The prince, hearing this, opened his mouth and cursed: "You foul fiend! Insolent indeed."

潑邪, "foul fiend." The prince drops formal address at exactly the point where negotiation ends.

"Truly beyond all bounds."

無狀, beyond all bounds, without proper form. The charge is against manners - which in this chapter is always the last thing said before blows.

"There is no need even to set the Great Sage Sun against you — do you dare contend with me?"

相持, to contend, locked against one another. The prince offers himself in the Great Sage's place, which is the one challenge the fiend's pride will not let him refuse.

The fiend said, "To be a man of mettle — what is there to fear in a contest?"

And he accepts on the only ground available: 好漢, a man of mettle. The whole thing is settled in a single line.

He ordered: "Fetch my armor."

取披掛 - three characters standing as an entire segment. This is the third arming in the chapter, and the last.

At a single call, the little fiends closed round him left and right, presented his armor, and handed up the steel whip.

Presented and handed up: the imps arm him with ceremony, the same attendance that carried the harness out before Sha Monk's challenge.

The two of them changed countenance and each played the hero;

變了臉, changed countenance - the moment kinsmen become combatants, and the last thing said of either of them before the poem takes over.

the command was passed, and together they beat the drums.

號 is hào in 號令, a command - the sign-and-order sense, as in the ensign earlier, not the háo of a howl.

This contest, set beside his fight with Sha Monk, was of quite another order.

The narrator promises a difference before delivering it: this fight will not be like the last one. 場 is cháng, counting an occasion.

This is what was seen:

但見那, the fuller showcase tag, used at the river and again here. What follows is the chapter's longest description, at twelve couplets.

Banners and pennons flashed; halberd and lance swung their light.

The poem opens on light rather than movement, in four-character lines that lengthen to seven as the fighting joins.

On this side the camp-lines broke and scattered; on that side the gates flung wide.

這壁廂 and 那壁廂, "on this side" and "on that" - the paired spoken locations, both camps balanced in one line.

Prince Moang raised his golden mace; the alligator-fiend whirled his whip and parried in kind.

Mace and whip are named before either fighter is. 急架償 is to parry in kind, 償 being to repay - so the block is described as settling a debt.

A single cannon-blast, and the river-troops raged; three drum-strokes of the gong, and the sea-soldiers ran wild.

One cannon-blast for the river troops, three gong-strokes for the sea: each side gets its own signal. 炮 is pào, the artillery reading.

Shrimp battled shrimp; crab fought crab.

Shrimp against shrimp, crab against crab - and this is the one couplet in the poem whose second line falls outside the rhyme. 鰕 is the older way of writing 蝦, shrimp.

Whale and sea-turtle swallowed the red carp; bream and perch stirred up the yellow catfish.

Here the poem turns into a fish market and stays there for five couplets. 鮊 is bó, a sea-fish, rather than the bà of its other reading; the character is rare and turns up only in musters of fishes like this one.

Shark and mullet gobbled while anchovy and mackerel fled; oyster seized razor-clam, and clam and mussel took fright.

鮆 is jì, the knife-fish or anchovy, and 鯖 beside it is qīng - both taking their fish readings rather than their commoner ones.

The stickleback stood hard as an iron rod; the gar's beak was keen as a sword's point.

Spine like a cudgel, beak like a blade. It is the only line in the poem that reaches for an outright "like," which is why the fish-names on either side of it land so flatly - the joke is that everything else is simply listed.

Sturgeon and porgy chased the white eel; sea-perch and carp-sucker snatched the black pomfret.

White eel and black pomfret: the roll of fishes closes on colour, exactly as the roll of dragon-sons opened on it.

A whole river of water-fiends strove high and low; the dragon-troops of the two sides matched weak against strong.

定弱強, to settle which is weak and which strong. 強 is qiáng, strength itself, and the rhyme lands on it.

Long the melee churned the rolling waves; and Prince Moang was a match for the Diamond King himself.

賽 is to match or rival. 金剛 is the vajra-king, the muscular guardian figure who stands at temple gates - so the prince is measured against a doorway giant at the moment he wins.

With a shout the golden mace came down heavy on his head, and the fiend-alligator, that mischief-making king, was taken.

喝 is hè, a shout. The poem lands its last blow on a cry, and 作怪王 names the fiend by his offence rather than his rank: the mischief-making king.