高山遇怪 The Demon of the High Mountain
菩薩與他別了，同木吒徑奔東土。行了多時，又見一座高山，山上有惡氣遮漫，不能步上。正欲駕雲過山，不覺狂風起處，又閃上一個妖魔。他生得又甚兇險，但見他：菩萨与他别了，同木咤径奔东土。行了多时，又见一座高山，山上有恶气遮漫，不能步上。正欲驾云过山，不觉狂风起处，又闪上一个妖魔。他生得又甚凶险，但见他：
逐句解 Line by line
The Bodhisattva took leave of him and, with Moksa, made straight for the Eastern Land. After traveling a good while, they came upon a high mountain wreathed in baleful vapor, which they could not climb. Just as they meant to ride the cloud across it, of a sudden a wild wind arose, and up sprang another demon, fearsome and savage of form. They saw him thus:
不覺 is before they knew it, 覺 read jué. In 生得 the descriptive 得 is the light de. Each 一 — 一座, 一個 — takes yí before a falling tone. 但見他 is the cue for the portrait.
Rolled-up tripe like a lotus-pod for a dangling snout,
Here is the future Zhu Bajie, and the description opens at the snout. 捲臟 is that pursed, tripe-like muzzle; 臟 is read zàng.
ears like rush-fans, and flashing golden eyes.
扇 is shàn, the fan. Ears like rush-fans above golden eyes: the boar gets his two most recognisable features first, and no reader has ever needed to be told which animal this is.
His tusks keen-edged as steel files,
鋼剉 is a steel file. The comparison is to a tool rather than a weapon, which keeps the whole portrait down in the workshop.
his long maw, gaping, like a brazier.
長嘴 is the long snout, 長 read cháng; 似 is sì.
A golden helm strapped tight beneath his jaw,
繫 is xì, to tie. The armour gets described by its fastenings before its plates, exactly as the cassock will be a few chapters from now.
his laced armor and silk cords like a python's sloughed scales.
勒 is lēi, to strap tight, and 絛 is tāo, a silk cord. 蟒退鱗 is the skin a python has sloughed: his armour is made of what a snake threw away.
In his hand a spiked rake like a dragon stretching its claws,
釘鈀 is the nine-toothed rake, Bajie's weapon for the rest of the novel — a farm implement, which is the joke, wielded by a former admiral of heaven.
at his waist a curved bow like a half-wheel moon.
月半輪 makes the strung bow a half-moon, the one thing in an otherwise wholly material portrait that is borrowed from the sky.
Stalwart, his menace overawes the Year-Star,
太歲 is Jupiter as the dreaded Year-Star god, whose position in the sky you avoided building on. The phrase survives in a warning still used today — breaking ground on Taisui's head, meaning to pick a fight with someone far above your weight.
high-spirited, his temper bears down the very gods of Heaven.
昂昂 ends the description on bearing rather than equipment, and the boast it makes — that he overawes the gods — is precisely what the next passage puts to the test.
The road east produces a second obstacle, a mountain wrapped in bad air, and out of it comes the third future disciple: the boar who will be Zhu Bajie. As with Sha Wujing at the river, he is announced by a portrait-poem, here ten lines of strict verse cataloguing his grotesque and heavily armed person.
The form is worth noticing. The river-monster got a 賦, loose parallel lines of any length; this is 排律, strict seven-syllable regulated verse, and so it takes the plain reader's-edition treatment with couplet markers on its closing lines rather than the rhapsody chip. The distinction is deliberate in the novel's prosody — the same descriptive job can be done by either form, and the encoding follows what is actually on the page.
Yu draws attention to the blend of beast and soldier: tusks, golden eyes and a tripe-like snout on one side; helm, armour, rake and bow on the other. It fixes Bajie's double nature before he opens his mouth. He is a creature of pure appetite kitted out like a heavenly marshal, which is exactly what his backstory is about to reveal him to be.