Six-armed Prince Nezha,

The poem opens by naming the two of them side by side — 六臂哪吒 against the 美石猴王 — before either does anything. The pairing is the argument.

the heaven-born Handsome-Stone Monkey King —

石 is shí, stone. 天生美石猴王 packs an entire origin story into six characters: heaven-born, of fine stone, monkey, king. That efficiency is what lets the poem spend the rest of its length on the fight.

meeting, a true match for each other,

真對手, "a true match," and 本源流, "their very source" — the couplet frames the duel as a meeting of equals before a blow lands.

they had found their very source and stream.

本源流 is source and current in one word. The line claims the two of them come from the same origin, which for a heaven-born stone and a god's son is a considerable claim, and the poem never explains it.

That one, sent down by command to the lower world;

A contrast of motives: 蒙差來下界, sent down under orders, against 欺心鬧斗牛, overweening and troubling the stars. 那一個 and 這一個 both take yí before 個; 斗牛 is the Dipper and the Ox.

this one, with overweening heart, troubling the very stars.

斗 is dǒu, the Dipper, and 斗牛 names two of the twenty-eight lunar mansions — a patch of sky, not livestock. 欺心 is literally "to cheat one's own heart," the self-deceiving arrogance the novel reserves for Wukong at his worst.

The demon-beheading sword, its edge keen,

Nezha's six weapons are now itemised in matched pairs: sword and sabre here, rope and pestle next, fire-wheel and embroidered ball to close.

the demon-hacking saber so fierce that gods and ghosts grieved;

狠 carries the ferocity and 愁 the consequence. The sabre is described by what it does to the spirits watching, not to the body it hits.

the demon-binding rope like a flying python,

索子 takes 子 as the light, unstressed zi; the 似 in the next line is sì; 降妖 takes 降 as xiáng.

the demon-quelling pestle like a wolf's head;

降 is xiáng, to subdue — not the jiàng of descending, though the character is the same. The pestle is likened to a wolf's head, the only animal figure among the six weapons that is a predator rather than an ornament.

the fire-wheel flashing lightning, blazing bright,

掣電, "flashing lightning" (掣 is chè), and 烘烘艷, blazing bright.

and to and fro the embroidered ball came rolling.

往往來來 doubles both halves of a coming-and-going, so the ball gets a rhythm rather than a path. It is the least warlike thing in the arsenal, and the poem saves it for last.

The Great Sage's three As-You-Will cudgels,

Six weapons on one side; on the other, three cudgels — 前遮後擋 warding front and blocking back, and 運機謀, plied with stratagem.

warding front and blocking back, plied with stratagem.

運機謀 sets calculation against equipment. Nezha gets an inventory; Wukong gets a defence described entirely in terms of thinking.

They fought hard, bout after bout, with neither above the other,

數合無高下, "bout after bout, neither above the other" — 合 is a round of combat, the unit these novels count fights in. 不肯 in the next line takes bù before the dipping tone of 肯.

and the prince in his heart would not give up.

子 keeps its full literary zǐ in 太子, as it does at almost every occurrence in this edition, and 中 is zhōng. 不肯休, "would not give up," is the first hint that skill is not going to settle this.

He took his six weapons and made them all transform —

And so it escalates. 把那六件兵器多教變 — 教 is causative jiào, "made them all transform" — into 百千萬億, hundreds of millions, raining down.

by the hundreds, thousands, millions, hurled at the head.

照頭丟 points the entire multiplied arsenal at one target, the head. After three numerals of escalating size, the line ends on the plainest possible verb.

The Monkey King, unafraid, laughed aloud,

不懼 takes bú before the falling tone of 懼. The monkey answers multiplication with multiplication, and does it laughing.

his iron cudgel tumbling and turning at his own command.

運籌 is the general's word for laying plans, and it answers 運機謀 six lines earlier — the same verb, promoted from defence to command.

From one he made a thousand, from a thousand ten thousand,

以一化千千化萬, "from one a thousand, from a thousand ten thousand"; 一 takes yí before the falling tone of 化. 賽飛虯 is "rivalling flying dragons."

filling the sky with their wild dance, rivaling soaring dragons.

賽 keeps its single value, to rival. A 虯 is a dragon of the lesser sort; the old glossaries disagree over whether it has horns, so "flying dragon" is the safe rendering. By this point the cudgels are numerous enough to be described as weather rather than as weapons.

So frightened that the demon-kings of every cave shut their doors,

諕得, "so frightened that" — 諕 is xià, a variant writing of 嚇, to frighten. The fight is now emptying the mountain, and these are Wukong's own allies.

and across the mountain the goblins all hid their heads.

藏 is cáng, to hide. 盡藏頭 clears the mountain of its own inhabitants: this has become something even the monkeys will not watch.

The divine soldiers' fury, clouds grim and dark;

慘慘 and 颼颼 — grim clouds and whistling iron. The doubled syllables carry the gloom of the field and its noise, one to a line.

the gold-banded iron cudgel whistling and whirring.

颼颼 is the whistle of something moving fast through air, and it is the only sound in a passage otherwise built entirely from sights. The gold band on the cudgel is named here for the first time since the poem began.

On that side, the heavenly troops shouted, and every man afraid;

The two camps are set in strict parallel: 那壁廂, "on that side," the heavenly troops afraid, and 這壁廂, "on this side," the monkey-fiends anxious. Both armies are frightened of their own champion.

on this side, the monkey-fiends waved flags, and every one anxious.

個個憂 spreads the anxiety across every individual, where the matching line gave the heavenly side one collective fear. The monkeys are more frightened, and more specifically so.

Roused to fury, the two sides vied in valor alike,

The poem closes on a balance it refuses to break: 不知那個剛強那個柔, "none could tell which was stronger, which softer." Both instances of 那個 are the question word nǎ gè; 不知 takes bù.

and none could tell which was the stronger, which the softer.

Both occurrences of 那 are the questioning nǎ, and 強 is qiáng. The poem ends with no result at all — and 剛強 against 柔, hard against yielding, is the old Daoist pair. Declining to choose between them is the whole point.