A splendid place indeed:

真好個處所也 ("truly a fine place") is the tale-teller's set formula introducing a descriptive 賦 — the cue that a formal rhapsody on the scene is to follow.

Clouds far and faint, / the road long and winding.

The rhapsody opens on distance and haze, the conventional establishing note of an approach.

Though the land lay a thousand li beyond, / its scenes and things were bounteous all the same.

一般饒 = "just as abundant" — for all its remoteness from Tang, the realm wants nothing in richness.

Auspicious mists and lucky vapors mantled it round; / a clear wind and bright moon beckoned and swayed.

瑞靄祥煙 ("auspicious haze and lucky vapor") is the standard atmosphere of a blessed, well-governed land.

The far peaks, jagged and towering, / spread wide like a painted scroll;

嵂嵂崒崒 are reduplicatives for the ruggedness of mountains; 大開圖畫 = "opening out like a picture."

The flowing streams, purling and rippling, / dashed into scattered gems and jade.

潺潺湲湲 renders the murmur of moving water; 瓊瑤 ("fine jade") figures the spray.

Fit for the plow, the linked field-paths ran across the acres; / rich enough to feed, the dense herbs and fresh young sprouts.

連阡帶陌 = "field-paths running north-south and east-west," the checkered farmland; the couplet marks the realm as prosperous and well-tilled.

For the angler, a few households along the bends of three ravines; / for the woodcutter, a single load from the pepper-trees of two peaks.

擔 here is the noun dàn ("a load"), and the raised tone flips the preceding 一 to yí. 澗曲 = "the bends of a ravine"; 峰椒 = "the peppertrees of the peaks." The pastoral pair (fisher and woodsman) completes the idyll.

Rampart upon rampart, wall upon wall, secure as a moat of molten metal;

金湯 abbreviates 金城湯池, "a wall of metal, a moat of boiling water" — the stock figure for impregnable fortifications.

Home beside home, door beside door, vying only in ease and leisure.

只鬥逍遙 = "contending only in carefreeness" — an image of a populace at peace, competing in nothing but comfort.

The ninefold high towers, like palace-halls; / the myriad-fathom tiered terraces, like brocade banners.

九重 ("ninefold") connotes the imperial precinct; 萬丈 ("ten-thousand zhàng") is hyperbole for great height. 似 reads sì ("like").

There too were the Supreme-Ultimate Hall, the Flowered-Canopy Hall, the Incense-Burning Hall, the Contemplation-of-Letters Hall, the Proclamation-of-Governance Hall, and the Prolonged-Brilliance Hall — hall upon hall, with jade steps and golden stairs, arrayed with the capped men of the pen and the capped men of arms;

The six hall-names (太極, 華蓋, 燒香, 觀文, 宣政, 延英) are drawn from Tang and Song palace nomenclature, inventorying a full imperial complex; 觀文殿 reads 觀 guān. 玉陛金階 = "jade steps and golden stairs"; 文冠武弁 ("civil caps and martial caps") stands, by metonymy, for the officials themselves. 擺列著 takes 著 as the durative zhe.

There too were the Great-Brilliance Palace, the Resplendent-Sun Palace, the Lasting-Joy Palace, the Floriate-Clear Palace, the Established-Emblem Palace, and the Never-Ending Palace — palace upon palace, whose bells and drums and pipes and flutes wiped away the boudoir's grief and the springtime's sorrow.

The six palace-names (大明, 昭陽, 長樂, 華清, 建章, 未央) are Han and Tang imperial toponyms; 長樂 reads 長 cháng, 樂 lè ("Lasting Joy"). 鐘鼓管籥 = "bells, drums, pipes, and flutes"; 閨怨春愁 ("the boudoir's resentment, the spring's melancholy") is precisely what the palace music is said to dispel.

There were the dew-drenched flowers of the forbidden park, smoothing their tender cheeks; / there were the wind-blown willows of the palace moat, dancing their slender waists.

禁苑 = "the forbidden [imperial] garden"; 御溝 = "the palace moat." In the courtly manner the flowers and willows are personified as women, adorning their faces and swaying their waists.

On the thoroughfare, one might see a man capped and sashed, in full ceremonial dress, riding behind a team of five horses;

頂冠束帶 = "capped and girt," the formal attire of an official (冠 the noun, guān); 乘 reads chéng ("to ride"). 乘五馬 alludes to the five-horse team anciently proper to a prefect or grandee.

In a secluded spot, one might see a man bearing bow and gripping arrow, parting the clouds and mist to transfix a pair of eagles at a single shot.

幽僻中 (中 = zhōng) = "in a remote place." 貫雙鵰 ("to skewer two eagles") recalls the byword 一箭雙鵰, a single arrow felling two hawks — the archery ascribed to Zhangsun Sheng.

Lanes of flowers and willows, towers of strings and pipes — its spring winds yielded nothing to the Bridge of Luoyang.

花柳 ("flowers and willows") is the pleasure-quarter; 管弦 ("pipes and strings") is music. 洛陽橋 (the Bridge of Luoyang) stands for a celebrated scene of springtime splendor, against which Baoxiang is measured and found its equal (不讓, "yields nothing to").

The scripture-seeking elder, looking back toward great Tang, felt his liver and gall rend within him;

長老 reads 長 zhǎng. 肝膽裂 ("liver and gall split apart") is a stock figure for overwhelming grief — Tripitaka's homesickness for Tang, sharpened rather than soothed by the splendor before him.

The disciples attending their master, setting down their loads at the little post-station, felt their very dream-souls melt away.

息肩 = "to rest the shoulder" of its burden; 小驛 = "the small post-station" (the 館驛 where they lodge). 夢魂消 ("the dream-soul dissolves") conveys their weary, unstrung relief.

One could not exhaust the sights of the Land of Precious Images. Master and disciples, the three of them, gathered up their baggage and their horse and took their rest within the post-station.

看不盡 ("cannot finish looking at") raises 盡 to jìn and so turns the preceding 不 to bú. 師徒三眾 = "the three, master and disciples"; 館驛 = "the post-station," the official hostel. The 賦 closes and the narrative resumes.