It turned out that the two leaves of the stone gate there had been reduced to ashes by the heat of the fire, and inside the gateway a few little imps were sweeping the ground and scooping up the cinders.

The gate is ashes and the staff are sweeping up. 那裡 points, so 那 is nà; 石門: 石 is shí; 兩扇: 扇 is shàn, the counting word for a leaf of a door; 化成: 化 is huà.

Suddenly seeing the whole company of sages arrive together, they were so alarmed that they dropped their brooms, flung down their ash-rakes, and ran inside to report again: "Sun Wukong has brought a great many celestial gods, and is outside the gate cursing us to battle!"

慌得: 得 is dé; 丟了: 了 is le; 領著: 著 is zhe; sentence-final 哩 is li. 罵戰 is "to curse an enemy out to fight" — the formal challenge in this kind of battle narrative, delivered as abuse.

That Rhinoceros fiend heard the report with a start: with a grinding crunch his steel teeth ground and rang; with a rolling glare his ring-round eyes opened wide.

The two halves are joined at the semicolon. 那兕怪 points, so 那 is nà. 扢迸迸 and 滴溜溜 are three-syllable sound-pictures, one for teeth grinding, one for eyes rolling.

Levelling his long spear and taking the treasure with him, he came out at the gate and cursed him roundly: "You thieving ape, that raids a camp and sets fires!

Note what he brings with him. 挺著: 著 is zhe; 長槍: 長 is cháng; 帶了: 了 is le. 帶了寶貝 — he does not come out without the ring, and the narrative has now been careful to say so twice.

"How great are these powers of yours, that you dare hold me so cheap?"

藐視 is "to look on with contempt", to hold cheap. The taunt is exactly the cue the poem needs: Pilgrim has been asked, in so many words, what he can do.

Pilgrim, with a laughing face, cursed back: "Foul monster! You want to know what my powers are — come forward, then, and I will tell you and you shall hear:

笑臉兒 takes the ending er. The tag 我說與你聽： closes the prose, and the edition separates it by hand from the first couplet, which the source ran together with it.

From my birth I was born to such powers; / through the ten thousand lǐ of heaven and earth my name rang out.

The poem runs thirty-five seven-syllable couplets on a single rhyme, the 陽 class, held from 揚 in this first couplet all the way to 王 in the last. 乾坤: 乾 is qián, one of the eight trigrams — the three-line figures of the Book of Changes — and the one that stands for heaven, not the gān that means dry; 強 is qiáng. On 萬里 as lǐ see the note earlier in the chapter at 打遍西方萬里遊.

In those days, quick of understanding, I cultivated the Way of the immortals; / in years gone by there was handed down to me the recipe against age.

當時: 當 is dāng, "back then." 不老方 is "the prescription for not growing old" — the formula Subodhi taught him in Chapter 2.

I set my will and went to bow at the Land of the Square cùn; / with reverent heart I sought audience in the country of the sage.

方寸地 and 聖人鄉 are the Mountain of Mind and Heart and the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars, where Subodhi taught him. The unit in the name stays in Chinese as cùn: it is the Chinese inch, about 3.2 centimetres, and close enough to an English inch to be worth marking as a different thing. 方寸, "a cùn square", is an old figure for the heart — the small space a person keeps himself in — so the mountain's name is a riddle: he went to school inside himself. 參見: 參 is cān, to attend on a superior.

I learned to perfection the measureless art of transformation; / through the vast void of the universe I raged at my pleasure.

無量法: 量 is liàng, the noun "measure." 長空: 長 is cháng, the long void, not zhǎng.

Idle, before the mountain I laid the tigers low; / restless, within the seas I brought the dragons down.

將虎伏: 將 is jiāng, the word that puts the object first. 把龍降: 降 is xiáng, to subdue, not the jiàng of coming down — the match with 伏 in the line above settles it, and xiáng is also what the rhyme wants.

In my ancestral seat on Flower Fruit Mountain I was styled a king; / in the Water Curtain Cave I made my hard strength felt.

稱王位: 稱 is chēng; 剛強: 強 is qiáng.

Time and again I had a mind to seize the borders of heaven; / more than once, in my ignorance, I made a snatch at the region above.

數次: 數 is shù, "several." 無知, "in my ignorance", is the poem's own word for what he did, and the whole autobiography turns on that one concession.

By imperial gift I was named Great Sage Equal to Heaven; / by edict of investiture there was given me besides the style of Handsome Monkey King.

History reversed, for the sake of the rhyme: he gave himself the title 美猴王, Handsome Monkey King, back in Chapter 1, and the Jade Emperor conceded 齊天大聖, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, in Chapter 4. The poem quietly makes both look like gifts of the throne.

Only because the Peach Banquet was set out / and no card came to invite me — and my nature is hard —

相邀: 相 is xiāng. 無簡 is "no written invitation" — and note the order of the couplet. It puts the snub first and the peaches second.

I broke in secret upon the Jasper Pool and stole the liquor of jade; / I walked unbidden in the treasure pavilion and drank the ruby wine.

The couplet where the trouble starts. 瑤池 is the Queen Mother's Jasper Pool, and 玉液 and 瓊漿 are the two standing names for the wine of immortality — "liquor of jade" and "ruby syrup." 私行: 行 is xíng, to walk, so the line is "I walked there privately," which is a very mild way of saying he gate-crashed heaven's banquet.

Dragon's liver and phoenix marrow I once stole and ate; / a hundred savours of rare viands I tasted by theft.

龍肝鳳髓, "dragon's liver and phoenix marrow", is a fixed phrase for food of impossible rarity — the Chinese equivalent of caviar and gold leaf, only more so; 珍饈 is "rare delicacies." The verbs are the point: 偷 and 竊, stole and pilfered, in successive lines, with no apology attached to either.

Peaches of a thousand years I took at my pleasure for use; / elixir pills of ten thousand years I let fill my belly.

千載: 載 is zǎi, the "year" reading — the automatic tool gives the zài of carrying for both occurrences in this chapter. These are the two thefts that cost him most: the peaches of the Queen Mother's orchard and Lord Lao's pills of gold cinnabar. The second matters here, because it is exactly why the ox-servant fell asleep and the ring went missing.

Of the strange things of the Celestial Palace I took every kind; / of the rare treasures of the sacred halls I hid away every piece.

件件藏: 藏 is cáng, to store away, not the zàng of 三藏. 般般 and 件件 are doubled to mean "each and every sort" and "every single one" — the poem is counting the loot.