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, is how immortals travel in this book. 五莊觀, the abbey, 觀 = guàn. The narrative now follows the Stars while Wukong flies on elsewhere.
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.
Cranes announce an immortal the way a fanfare announces a king. 長天鶴唳 is cranes crying across the vast sky, 長 = cháng; the crane is the immortals' mount and their emblem. 光臨 is a courtly to grace us with your presence. 觀中 is within the abbey, 觀 = guàn.
And this is what was seen:
但見那, and this is what was seen, is the reciter's cue that a set-piece of description is coming.
Filling the sky, dense and glowing, the auspicious light clusters thick; through the empyrean, drifting everywhere, a rich fragrance hangs.
盈空 is filling the void; 藹藹 is dense and luxuriant; 霄漢 is the high heavens; 馥郁 is richly perfumed. Light and scent arrive before the visitors do.
A thousand strands of colored mist enfold their feathered robes; a single wisp of gossamer cloud upholds their immortal feet.
羽衣, feather garments, is the plumed dress of transcendents -- immortals were imagined as feathered, which is why to become one is to sprout wings. 擎仙足 is bears up their immortal feet. The two lines balance breadth against delicacy: a thousand mists, one small cloud.
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 luán-bird and the vermilion phoenix, the auspicious mounts of the immortals. The rare character 䎘 sits parallel to 飛, to fly, and is read xiáng, to soar -- the 集韻 spells it 徐羊切 -- and 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 is staffs carved with hanging dragons, the immortals' walking-sticks. 皓髯, hoary whiskers, are likened to 垂玉, pendent jade. This is the benevolent old sage in his standard-issue form.
Childlike of face, glad and untroubled; robust of frame, majestic, brimming with good fortune.
A child's face on an ancient body is the proof of the thing -- 童顏 means the ageing has been reversed, not merely halted. 壯體雄威 is sturdy frame and imposing bearing. Youth and age fused in one figure: the paradox of the deathless, made visible.
They hold the star-tallies, adding to the sea-house's count; at their waists hang gourds and precious talismans.
星籌 are star counting-rods, and 添海屋 points to an old story about an immortal who dropped one tally into his house by the sea each time an age turned, until the rods filled the building. It is a way of making an unimaginable span of time domestic and countable. 葫蘆, the elixir-gourd, and 寶籙, the sacred registers, are the Stars' working equipment.
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, ten thousand eras and a thousand ten-day weeks, is immeasurable time stated in units small enough to be absurd. 福壽長 is fortune and long life enduring, 長 = cháng. 隨緣宿 is to lodge wherever affinity takes you -- no fixed address, which is the immortals' idea of comfort.
Ever they come to the world to bestow a thousand blessings; ever toward mankind they add a hundredfold of fortune.
These two lines name the Stars' actual job. 千祥, a thousand auspices, and 百福, a hundred fortunes, are the very blessings their pictures are hung up in ordinary houses to attract.
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 is to span heaven and earth, 乾 = qián; 福壽無疆 is blessing and long life without bound. 今喜得, now happily we have them, with 得 = dé, turns the description from the timeless to the immediate: they are here, now, in this courtyard.
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 is riding the auspicious radiance, 乘 = chéng; 謁 is to call upon a superior. 福堂和氣, the concord of the blessed hall, closes the verse on gathered harmony -- which, given that a corpse of a tree is lying in the back garden, is optimistic.
The narrative cuts away -- leaving Wukong in mid-flight to follow the three Stars to the Five-Villages Abbey -- and marks the switch, as usual, with a descriptive verse. The heralding cranes and the tableau of auspicious light are standard equipment for an immortal's arrival, but the poem is also a portrait of the three gods themselves, cataloguing their attributes one by one: dragon-carved staffs, elixir-gourds, star-tallies, sacred registers, children's faces on hoary sages.
Its subject is longevity and blessing, which is fitting for three figures whose pictures hang in ordinary houses at the New Year. The allusion to the sea-house tallies -- an immortal dropping one counting-rod into his seaside home with each turning of the age, until the rods filled the place -- gives endless life a concrete and almost domestic shape. That the gods of long life should be arriving at the abbey of a slain immortal tree lends the scene a quiet irony: they have come, but not, as the reader already knows, with the cure Wukong needs.