菩薩朝天 Guanyin Ascends to Heaven
且不言天神圍繞，大聖安歇。話表南海普陀落伽山大慈大悲救苦救難靈感觀世音菩薩，自王母娘娘請赴蟠桃大會，與大徒弟惠岸行者，同登寶閣瑤池，見那裡荒荒涼涼，席面殘亂；雖有幾位天仙，俱不就座，都在那裡亂紛紛講論。菩薩與眾仙相見畢，眾仙備言前事。菩薩道：「既無盛會，又不傳杯，汝等可跟貧僧去見玉帝。」眾仙怡然隨往。至通明殿前，早有四大天師、赤腳大仙等眾俱在此，迎著菩薩，即道玉帝煩惱，調遣天兵，擒怪未回等因。菩薩道：「我要見見玉帝，煩為轉奏。」天師丘弘濟即入靈霄寶殿，啟知宣入。時有太上老君在上，王母娘娘在後。且不言天神围绕，大圣安歇。话表南海普陀落伽山大慈大悲救苦救难灵感观世音菩萨，自王母娘娘请赴蟠桃大会，与大徒弟惠岸行者，同登宝阁瑶池，见那里荒荒凉凉，席面残乱；虽有几位天仙，俱不就座，都在那里乱纷纷讲论。菩萨与众仙相见毕，众仙备言前事。菩萨道：「既无盛会，又不传杯，汝等可跟贫僧去见玉帝。」众仙怡然随往。至通明殿前，早有四大天师、赤脚大仙等众俱在此，迎著菩萨，即道玉帝烦恼，调遣天兵，擒怪未回等因。菩萨道：「我要见见玉帝，烦为转奏。」天师丘弘济即入灵霄宝殿，启知宣入。时有太上老君在上，王母娘娘在后。
逐句解 Line by line
But let us leave the heavenly soldiers ringed about him, and the Great Sage to his rest.
且不言 ("say no more, for now, of…") is the storyteller's formula for setting one thread aside to take up another — here the narrative turns from Sun Wukong, besieged on his mountain, up to the gods' deliberations. 大聖 ("Great Sage") is the title 齊天大聖 the monkey has wrung from Heaven.
Our tale now tells of the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin of Potalaka Mountain in the Southern Sea — Great in Mercy, Great in Compassion, who rescues from suffering and from calamity, the Numinous and Responsive One —
話表 ("the tale now tells of") opens the new thread. 觀世音 (Guanshiyin, "Perceiver of the World's Sounds," Skt. Avalokiteśvara) dwells on 普陀落伽山 (Potalaka), her island paradise in the Southern Sea; the heaped titles 大慈大悲, 救苦救難, 靈感 are her standard liturgical epithets.
Ever since the Queen Mother invited her to the Grand Festival of Immortal Peaches, she had ascended with her chief disciple, the pilgrim Huiyan, to the jewelled towers beside the Jasper Pool,
王母娘娘 is the Queen Mother of the West, hostess of the 蟠桃大會 (Festival of Immortal Peaches) the monkey has just wrecked. 惠岸 (Huiyan) — also called 木叉/木吒 (Mokṣa), second son of the pagoda-bearing Heavenly King Li — serves Guanyin as her disciple 行者 ("pilgrim, mendicant").
and found the place desolate and forlorn, the banquet tables in wrecked disarray;
The doubled binome 荒荒涼涼 ("desolate, forlorn") paints the aftermath of Sun Wukong's raid on the feast — the grand assembly reduced to ruin before it could begin.
and though a few celestial immortals were on hand, none had taken their seats — all stood about in a confused babble of talk.
亂紛紛 ("in confused profusion") catches the disorder: robbed of their feast, the immortals mill about in agitation rather than sitting down to it.
When the Bodhisattva had greeted the assembled immortals, they recounted to her in full what had passed.
備言 ("told in full, related in detail") — the immortals lay out the whole affair of the monkey's depredations.
Said the Bodhisattva, "Since there is no festival, and no cups are being passed, you may all come with this humble cleric to see the Jade Emperor."
貧僧 ("this poor monk") is Guanyin's humble first person, the conventional self-deprecation of a Buddhist religious. 傳杯 ("passing the cup round") names the very banquet ritual now abandoned.
