現相叫門 He Shows His Form and Hails the Gate
此詩暗合孫大聖的道妙。他自得了那魔真寶，籠在袖中，喜道：「潑魔苦苦用心拿我，誠所謂水中撈月；老孫若要擒你，就好似火上弄冰。」藏著葫蘆，密密的溜出門外，現了本相，厲聲高叫道：「精怪開門！」傍有小妖道：「你又是甚人，敢來吆喝？」行者道：「快報與你那老潑魔，吾乃行者孫來也。」此诗暗合孙大圣的道妙。他自得了那魔真宝，笼在袖中，喜道：「泼魔苦苦用心拿我，诚所谓水中捞月；老孙若要擒你，就好似火上弄冰。」藏著葫芦，密密的溜出门外，现了本相，厉声高叫道：「精怪开门！」傍有小妖道：「你又是甚人，敢来吆喝？」行者道：「快报与你那老泼魔，吾乃行者孙来也。」
逐句解 Line by line
This poem secretly answers to the mystery of the Way in Sun the Great Sage.
A narrator’s frame binding the head-verse to what follows. 暗合 (ànhé) is "to tally in a hidden way," and 道妙 (dàomào) the "subtle marvel" of the Dao — the phrase invites us to read the preceding verse allegorically, as a gloss on Wukong himself.
Having got the fiend’s true treasure for himself, he tucked it away in his sleeve and said with delight: “The vile fiend has racked his wits to seize me — truly what they call scooping the moon from the water;
The 真寶 is the genuine purple-gold red gourd, now 籠在袖中 (stowed in his sleeve). 水中撈月 (shuǐ zhōng lāo yuè), "to scoop the moon out of the water," is a proverb of wholly futile effort; its Buddhist source — monkeys who drown trying to fish out the moon’s reflection — makes it a pointed jest in a monkey’s mouth.
and if Old Sun means to take you, it is just like playing with ice over a fire.”
Paired antithetically with the moon-in-water figure, 火上弄冰 (huǒ shàng nòng bīng) — "handling ice above a flame" — makes the demon’s destruction as effortless and certain as the demon’s own scheme is hopeless. 老孫 ("Old Sun") is Wukong’s habitual, swaggering self-name.
Keeping the gourd hidden, he slipped stealthily out beyond the gate, resumed his true form, and cried in a stern, ringing voice: “Open up, you goblins!”
現了本相 (xiàn le běnxiàng) — "revealed his original form" — signals that Wukong had approached in disguise and now drops it. 密密的 ("on the sly") and 厲聲 ("in a harsh voice") mark the shift from stealth to open challenge.
A junior imp at the side spoke up: “And just who are you, that you dare come bawling here?”
甚人 (shén rén) is "what person / who." 吆喝 (yāo hè) — to shout or bawl — recurs through the scene as the demons’ word for Wukong’s clamor at the door.
Pilgrim said: “Go quick and tell that old vile fiend of yours — it is Xingzhe Sun who has come.”
The chapter’s comic device is now armed. Wukong names himself 行者孫 (Xíngzhě Sūn), "Pilgrim Sun," a permutation of his usual 孫行者; against the 者行孫 already bottled, three near-identical names will now bewilder the fiends. The classical 吾乃…來也 ("it is I who have come") lends his announcement a mock-grand cadence.
The engine of the whole chapter — the shuffling of Wukong’s name — is switched on here. Having pocketed the real gourd, he coins a third variant, 行者孫 ("Pilgrim Sun"), to set beside 孫行者 and the captive 者行孫. The near-homophony is untranslatable in full, but the comedy is structural: the demons cannot keep three all-but-identical Suns straight, and their confusion is what Wukong means to exploit.
The two proverbs framing his taunt work as a matched antithesis — 水中撈月 (the demon’s hopeless effort to catch him) against 火上弄冰 (Wukong’s effortless power to destroy the demon). That both are drawn from popular Buddhist lore, and that the moon-fishing image belongs by tradition to monkeys, gives the jest a self-aware edge suited to the Monkey King’s voice.