翻觔斗 A Somersault In His Palm
逐句解 Line by line
"I gripped this same As-You-Will cudgel, turned over and fought my way up to the Jade Dragon Terrace.
這條 — this same one — points at the weapon in his hand while he speaks. The cudgel he used against Heaven is the cudgel currently pointed at the fiend.
"Every star and every constellation went into hiding, and I made havoc in Heaven exactly as I pleased.
歪 is crooked, askew — 任我歪 is roughly let me go as wrong as I liked. It is a slangy, cheerful word to put at the top of a boast.
"The patrolling Numinous Officer hurried off to fetch the Buddha, and Śākyamuni matched his powers against mine.
伽 is jiā: 釋伽 is a variant writing of 釋迦, Śākya, the Buddha's clan name. The base reading offers gā, which belongs to sound-spelling foreign syllables and is wrong for a name every reader knows.
"Inside the palm of his hand I turned somersaults, travelled the whole circuit of heaven and came back again.
斗 is dǒu — 觔斗 is a somersault, and the base reading offers dòu, which in the traditional script is a different character altogether. 周天 is the full circuit of the heavens, a term from both astronomy and inner alchemy.
這條如意棒 is a small piece of stagecraft. He says this cudgel, not my cudgel, because he is holding it up while he recites — the weapon that fought Heaven is the one currently levelled at a monster outside a cave. The poem is being performed with a prop.
任我歪 is the most cheerful line in the whole recitation and the hardest to translate. 歪 means crooked, off-kilter, out of true; 任我歪 is let me be as bent as I liked. Coming after four lines about surviving execution, it has the tone of a man remembering the best week of his life.
The somersault in the palm is the famous one, and the poem gives it a line and a half. He turns cartwheels inside the Buddha's hand, tours the entire circuit of heaven, comes back — and the next passage will tell you he never left. Wukong narrates his own defeat without once conceding it.