用黃金鎖 Locked In A Golden Lock
那娘娘接過來,輕輕的揭開衣箱,把那假鈴收了,用黃金鎖鎖了。卻又與妖王飲了幾杯酒,教侍婢:「淨拂牙床,展開錦被,我與大王同寢。」那娘娘接过来,轻轻的揭开衣箱,把那假铃收了,用黄金锁锁了。却又与妖王饮了几杯酒,教侍婢:「净拂牙床,展开锦被,我与大王同寝。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Queen took them, lifted the lid of the clothes chest gently,
She has been handed three worthless bells and she treats them like the crown jewels. 輕輕 is the doubled word for doing something softly, the same one used when Wukong landed on her hair.
put the false bells away and locked it with a golden lock.
The character 鎖 appears twice running, first as the lock and then as the verb of locking — the same word doing both jobs, which English has to split. 了 is the neutral le.
Then she drank a few more cups with the fiend king,
The party is still going. This is at least the fourth round of the evening, and she is still counting while he is not.
and told the maids, "Dust the ivory bed clean and spread the brocade quilt. I shall sleep with the Great King."
牙床 is a bed inlaid with ivory, the grandest thing in the room. 教 is jiào, to order someone to do a thing.
The gold lock is the joke of the passage. Three counterfeit bells made from a monkey's hair are placed in a clothes chest and secured with a golden lock, by the woman who knows exactly what they are worth. Nobody will open that chest for a long time, which is precisely the point of locking it.
Then she offers to go to bed with him. This is the moment the evening has been aimed at from the beginning — Wukong told her to use a wife's courtesy and coax him to his rest — and she carries it through in front of the maids, giving the orders for the bed to be made.
It is worth remembering what it costs her to say it. She has been held three years by this creature and has just spent a whole night being charming to him. The next passage is the one where she finds out she did not need to.