Just as they were talking, there came from below the mountain slope a clashing of gongs and drums together, and a shouting that shook the ground.

Gongs and drums under the slope: the demon is coming out to fight. 正講處 uses the 正…處 frame, "just at the point of —"; 處 is chù. 只聽得: 得 is dé. 那山坡 points at a particular slope, so 那 is nà.

It was the Rhinoceros King, leading out his host of sprites in pursuit of Pilgrim.

兕大王. The 兕 (sì) is the one-horned wild ox of the old books — the beast in the Analects tag 虎兕出於柙, "the tiger and the wild ox break out of their cage." The demon's true shape, revealed at the very end of the chapter, is Lord Lao's blue ox, so the title has been telling the reader the answer from the first line. 帥眾: 帥 is shuài, standing in for 率, "to lead."

Pilgrim saw them and cried: "Good, good, good — this falls out just as I would have it. Be seated, my lords, and let Old Monkey go and take him."

見了: 了 is le. 列位 is the polite plural, "you gentlemen", addressed to the assembled gods. 正合吾意 means "falls in exactly with what I wanted."

The fine Great Sage raised his iron cudgel and came on straight in the monster's face, roaring: "Where do you think you are going, wretched fiend? Mind the cudgel!"

那裡走 is not asking for directions; it is the challenge "where do you think you are going?" — so 那 is nǎ. 看棍: 看 is kàn. This is the warning shouted a beat before the blow lands, exactly like 看刀 or 看箭 — the fighter's equivalent of "heads up." 劈面 is "full in the face." 喝道: 喝 is hè, to shout, never the hē of drinking.

The monster fended him off with his spear and cursed him: "Thieving ape's head! This is downright insolence.

那怪 points, so 那 is nà. 著實: 著 is zhuó in this set phrase, "downright, in very truth." 支住 is to prop a weapon across and stop a blow.

"How dare you plunder my goods in broad daylight?"

白晝, "broad daylight." Keep an eye on it — Pilgrim throws the identical phrase back at him two lines later, which is the point of the whole exchange. 物件 means articles, gear, stuff.

Pilgrim said: "Why, you accursed beast, too dull to know your own death is upon you!

我把你這個… is the standard opening of a vernacular tirade, and it is deliberately left hanging: the verb never arrives, swallowed by the insult that follows. 孽畜: 畜 is chù, the noun "beast", not the verb xù, to rear animals.

"It is you who work a snare-ring and seize my things in broad daylight — which of them is yours? Don't run: take a rod from your lord and master!"

Here is the retort, and the joke is exact. 你倒弄圈套: 倒 is dào, "you, on the contrary —", not the dǎo of knocking over. 那件兒 asks "which one", so 那 is nǎ, with 兒 as er. And 圈套 is a pun the English cannot quite hold: the word for a trap or snare is built on 圈, the ring — so the demon's ring is literally a ring-trap. Pilgrim is calling the thing what it is and insulting him with it at the same time.

The monster swung up his spear and warded off the blow.

那怪物 points, so 那 is nà. 隔架 is "to block and parry", the standard verb that closes an exchange of insults and opens the set-piece poem.

It was a fine fight:

The tag line that announces the verse gets a segment of its own and is not itself verse. 一 before 場 (chǎng, third tone) shifts to yì under the ordinary tone rule for 一.

The Great Sage put forth his fierce might; / the fiend would neither yield nor bend.

The poem opens in five-syllable lines and moves to seven at the fourth couplet — a couplet being a matched pair of lines — and holds seven to the end. Several lines carry a lead-in tag — 這一個, 那一個, 只見那 — sitting outside the count. A single rhyme runs the whole way through, the 尤 class: 柔 休 頭 流 愁 頭 擻 遊 籌 休. 順柔 is "to submit and soften."

The two houses matched their valour together; / which of them would consent to break off?

那個肯干休 is a rhetorical question, so 那 is nǎ, "which of them —?" 干休 means to let a matter drop. In traditional spelling 干 is always gān (干戈, 何干, 若干); the gàn that means "to do" is a different character, 幹. 兩家 is "the two sides" of a contest, not two households.

This one's iron rod was like a dragon's tail; / that one's long spear was like a python's head.

The 這一個…那一個 frame — this one … that one — is the standard call-and-answer device of fighting verse, pairing the two combatants clause by clause all the way down. 那 is the pointing nà; 長槍: 長 is cháng, "long", not zhǎng.

This one's rod came in a play of strokes like the sounding wind; / that one's spear held its fierce guard like running water.

解數 is a term straight out of the martial-arts hall: a set sequence of moves, what a modern school would call a form or kata. 解 is xiè here (not jiě), and 數 is the noun shù. The pair 風響 / 水流 sets sound against motion.

One saw only the coloured mists hanging dense, the ridges darkened; / the auspicious clouds massed thick, the woodlands sunk in gloom.

那 points, so nà. 朦朦 and 靉靆 are both two-syllable words for light going out of the sky, the second an old poetic term for piled-up cloud. The landscape darkening as the fight goes on is a convention of the form — the weather takes sides.

The birds that filled the sky all stayed their wings; / the wolves and vermin of the four wilds drew in their heads.

盡縮頭: 盡 is jìn, "one and all", the reading used throughout this edition; the concessive sense that would be jǐn is written with a different character, 儘. 狼蟲 — "wolves and crawling things" — is a fixed pair meaning wild animals generally.

On that side the little imps raised their war-cry; / on this side Pilgrim shook himself to the work.

那陣上 points, so 那 is nà. 這壁廂, "over on this side", answers it. Having matched the two weapons against each other, the poem now matches the two camps.

One iron rod, and no man to match it, / has beaten its way ten thousand lǐ about the West.

一條: 一 shifts to yì before 條 (tiáo, second tone). 里 stays in Chinese as lǐ rather than becoming a mile, because it is nowhere near one: a Ming lǐ ran to something like 576 metres, roughly a third of a mile. 萬里, ten thousand of them, is not meant as a measurement anyway — it is the ordinary way of saying "the whole world over", the way English says "the ends of the earth". The couplet is Wukong's credential, stated in two lines, and it is a trailer for the enormous autobiographical poem he recites later in this same chapter.

That shaft of a long spear is a true opponent, / that has held the Golden Helm forever and is reckoned first among them.

那 points, so nà; 長槍: 長 is cháng. 稱上籌: 稱 is chēng, "to be reckoned as"; 上籌 is the top tally-stick, first place. On the place-name 金兜 see the note to the passage as a whole.

Meeting like this, there can be no fair parting; / till high and low are seen, they swear not to give over.

相遇: 相 is xiāng, marking a thing done mutually. 無好散: 散 is sàn, the verb "to break up, to part." 不見高低 — "until it is seen which is the higher" — closes the poem on the terms of the contest, and the next passage will leave those terms unsettled.