僧魔不寧 The Mountaintop Battle
那老怪聞言，十分發怒。你看他屹迸迸，咬響鋼牙；滴溜溜，睜圓環眼；雄糾糾，舉起刀來；赤淋淋，攔頭便砍。八戒側身躲過，使釘鈀劈面迎來；隨後又有沙僧舉寶杖趕上前齊打。這一場在山頭上賭鬥，比前不同。真個是：那老怪闻言，十分发怒。你看他屹迸迸，咬响钢牙；滴溜溜，睁圆环眼；雄纠纠，举起刀来；赤淋淋，拦头便砍。八戒侧身躲过，使钉钯劈面迎来；随后又有沙僧举宝杖赶上前齐打。这一场在山头上赌斗，比前不同。真个是：
逐句解 Line by line
Hearing this, the old demon flew into a great rage. Look at him: grinding, he gnashed his steel teeth; rolling, he glared with round ringed eyes; fiercely, he raised his blade on high; savagely, he chopped straight at the head.
十分 (分 = fēn) 發怒 = "greatly enraged." 屹迸迸, 滴溜溜, 雄糾糾, 赤淋淋 are four vivid reduplicative descriptives — grinding, rolling, fierce, blood-red — set at the head of four parallel clauses; 攔頭便砍 = "chopped straight at the head." The passage builds the demon's fury in a rush of rhythmic, near-verse prose.
Eight Rules dodged aside, and, wielding his nail-rake, came head-on to meet him; and hard behind, Sha Monk too raised his treasure-staff and rushed up to strike alongside. This bout, contested upon the mountaintop, was unlike the last. Truly it was:
側身躲過 = "dodged aside"; 劈面迎來 = "met [him] head-on." 寶杖 = "the treasure-staff" (Sha Monk's weapon); 賭鬥 = "to contend, do battle." 比前不同 = "unlike before" — a signal that this fight will go otherwise than their first; 真個是 = "truly it was," the lead-in to the battle-rhapsody that follows.
Words at cross and speech astray stir up a man's vexation; / intent envenomed, feeling galled, the wrath-breath rises.
言差 (差 = chà, "awry") 語錯 = "words gone wrong, speech in error"; 招人惱 = "provoke [one's] vexation." 意毒情傷 = "intent venomous, feeling wounded"; 怒氣生 = "the breath of anger arises." The opening couplet names the quarrel that kindles the fight.
This demon-king, with his great steel sabre, chops straight at the head; / that Eight Rules, with his nine-toothed rake, comes to meet him face on.
大鋼刀著頭 (著 = zháo, "to land on") 便砍 = "the great sabre, landing at the head, chops"; 九齒鈀 = "the nine-toothed rake." 對面來迎 = "comes to meet [him] head-on." The couplet sets sabre against rake in matched, opposing clauses.
Sha Wujing lets fly his treasure-staff; / that demon-king fends off the divine weapons.
丟開寶杖 = "loosed [his] treasure-staff"; 抵架 = "to parry, ward off." 神兵 = "divine weapons" (the monks' magic arms). The third combatant enters, and the demon must now fend off two.
One fierce fiend, two divine monks — back and forth, and never a pause.
一猛怪，二神僧 = "one savage demon, two holy monks." 來來往往 = "coming and going, to and fro"; 甚 (shèn, "very") 消停 = "hardly at rest" (消停, to pause or let up). The tally of combatants and the ceaseless motion of the mêlée.
This one says, 'For cozening a kingdom you deserve the death-penalty'; / that one says, 'For meddling in idle matters, righting wrongs not yours.'
騙國 = "to deceive/defraud a kingdom"; 理該死罪 = "by right deserving a capital crime." 羅閑事 (羅 = luó, "to entangle oneself in") = "to meddle in idle affairs"; 報不平 = "to right a wrong, avenge injustice." The combatants trade taunts in the verse, each accusing the other.
This one says, 'By forcing marriage on the princess you have wounded the realm's honor'; / that one says, 'It is no affair of yours — cease your idle contention.'
強婚 (強 = qiáng, "by force") 公主 = "to marry the princess by force"; 傷國體 = "to injure the dignity of the state." 不干你事 = "it does not concern you"; 莫閑爭 = "do not wrangle idly." The taunts turn on the rights and wrongs of the quarrel.
Reckon it up: all for the sake of a letter borne — / and so it comes that monk and demon, both, are left unquiet.
算來 = "reckoning it up, when all is said"; 只為 (為 = wèi, "because of") 捎書故 = "solely on account of the letter's delivery." 致使 = "so as to cause"; 僧魔兩不寧 = "monk and demon both unquiet." The closing couplet traces the whole strife back to its single cause — the princess's letter.
The battle is given as a formal 賦, and the rhapsody shows the mode's characteristic devices: the fury built in matched clauses (sabre against rake, staff against parry), the tally of combatants ("one fierce fiend, two divine monks"), and — most vividly — the taunts traded in verse, each fighter hurling an accusation as he strikes. The exchange dramatizes the quarrel as much as the blows: the demon charges the monks with meddling in affairs not their own, the monks charge him with defrauding a kingdom and shaming its honor by force. It is combat and disputation at once, the rhymed insults giving the violence a wit that mere description could not.
The closing couplet supplies the chapter's governing irony. Reckoning up the whole strife, it traces the cause to a single thing — 只為捎書, "all for the sake of a letter borne" — and concludes that thereby "monk and demon, both, are left unquiet." The princess's letter, written in tears and entrusted to a passing pilgrim as a small desperate contrivance, has set two holy monks against a demon on a mountaintop, embroiled a kingdom, and (as the next passages will show) is about to cost the pilgrims dearly. The verse names, with epigrammatic neatness, the novel's recurring lesson that no act, however slight or well-meant, goes without its train of consequence.