揮淚而別 Departing in Tears
那大聖見長老三番兩復，不肯轉意回心，沒奈何才去。你看他：那大圣见长老三番两复，不肯转意回心，没奈何才去。你看他：
逐句解 Line by line
The Great Sage, seeing that the elder — three times over, back and forth — would not change his heart, had no help for it and made to go.
那大聖 (nà dà shèng) "the Great Sage," 那 (nà); 長老 (zhǎng lǎo) "the elder," 長 (zhǎng). 三番兩復 (sān fān liǎng fù) "time and again, over and over." 不肯轉意回心 (bù kěn zhuǎn yì huí xīn) "would not relent." 沒奈何才去 (méi nài hé cái qù) "had no choice but to go." Wukong departs only when every appeal has failed.
Look at him:
你看他 (nǐ kàn tā) "look at him" — the storyteller's formulaic tag ushering in the farewell verse that follows.
Holding back tears, he knocked his head in farewell to the elder; swallowing grief, with lingering care he charged Sha Monk.
噙淚叩頭辭長老 (qín lèi kòu tóu cí zhǎng lǎo) "holding back tears, [he] kowtowed farewell to the elder," 長 (zhǎng); 含悲留意囑沙僧 (hán bēi liú yì zhǔ Shā sēng) "swallowing grief, with lingering care [he] charged Sha Monk." The verse opens on Wukong's tears and grief — the Great Sage, who feared nothing, weeping at a parting he cannot prevent.
With a shake of his head he brushed against the grass on the slope; with both feet he kicked and overturned the vines on the ground.
一頭拭迸坡前草 (yì tóu shì bèng pō qián cǎo) "with a toss of the head, brushed the grass before the slope"; 兩腳蹬翻地上藤 (liǎng jiǎo dēng fān dì shàng téng) "with both feet kicked over the vines." The couplet renders the violence of his launching into flight — the grass brushed, the vines overturned by the force of his going.
Up to Heaven, down to Earth, as swift as a turning wheel; crossing seas, soaring mountains — first in all the world for that.
上天下地如輪轉 (shàng tiān xià dì rú lún zhuǎn) "up to heaven and down to earth like a spinning wheel"; 跨海飛山第一能 (kuà hǎi fēi shān dì yī néng) "crossing seas and flying over mountains, the foremost ability." The verse turns from grief to power, recalling Wukong's peerless speed — the somersault cloud that carries him ten thousand li in an instant.
In a moment his shadow was gone; in a flash he sped back along the old road home.
頃刻之間不見影 (qǐng kè zhī jiān bù jiàn yǐng) "in an instant his shadow vanished," 間 (jiān); 霎時疾返舊途程 (shà shí jí fǎn jiù tú chéng) "in a trice sped back along the old route." The closing couplet completes the departure — Wukong vanishing in a heartbeat, retracing the road that first brought him to the pilgrimage, now travelled in reverse and alone.
The farewell verse gives the parting its full emotional weight. It opens on the image that defines the whole chapter's ending — the Great Sage 噙淚叩頭, holding back tears as he kowtows farewell. The being who overturned Heaven and feared no demon weeps here at a rupture he is powerless to prevent, his grief the more affecting for how rarely the novel shows it.
The verse then modulates from sorrow to the display of power that is Wukong's signature — up to heaven, down to earth, across seas and over mountains, 第一能, first in all the world. The juxtaposition is pointed: all that matchless power, and it cannot mend a bond broken by a gentle master's fear. Speed carries him instantly away, but from the one thing he cannot outrun, his grief, there is no flight.
Formally this is the chapter's fifth and final set-piece verse, a 含詞賦 passage joining the prose lead-in 你看他： to the farewell couplets. It closes the chapter's poetry as it began — with a verse — but where the opening rhapsody described a forbidding mountain, this one describes a grieving departure, the whole arc of the episode compassed between the two.