化作老翁 She Becomes an Old Man
好妖精，按聳陰風，在山坡下搖身一變，變做一個老公公，真個是：好妖精，按耸阴风，在山坡下摇身一变，变做一个老公公，真个是：
逐句解 Line by line
Excellent fiend! Settling its shadowy wind, it gave its body a shake below the mountain slope and turned into an old man — and truly he was:
按聳陰風 (àn sǒng yīn fēng) "reining in the dark wind." 搖身一變 (yáo shēn yí biàn) "with one shake transformed." 老公公 (lǎo gōng gong) "an old man, old grandfather." The third and final disguise completes the family the demon has conjured — first the daughter, then the mother, now the father come seeking them both. The verse-tag ushers in the portrait.
White hair like Pengzu's; a hoary beard to rival the Star of Longevity.
彭祖 (Péng zǔ) is the Chinese Methuselah, fabled to have lived eight hundred years; the 壽星 (Shòu xīng), the Star of Longevity, is the white-bearded god of long life. The verse opens by likening the old man to the very emblems of great age — as the maiden-verse opened with emblems of beauty.
In his ears a ringing as of jade chimes; before his eyes a flickering of golden stars.
玉磬 (yù qìng) "jade chime-stones"; 金星 (jīn xīng) "golden stars" — the ringing ears and swimming vision of the very old. 耳中 (ěr zhōng) "in the ears," 中 (zhōng). The details render decrepitude from the inside, the failing senses of age.
In his hand a dragon-headed staff; on his body a crane-down cloak, light as air.
龍頭拐 (lóng tóu guǎi) "a dragon-headed walking-stick"; 鶴氅 (hè chǎng) "a cloak of crane-feather down," the garb of a recluse or immortal. The props lend the disguise an air of venerable, otherworldly holiness — the better to disarm the pious monk.
A string of prayer-beads told between his fingers, his mouth reciting the Namo sutra.
數珠 (shù zhū) "prayer-beads, a rosary," 數 (shù) "to count." 掐 (qiā) "to press, tell [beads]." 南無經 (ná mó jīng) — 南無 (ná mó) is the liturgical transliteration of Sanskrit namas, "homage," so "reciting the Namo sutra" means chanting Buddhist devotions. The closing image — an aged devotee at his beads — is the demon's shrewdest touch, mirroring back the piety Tripitaka most reveres.
The third disguise completes the demon's fabricated family: the slain daughter, the searching mother, and now the aged father come after them both. The portrait-verse mirrors the maiden's beauty-poem in reverse — where she was jade and blossom, he is white hair, ringing ears, and a dragon-staff — and the two together frame the demon's uncanny range across youth and age, woman and man.
The disguise's masterstroke is its piety. The old man tells his prayer-beads and chants the 南無 devotions — an aged, holy figure of exactly the kind the pious Tripitaka most reveres. Where the first disguise baited the pilgrims' susceptibility to beauty and the second their guilt, this one appeals to the monk's deepest reverence, reflecting his own devotion back at him. It is the cleverest mask of the three, and the last.
Formally this is the batch's 含詞賦 passage, the fourth and final set-piece verse of the chapter, after the mountain rhapsody, the maiden's portrait, and the old woman's. Like the old-woman verse it opens by naming the transformation, keeping the reader's knowledge always a step ahead of the deceived pilgrims.