-spell.