The immortals followed her gladly.
怡然 ("contentedly, with pleasure") — relieved of their idleness and given a purpose, they fall in behind her.
Arriving before the Hall of Communicating Brightness, they found the Four Grand Preceptors, the Barefoot Immortal, and others already assembled, who came forward to greet the Bodhisattva,
通明殿 (Hall of Communicating Brightness) fronts the Jade Emperor's throne hall. The 四大天師 (Four Grand Celestial Preceptors) are the Daoist patriarchs who attend him; the 赤腳大仙 (Barefoot Immortal) will soon reappear as the dupe of one of the monkey's tricks.
and told her at once how the Jade Emperor, in his vexation, had marshalled heavenly troops to seize the fiend, who had not yet come back in victory.
調遣天兵 ("dispatched the heavenly soldiers") refers to the hundred-thousand host sent against the monkey under Heavenly King Li in the previous chapter. 擒怪未回 — the expedition's outcome is still unknown.
Said the Bodhisattva, "I wish to see the Jade Emperor; trouble yourselves to announce me."
轉奏 ("relay a memorial upward") — petitions to the throne pass through the attending officials. Even a Bodhisattva keeps the protocol of the celestial court.
The Preceptor Qiu Hongji went straightway into the Treasure Hall of Divine Mists, made his report, and she was summoned in.
丘弘濟 (Qiu Hongji) is one of the Four Grand Preceptors. 靈霄寶殿 (Treasure Hall of Divine Mists) is the Jade Emperor's audience hall, the administrative heart of the Daoist heaven, modelled on the imperial court. (The 世德堂 text reads 丘 where some editions print 邱.)
At that time the Most High Lord Lao was seated above, and the Queen Mother behind.
太上老君 (the Most High Lord Lao) is the deified Laozi, supreme patriarch of Daoism; his presence — and his elixir — will prove decisive at the chapter's end. The seating arranges the three highest powers of the scene: the Jade Emperor, Lord Lao, and the Queen Mother.
This chapter opens by swinging the lens away from the rampaging monkey and up to the celestial bureaucracy he has thrown into disarray. The storyteller's hinge 且不言…話表… ("say no more of… the tale now tells of…") is the standard seam of the vernacular novel (章回小說), stitching one thread to the next; here it carries us from the besieged 花果山 to the wrecked banquet of the 蟠桃大會. The chapter's title — 觀音赴會問原因，小聖施威降大聖 ("Guanyin attends the feast and asks the cause; the Lesser Sage exerts his might and subdues the Great Sage") — is enacted structurally in these first lines: it is Guanyin who, finding the feast in ruins, takes the initiative to lay the matter before the Jade Emperor.
On its surface a piece of connective court narrative, the passage is doing careful work. Wú Chéng'ēn stages Heaven's response to Sun Wukong as an exercise in bureaucracy: petitions are relayed (轉奏), officials announce callers (啟知宣入), and even the Bodhisattva of Compassion must observe protocol to win an audience. The Daoist heaven of Journey to the West is a mirror of the Ming imperial state, with its halls (通明殿, 靈霄寶殿), its ranked preceptors, and its memorials. Against this orderly machinery the monkey — the 心猿, the "mind-monkey" of the allegorical reading — stands as pure disruptive energy, and the comedy of the coming pages lies in the spectacle of an entire cosmic administration mobilised against one unruly creature.
The scene also quietly assembles the players who will decide the chapter's climax. 觀音 arrives with her disciple 惠岸 (Mokṣa), who will be sent down first to take the monkey's measure; 太上老君 sits in attendance, his magic ring 金鋼琢 still hidden in his sleeve; the 赤腳大仙 is named here in passing, having been (as we will learn) the very immortal whose invitation Sun Wukong forged. In allegorical terms the chapter sets Heaven's two great cultivators of mind-and-nature — Guanyin and Laozi — against the undisciplined 心猿, and it is fitting that both are present from the opening tableau. (Readers wanting the fuller allegorical scaffolding may consult Anthony C. Yu's translation and Andrew H. Plaks's The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel.)