大聖戎裝 The Monkey King in Armor
逐句解 Line by line
His body sheathed in golden mail, all agleam,
The portrait starts, as these portraits do, at the armour. 亮堂堂 is "all agleam."
his head crowned with a golden cap, bright and flashing.
映映 (yìng yìng), "flashing." Chinese verse doubles a syllable where English adds an adjective, and the doubling makes the whole figure shimmer as you read it.
In his hand he hefts the gold-banded cudgel,
金箍棒, the gold-banded cudgel. 一根 takes yì before the level tone of 根.
his feet tread cloud-shoes, all of a matching set.
相稱 (xiāng chèn), "matched, of a piece" — 稱 here is chèn, "to fit, to suit," not chēng, "to call." Every piece of the kit goes with every other. It is a complete outfit, and someone has thought about it.
A pair of fierce eyes like gleaming stars,
似 is sì, "like"; 一雙 takes yì before the level tone of 雙.
two ears past his shoulders, jutting and hard.
過肩, "past the shoulders," and 查又硬, "jutting and hard" — 查 as chá, a colloquial "sticking out." The ears give the game away; no amount of gold mail will file them down.
A wiry frame, rich in transformations;
身才 is a variant writing of 身材, "build, physique," and 變化多 is "rich in transformations." Even standing still for his portrait, he is described by what he can turn into.
a voice ringing clear as bell and chime.
響喨 is a variant writing of 響亮, "resounding"; 鐘磬 are the bell and the chime-stone, temple instruments. The voice is measured against ritual sound rather than human speech.
Pointed snout and bared fangs — the stable-keeper Bìmǎwēn,
And then the poem punctures its own portrait. 尖嘴咨牙, "pointed snout, bared fangs" — 咨牙 is a variant writing of 齜牙 — are the monkey features the magnificent armour cannot disguise. Chinese still says 尖嘴猴腮, "pointed snout and monkey cheeks," of somebody who looks mean and unimpressive, and the joke lands here with the subject being an actual ape. Underneath it all he is still 弼馬溫, the stable-keeper.
his heart set high on being the Sage Equal to Heaven.
The clinch: a horse-groom by office, 齊天聖 by ambition. The portrait ends exactly where the chapter's tension lives.
The portrait poem is built on one pointed contrast, and the closing couplet says it out loud. Nine lines array Wukong as a martial paragon — golden mail and cap, the gold-banded cudgel, star-bright eyes, a voice like bell and chime, a frame "rich in transformations." Then the last couplet pulls the rug: under the panoply he is still 尖嘴咨牙, pointed-snouted and fang-baring, still officially 弼馬溫, the stable-groom — and still, 心高要做齊天聖, set on being Equal to Heaven.
That gap between body and ambition is the whole chapter in miniature, and the verse refuses to drop either half. The monkey is genuinely formidable; the army about to be routed is not imagined. He is also genuinely an upstart, a beast in borrowed magnificence reaching for a cosmic title. Seen through the eyes of 巨靈神, who is about to lose to him, the figure is impressive. Seen whole, it is the 心猿 dressed for a part it awarded itself. The craft of the poem is to hold admiration and mockery in the same frame, so that the coming victory feels both earned and ridiculous.