雪莊尋齋 Seeking Alms at a Snowbound Farm
行者縱起雲頭，尋莊化齋，一直南行，忽見那古樹參天，乃一村莊舍。按下雲頭，仔細觀看，但只見：行者纵起云头，寻庄化斋，一直南行，忽见那古树参天，乃一村庄舍。按下云头，仔细观看，但只见：
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim sprang up on his cloud to look for a farm and beg food. He went straight south, and all at once saw ancient trees reaching to the sky — a village farmstead.
參天, reaching to the sky, keeps 參 at cān. 莊舍 is a farmstead, with 舍 as shè, a dwelling. Note the direction: 一直南行 takes Wukong straight south, away from the road, which is why the old man will shortly insist he has come the wrong way.
He brought the cloud down, looked closely, and this was all he saw:
但只見 followed by a colon is the cue for a set-piece, exactly as 好山 was: what follows is verse. 仔細觀看 is the same formula used before the mountain poem three passages back.
Snow bullying the withered willows, ice bound over the square pond.
欺, to bully or impose upon, gives the snow the force of somebody doing something to somebody. 方塘 is the squared-off farm pond of a settled household, not wild water — a detail that quietly certifies the place as real.
Thin-set tall bamboo swaying green; dense high pines holding their kingfisher blue.
疏疏 (thinly set) against 鬱鬱 (densely massed) is the whole structure of the couplet. 凝翠, to congeal into kingfisher-green, holds the pines still while the bamboo moves.
A few thatched rooms half dressed in silver; one small bridge laid slantwise in powder.
間 is jiān, the word used to count rooms. The silver and the powder are both snow — the couplet describes a snowfall without naming it once.
By the hedge narcissus faintly puts out its flower; under the eaves icicles hang long like chopsticks.
長 is cháng, at length, not zhǎng, to grow. 冰凍箸 makes the icicles into chopsticks — a kitchen image dropped into a winter landscape, three passages before Wukong raids an actual kitchen.
A rustling cold wind carries a rare fragrance; the snow lies so deep one cannot see where the plum has opened.
處 is chù, a place. The set-piece closes on a scent with no visible source: the plum is certainly there and cannot be seen. That is the exact reverse of the towers Wukong was looking at a few passages ago, which could be seen and were not there.
A domestic set-piece, and deliberately unlike the mountain one: hedge, pond, bridge, eaves, a household under snow.
Its job is to certify the farm as real. Wukong has just told his master that buildings on this road cannot be trusted, and the narrative answers by handing him one that can.
The last couplet turns on a fragrance whose source cannot be seen — the opposite of the mirage argument, and a quiet joke at its expense.