三星臨觀 The Stars Descend on the Abbey
卻說這三星駕起祥光，即往五莊觀而來。那觀中合眾人等，忽聽得長天鶴唳，原來是三老光臨。但見那：却说这三星驾起祥光，即往五庄观而来。那观中合众人等，忽听得长天鹤唳，原来是三老光临。但见那：
逐句解 Line by line
Now these three Stars mounted their auspicious light and came at once toward the Five-Villages Abbey.
駕起祥光 ("to ride up on auspicious radiance"), the immortals’ mode of travel; 五莊觀, the abbey, 觀 = guàn. The narrative now follows the Stars while Wukong flies on.
In the abbey, the whole assembled company suddenly heard the cry of cranes across the vast sky — it was the three elders, come to grace them with a visit.
觀中 ("within the abbey," 觀 = guàn); 長天鶴唳 ("cranes crying in the long sky," 長 = cháng) heralds an immortal’s arrival, the crane being their steed and emblem. 光臨, an honorific "to favor with one’s presence."
And this is what was seen:
但見 ("one saw only…"), the storyteller’s conventional lead-in to a descriptive set-piece in verse.
Filling the sky, dense and glowing, the auspicious light clusters thick; through the empyrean, drifting everywhere, a rich fragrance hangs.
盈空 ("filling the void"); 藹藹, luxuriant, dense; 霄漢, the high heavens; 馥郁, richly perfumed. The couplet opens the tableau of the Stars’ descent.
A thousand strands of colored mist enfold their feathered robes; a single wisp of gossamer cloud upholds their immortal feet.
羽衣 ("feather garments"), the plumed dress of transcendents; 擎仙足, "bears up their immortal feet." The paired numbers — a thousand mists, a single cloud — balance breadth against delicacy.
Green simurghs wing, cinnabar phoenixes soar; their sleeves draw a fragrant wind that sweeps the ground all round.
青鸞 and 丹鳳 are the azure luan-bird and vermilion phoenix, auspicious mounts of the immortals. The rare graph 䎘 (U+4398) parallels 飛 ("to fly") and is here read xiáng ("to soar," per the 集韻 gloss 徐羊切), not the common sù.
On dragon-carved staffs they lean, smiling with delight; white beards like hanging jade brush against their breasts.
拄杖懸龍 ("staffs hung with dragons," the immortals’ carved crooks); 皓髯 ("hoary whiskers"), likened to 垂玉, "pendent jade." The image is the very type of the benevolent old sage.
Childlike of face, glad and untroubled; robust of frame, majestic, brimming with good fortune.
童顏 ("a child’s complexion") on an aged sage signals attained immortality; 壯體雄威, "sturdy body, imposing bearing." The lines fuse youth and age, the paradox of the deathless.
They hold the star-tallies, adding to the sea-house’s count; at their waists hang gourds and precious talismans.
星籌 ("star counting-rods") and 添海屋 allude to the tale of tallies added to a house by the sea, one for each passing age — an emblem of vast longevity. 葫蘆 (the elixir-gourd) and 寶籙 (sacred registers) are the Stars’ attributes.
Through myriad cycles and a thousand decades their fortune and long life endure; over the Ten Continents and Three Isles they lodge as chance may lead.
萬紀千旬 ("myriad eras, thousand decades"), immeasurable spans; 福壽長 ("fortune and longevity, enduring," 長 = cháng). 隨緣宿, "to lodge according to affinity," the free wandering of the immortals.
Ever they come to the world to bestow a thousand blessings; ever toward mankind they add a hundredfold of fortune.
The couplet names the Stars’ office as dispensers of blessing — 千祥 ("a thousand auspices") and 百福 ("a hundred fortunes") — the very boons their images are hung to invoke.
They span heaven and earth, glorious in fortune and rank; boundless in blessing and long life — and today, to our joy, they are here.
概乾坤 ("to encompass heaven and earth," 乾 = qián); 福壽無疆, "blessing and longevity without bound." 今喜得 ("now happily we have [them]," 得 = dé) turns the description toward the present visit.
The three elders, riding the auspicious clouds, come to call on the Great Immortal; and in that hall of blessing, the harmonious air knows no bound.
乘祥 ("riding the auspicious [radiance]," 乘 = chéng); 謁, "to call upon [a superior]." 福堂和氣, "the concord of the blessed hall," closes the verse on a note of gathered harmony.
The narrative crosscuts — leaving Wukong in mid-flight to follow the three Stars to the Five-Villages Abbey — and marks the transition, as usual, with a descriptive verse. The heralding cranes and the tableau of auspicious light are the standard iconography of an immortal’s arrival, but the verse is also a versified portrait of the 福祿壽 themselves, cataloguing their emblems: dragon-staffs and elixir-gourds, star-tallies and sacred registers, childlike faces on hoary sages.
The poem’s substance is longevity and blessing, fitting for the three gods whose images grace every household at the New Year. The allusion to the "sea-house" tallies — a legendary immortal who dropped one counting-rod into his seaside dwelling with each turning of the age — gives the abstraction of endless life a concrete, almost domestic image. That such dispensers of long life should be arriving at the abbey of a slain immortal tree lends the scene a quiet irony: the gods of longevity themselves have come, though not, as the reader knows, with the cure Wukong needs.