蝴蝶兒 A Butterfly Follows The Wolves
行者正然看時，忽聽得山背後有人言語。急回頭視之，乃兩個狼頭妖怪，朗朗的說著話，向西北上走。行者揣道：「這定是巡山的怪物，等老孫跟他去聽聽，看他說些甚的。」捻著訣，念個咒，搖身一變，變做個蝴蝶兒，展開翅，翩翩翻翻，徑自趕上。果然變得有樣範：行者正然看时，忽听得山背后有人言语。急回头视之，乃两个狼头妖怪，朗朗的说着话，向西北上走。行者揣道：「这定是巡山的怪物，等老孙跟他去听听，看他说些甚的。」捻着诀，念个咒，摇身一变，变做个蝴蝶儿，展开翅，翩翩翻翻，径自赶上。果然变得有样范：
逐句解 Line by line
While Pilgrim was looking about him, he suddenly heard people talking behind the mountain.
The rhapsody ends and the plot restarts in the same breath. Voices behind a ridge are how this novel almost always begins an infiltration.
Turning his head quickly to look, he saw two wolf-headed fiends walking toward the north-west, talking away loudly as they went.
著 is zhe here, marking talk that keeps going while they walk — the two actions running together. 朗朗 is clear and carrying, the volume of people who are certain they are alone.
Pilgrim reckoned to himself, "These must be the creatures who patrol the mountain. Let old Monkey follow them and listen a while, and hear what they have to say."
He works out their job before he works out anything else, which is the professional instinct: patrol guards talk, and talk on a route is worth more than talk in a cave.
He pinched his fingers in a sign, said a spell, shook himself and changed, becoming a butterfly. Spreading his wings, he went fluttering and tumbling straight after them.
著 is again the zhe of an action under way — the sign is held between the fingers while the spell is spoken. Of the seventy-two changes available to him he picks the one nobody swats at, which is the whole art of it.
Sure enough, he changed into a fine figure of a thing:
得 is de here, the light syllable that hangs a result on its verb: he changed, and what he changed into had real style. The line cues the second rhapsody.
A pair of powdered wings; two silver feelers.
The rhapsody opens on the parts, not the creature — wings first, then antennae, the way a painter would lay it in.
Riding the wind, he flies off swiftly; catching the sun, he comes dancing slowly.
Swift against slow in a single pair, and each half hangs on a weather word: wind for the going, sunlight for the coming. This is the balanced-pair habit again, tightened to five graphs a side.
Crossing water, clearing walls, he can be quick and nimble; stealing fragrance, toying with catkins, he takes great delight.
偷香, stealing fragrance, is an old euphemism for a love affair, and the rhapsody knows it — this is a butterfly poem with a rake's reputation. Given that Pilgrim is currently wearing the shape in order to eavesdrop, the pun about stealing is doing double duty.
Light of body, he dotes on the taste of fresh flowers; elegant in bearing, sweet in feeling, he furls and unfurls at will.
任卷舒 — furling and unfurling as he pleases — closes the piece on freedom of movement, which is exactly what Pilgrim needs and exactly what his two targets are about to lose.
The novel loves a transformation rhapsody, and this one is a small gem. Eight lines on a butterfly, and not one of them mentions that there is a monkey inside it. We are asked to admire the disguise from the outside, as the wolves will, which is a neat way of making the reader complicit in the trick.
There is a joke running under the whole piece. Every quality praised in the butterfly is a burglar's quality: it crosses water, gets over walls, moves quickly, steals fragrance, and folds itself away when it likes. The poem reads as delicate nature writing and describes a professional infiltrator line by line.
Note also how cheap the disguise is compared with what it buys. A hand-sign, a spell and a shake, and Pilgrim has the whole of it — the stolen weapons, the banquet, the morning it falls on, and the two guards carrying the shopping money. The chapter's whole middle section is bought with a butterfly.