The gentleman shouted, "You impudent ape! Still wagging that clever tongue.

喝 is hè, a shout. 這潑猢猻 — you impudent ape — is the immortal's standing form of address for Wukong from here to the end of the chapter, and it never varies.

Is my brother's son better off free and a king in his own right, or better off another's servant?

Both 還 are hái, in the 還是…還是 frame that offers a choice: is it this, or is it that? Both 為 are wéi, the verb to be. This is the immortal's real objection, and it answers Wukong's argument exactly. A promotion in somebody else's household is still somebody else's household.

No insolence — take this hook of mine!"

不得 takes 得 as dé in its modal sense, may not. Nine characters, and the conversation is over.

The Great Sage blocked it with his iron rod and said, "Gentleman, let us have no talk of fighting; just give me a little spring water and I'll be off."

打的話 — the woodblock prints 的 again where a modern text would put 得, exactly as it did at 疼的緊 in the village. It is read de, unstressed — not the dī the character takes in modern loanwords. Two such spellings in one chapter, in the mouths of different characters, put the matter beyond doubt: the printer treated the two characters as one word.

The gentleman cursed, "Impudent ape! You do not know life from death.

不知死活 — he does not know life from death — is the standard formula for reckless presumption, still current, and roughly what English means by not knowing what he is letting himself in for.

If you can hold me for three bouts, I will let you have the water; if you cannot match me, I shall simply chop you into mincemeat and so avenge my nephew."

敵得 asks whether the thing can be done, so 得 is the light de; 剁為 takes 為 as wéi. The terms are a wager, and the immortal proposes them as though they were perfectly reasonable.

The Great Sage cursed back, "You obstruction, that cannot tell up from down! If you want a fight, stand clear and look to my rod."

不識起倒 takes 倒 as dǎo. The idiom is about not knowing which way is up, and it is the same charge in both directions — each man has now told the other he has no sense.

The gentleman returned the blow, snatching at him with the as-you-will hook. The two of them fought a fine fight there at the Convent of Assembled Immortals:

劈手相還 takes 還 as huán, to give back, and 相 as xiāng. 好殺 — a fine fight — is the cue that a battle description is about to start, as reliable a signal as a bell at ringside.

The holy monk ate in error of the conceiving water; Pilgrim came seeking the As-You-Will Immortal.

The description opens by restating the causal chain in a single couplet, which is what the opening lines of a battle piece are for: they remind the audience what is at stake before any blows land.

Who could have known the True Immortal was a monster at heart, leaning on his strength to keep the Fetus-Dissolving Spring?

那曉 takes 那 as nǎ — how should anyone have known? 倚強 takes 強 as qiáng. The line delivers the narrator's verdict flatly: whatever the man's title says, his conduct is a monster's.

And when at last they met and spoke of the feud between them, the contention was not to be settled as one would wish.

相逢 takes 相 as xiāng. 如然 — as it ought to be — closes the line on a formula of thwarted expectation.

Word met word until it turned to vexation; malice of intent and savagery of feeling demanded requital.

僝僽 is a vernacular pair meaning torment or wrangling, and it belongs to the language of Song and Yuan song-lyric rather than to classical verse. Finding it in a battle piece is a small deliberate drop into a lower style.

This one, for a master's stricken life, came begging water; that one, for a nephew's ruin, would not give the spring.

為侄 takes 為 as wèi, for the sake of. This couplet is the fulcrum: 這一個…那一個 sets the two motives in exact parallel and refuses to rank them, which is the fairest the poem ever gets to the immortal's case.

The as-you-will hook more potent than a scorpion's venom; the gold-banded rod more savage than a dragon's crest.

強如 takes 強 as qiáng; 似 is sì. The weapons are now being compared rather than the men, which is how this form signals the move from argument to combat.

Thrusting wildly at the chest, he plied his fierce might; hooking aslant at the feet, he unfolded his subtle art.

當胸 takes 當 as dāng, at or against. 著腳 takes 著 as zhuó, applied to — the same construction as setting hand to something. From this couplet to the end, every line names a target and a stroke.

A backhand cast of the rod, and the wound was grave; over the shoulder the hook rose, and near the head it lashed.

傷處 takes 處 as chù; 重 is zhòng, grave. 陰手 is a backhanded stroke. The vocabulary here is technical rather than poetic — this is fight commentary.

A rod locking the waist, like a hawk seizing a sparrow; three hooks pressing the crown, like a mantis taking a cicada.

蜋 is printed for 螂 and the printed form is kept. Both similes are predator and prey, and both come from stock — 螳螂捕蟬, the mantis stalking the cicada, carries its own proverb about the hunter who is himself being hunted, which is not an idle thing to invoke over this particular fight.

Back and forth and back again they strove for the mastery; round upon round they turned and returned once more.

回還 takes 還 as huán. Four doubled words in fourteen characters — 往往來來 and 返返復復 — and the repetition enacts the deadlock it describes.

Hook grappling and rod striking, with no telling first from last; nor could one see on which side lay the winning or the losing.

在那邊 takes 那 as nǎ, on which side. The description closes undecided, which is the convention: the verse states a stalemate and the prose that follows breaks it.