朝參授職 Audience and Appointment
太白金星領著美猴王，到於靈霄殿外，不等宣詔，直至御前，朝上禮拜。悟空挺身在傍，且不朝禮，但側耳以聽金星啟奏。金星奏道：「臣領聖旨，已宣妖仙到了。」玉帝垂簾問曰：「那個是妖仙？」悟空卻才躬身答應道：「老孫便是。」仙卿們都大驚失色道：「這個野猴，怎麼不拜伏參見，輒敢這等答應道：『老孫便是。』卻該死了，該死了。」玉帝傳旨道：「那孫悟空乃下界妖仙，初得人身，不知朝禮，且姑恕罪。」眾仙卿叫聲：「謝恩。」猴王卻才朝上唱個大喏。玉帝宣文選武選仙卿，看那處少甚官職，著孫悟空去除授。傍邊轉過武曲星君啟奏道：「天宮裡各宮各殿，各方各處，都不少官，只是御馬監缺個正堂管事。」玉帝傳旨道：「就除他做個弼馬溫罷。」眾臣叫謝恩，他也只朝上唱個大喏。玉帝又差木德星官送他去御馬監到任。當時猴王歡歡喜喜，與木德星官徑去到任。事畢，木德星官回宮。他在監裡，會聚了監丞、監副、典簿、力士、大小官員人等，查明本監事務，止有天馬千匹。乃是：太白金星领著美猴王，到于灵霄殿外，不等宣诏，直至御前，朝上礼拜。悟空挺身在傍，且不朝礼，但侧耳以听金星启奏。金星奏道：「臣领圣旨，已宣妖仙到了。」玉帝垂帘问曰：「那个是妖仙？」悟空却才躬身答应道：「老孙便是。」仙卿们都大惊失色道：「这个野猴，怎么不拜伏参见，辄敢这等答应道：『老孙便是。』却该死了，该死了。」玉帝传旨道：「那孙悟空乃下界妖仙，初得人身，不知朝礼，且姑恕罪。」众仙卿叫声：「谢恩。」猴王却才朝上唱个大喏。玉帝宣文选武选仙卿，看那处少甚官职，著孙悟空去除授。傍边转过武曲星君启奏道：「天宫里各宫各殿，各方各处，都不少官，只是御马监缺个正堂管事。」玉帝传旨道：「就除他做个弼马温罢。」众臣叫谢恩，他也只朝上唱个大喏。玉帝又差木德星官送他去御马监到任。当时猴王欢欢喜喜，与木德星官径去到任。事毕，木德星官回宫。他在监里，会聚了监丞、监副、典簿、力士、大小官员人等，查明本监事务，止有天马千匹。乃是：
逐句解 Line by line
The Star-Lord of Venus led the Handsome Monkey King to the front of the Hall of Numinous Mists and, without waiting for the summons to be announced, brought him straight before the throne to make obeisance.
靈霄殿 (Hall of Numinous Mists), the throne-hall described in the preceding 賦; 領著 takes 著 as durative zhe.
Wukong drew himself up at his side and, instead of performing the court bow, merely cocked an ear to listen as the Star-Lord made his report.
Wukong's refusal of the 朝禮 (court bow) — he merely 側耳以聽, “cocks an ear to listen” — is the first of the chapter's studied breaches of celestial protocol.
The Star-Lord reported, “In obedience to the holy command, I have summoned the demon-immortal, and here he is.”
妖仙, “demon-immortal” — Heaven's wary label for a being of power without sanctioned standing.
From behind his beaded screen the Jade Emperor asked, “Which one is the demon-immortal?”
那個 here is interrogative nǎ gè (“which one?”) — contrast 那孫悟空 below, where 那 is demonstrative nà. 垂簾: the emperor speaks from behind a beaded screen, a sign of remoteness.
Only then did Wukong bend at the waist and answer, “This here is Old Sun.”
老孫便是 — “This here is Old Sun.” Where others announce themselves in self-abasing terms, Wukong names himself with the swaggering 老孫, and the failure to kneel is deliberate. 答應 takes 應 as yìng.
The immortal ministers all went pale with shock: “This wild monkey — how is it he neither prostrates himself in homage nor even kneels, yet dares answer like this, ‘This here is Old Sun’? He deserves to die! He deserves to die!”
該死 (“deserves to die”), the ministers' scandalized refrain; 參見 (cān jiàn) is the formal audience-homage Wukong has pointedly omitted. 不拜: bú before fourth-tone 拜.
The Jade Emperor handed down his decree: “This Sun Wukong is a demon-immortal of the lower world, newly come into human form and ignorant of court ritual. We shall pardon his offense for now.”
