The assembled officials passed on the command, and had them enter.

著 is the hardest-working character in this chapter and it has four separate jobs. Here it is the one that hands out an order — "had them come in" — and takes zhuó. Watch for the other three as we go: zhe for an action in progress, zháo for one that lands, zhāo for a move in a board game.

Pilgrim looked, and it turned out to be the monks of Precious Grove Monastery, come bearing in the Heaven-Soaring Cap, the Jasper Belt, the Ochre-Yellow Robe, and the Carefree Shoes.

The Precious Grove monks arrive carrying the regalia they were sent for. Two pointing 那 here — before 寶林寺 and before 沖天冠 — both nà. In 捧著 the 著 is the one that shows an action going on, zhe: they come in bearing the things. And 進得來 takes the light hinge 得, de.

Pilgrim, delighted, said: "Well come, well come!"

Twice over, 來得好 — the 得 is the light de again, joining the verb to how it came off. "Well timed," near enough.

and had the acolyte come over, take off his head-wrap, and put on the Heaven-Soaring Cap;

The dressing begins. 教 here means "had someone do it," and its ordinary reading jiào is already the right one — checked directly, no override needed.

stripped off his cloth habit and put on the Ochre-Yellow Robe;

赭黃袍, the ochre-yellow robe, is a shade reserved for the throne. The whole undressing and redressing marks the king's passage from resurrected corpse back into a reigning sovereign, one garment at a time.

undid his sash-cord and fastened on the Jasper Belt;

碧玉帶, the jasper belt, is the second piece. Each item of the borrowed monk's habit comes off and its royal counterpart goes on in its place.

slipped off his monk's sandals and stepped into the Carefree Shoes;

無憂履 — the Carefree Shoes, and the last of the four. With them the borrowed habit is entirely gone.

and had the crown prince bring out the white-jade tablet of state and place it in his hand — then at once invited him to ascend the hall and style himself sovereign.

稱孤 is the royal self-address: a king refers to himself as 孤, "the Solitary One," on the grounds that there is nobody at his level. To style oneself so is to be king, which is exactly what he keeps refusing to do. The second 教, in 教太子, is again the everyday jiào.

Even as the old saying goes: "A court cannot go a single day without its lord."

A stock proverb of dynastic legitimacy, wheeled out to push a reluctant man onto a throne he has just been dressed for: a court cannot go a single day without its lord. The argument is not that he deserves it but that the seat cannot stay empty.

But the king would by no means consent to sit; weeping, he knelt at the center of the stair and said: "I have been dead three years — now, favored by Master's saving me back to life, how could I dare presume to style myself sovereign again?

Here is the crux the whole chapter keeps returning to, so it is worth setting out once. The 1592 edition writes both of two different words with the same character, 那. One is the pointing word, nà, "that" — as in 那皇帝, "that king." The other is the questioning word, nǎ, "which, where" — as in 那裡肯坐, which is not "where he consents to sit" but a flat refusal dressed as a question: "how could he possibly consent?" Modern Chinese pulled the two apart and gave the questioning one a character of its own, 哪, with a mouth added at the left. The old edition did not, so every single 那 in this chapter has to be read for sense before it can be pronounced — and both readings turn up in this one sentence.

pray let that one master here become ruler instead; I would gladly take wife and children outside the walls and be commoners — that would content me."

The king tries to hand the throne to Tripitaka instead. 那一位師父 takes the pointing nà. Both instances of 為 — in 為君 and 為民 — are wéi, "to become, to serve as," not the wèi that means "for the sake of."

But Tripitaka would by no means accept it either — his heart was set on nothing but worshipping the Buddha and seeking the scriptures.

The refusal passes to its second recipient and is refused again. 那三藏 opens with the pointing nà; 藏 in his name is zàng, the "basket" of scripture. Then 那裡肯受 is the questioning 那 once more, nǎ — "as if he would accept."

So they asked Pilgrim next; Pilgrim laughed and said: "Not to deceive you all — if old Sun were willing to be an emperor, I'd have been emperor of every nation under Heaven, all Nine Provinces over, long since.

And now the joke everybody remembers. Offered the throne third, the Monkey King does not decline it humbly; he explains that he has passed on better offers. 都做遍了 — 都 is dōu, "the lot of them, all through."

It's only that we've grown used to being monks, lazy and easy-going as we are.

懶散, "bone-idle and easy-going," is Wukong's own diagnosis of himself, and the comic premise on which the whole refusal rests. He is not too holy for a throne. He is too lazy.

Were I to become emperor, I'd have to keep my crown unshaved and let my hair grow long, not sleep at dusk, not rest at the fifth watch;

The complaint is specific, which is what makes it funny: a king may not shave his head, and must keep hours no reasonable creature would keep. 留頭長髮 — here 長 is the verb "to grow," zhǎng, not the adjective cháng, "long."

on hearing of frontier alarms, my heart and spirit would know no peace;

邊報, "alarms from the frontier" — the dispatches that arrive at all hours and cannot be ignored. Second item in the catalogue of a sovereign's miseries.

on seeing famine or calamity, I'd fret and grieve with no relief.

災荒, "famine and disaster." That completes the list, and the punchline follows immediately.

How could the likes of us ever get used to that?"

弄得慣 — the 得 is the light hinge de again: "manage to get used to it." The answer, obviously, is no.

"You go on being your emperor, and I'll go on being my monk — off to cultivate my merit and my works."

A neat closing symmetry — you keep yours, I keep mine. Both instances of 還 are hái, "still, as before."