那孫悟空: demonstrative nà. The pardon — 初得人身，不知朝禮, “newly in human form, ignorant of court ritual” — is a face-saving fiction that recasts rebellion as mere rusticity, the better to absorb it.
The immortal ministers cried out, “Our thanks for your grace.”
The ministers' formulaic 謝恩 closes the moment of pardon.
Only then did the Monkey King raise his voice in a great salute toward the throne.
唱個大喏 — to “sing out a great salute,” a standing vocal bow (the Song-era 唱喏); 喏 is read rě. Wukong offers this informal salute in place of the prostration etiquette demands.
The Jade Emperor called on the ministers of the civil and military boards to find which post anywhere was short-handed, and to appoint Sun Wukong to it.
文選武選, the civil and military selection boards; 那處 is interrogative nǎ chù (“which place”), and 著 is causative zhuó (“have [him] go and be appointed”).
From the side stepped the Star-Lord Wǔqū, who reported, “In the palaces and halls of Heaven, in every quarter and every office, there is no shortage of officials — only the Imperial Stable wants a supervisor for its main hall.”
武曲星君, the stellar deity Wǔqū of the Northern Dipper. The vacancy he names, the 御馬監 (Imperial Stable Directorate), is among the meanest offices in Heaven; 監 is jiàn, an “office / directorate.”
The Jade Emperor decreed, “Then appoint him Bìmǎwēn, and have done.”
弼馬溫 (“assist-horse-keeper”) puns audibly on 避馬瘟, “ward off horse-plague” — the folk role of a monkey kept in a stable; the mockery is built into the title. 罷 = bà, “and have done.”
The assembled ministers cried their thanks for the grace, and he too merely raised his voice in a great salute toward the throne.
He again gives only the informal 大喏, oblivious to the slight.
The Jade Emperor further dispatched the Star-Official of Wood-Virtue to escort him to take up his post at the Imperial Stable.
木德星官, the Star-Official of Wood-Virtue (the planet Jupiter); 差 is chāi, “to dispatch.”
At that time the Monkey King, all delight, went off with the Star-Official of Wood-Virtue straight to take up his post.
當時 takes 當 as dāng; the monkey's 歡歡喜喜 (“all delight”) is the irony the chapter exploits — he has no notion how lowly the office is.
The business done, the Star-Official of Wood-Virtue returned to his palace.
A beat of transition as the escort departs and Wukong is left to his post.
There in the Stable he gathered the assistant and vice directors, the registrar, the grooms, and the staff great and small, looked into the affairs of the office, and found there were just one thousand heavenly horses.
The staff of the 御馬監: 監丞 (assistant director), 監副 (vice director), 典簿 (registrar; 簿 = bù), 力士 (grooms). 止有天馬千匹 sets up the rhapsody on the thousand horses that follows.
They were these:
乃是 (“they were these —”), the lead-in to the horse 賦, carried whole at the close of the prose.
The audience scene is built almost entirely on the comedy of breached etiquette. Heaven is a court of exacting ritual — the beaded screen, the prostrations, the boards of civil and military selection — and Wukong walks into it refusing every form. He will not bow; he cocks an ear to listen; and when the sovereign asks which figure is the demon-immortal he answers, with magnificent effrontery, 老孫便是 — “This here is Old Sun.” The ministers' scandalized cry of 該死 measures exactly how far the monkey stands outside the celestial order even as he is admitted to it.
The Jade Emperor's response is the chapter's central political gesture. Rather than punish the affront, he excuses it as rusticity — 初得人身，不知朝禮 — and hands Wukong the lowest office in Heaven, the keepership of the imperial horses. The title 弼馬溫 is itself a joke: it puns on 避馬瘟, the old belief that a monkey in the stable wards off equine plague, so that the very name fixes the monkey as a charm against pestilence rather than a true official. Plaks reads such moments as the novel's satire of bureaucratic accommodation — the reflex to neutralize a threat by absorbing it into the hierarchy at its lowest rung.
Read inwardly, the scene stages the 心猿's first false settlement. The mind-monkey is given a place and a name and goes off 歡歡喜喜, all delight, not yet knowing what the place is worth — the spiritual hazard of mistaking a title for an attainment. And the thousand horses he is set to tend are, in the alchemical idiom the 丹經 tradition brings to the novel, apt figures for the unbridled energies of the self: the “horse of the will,” 意馬, is the mind-monkey's standing companion in the phrase 心猿意馬. That Heaven sets the monkey to mind the horses is a quiet emblem of the whole experiment — the restless faculty appointed to govern restlessness, and pleased, for now, to do it.