長安形勝 The Splendor of Chang'an
話表陝西大國長安城，乃歷代帝王建都之地。自周、秦、漢以來，三州花似錦，八水繞城流，真個是名勝之邦。彼時是大唐太宗皇帝登基，改元貞觀，已登極十三年，歲在己巳，天下太平，八方進貢，四海稱臣。话表陕西大国长安城，乃历代帝王建都之地。自周、秦、汉以来，三州花似锦，八水绕城流，真个是名胜之邦。彼时是大唐太宗皇帝登基，改元贞观，已登极十三年，岁在己巳，天下太平，八方进贡，四海称臣。
逐句解 Line by line
Our tale tells of the great realm of Shaanxi and the city of Cháng'ān, the seat where emperors of successive ages had founded their capitals.
長安 (Cháng'ān), the Tang capital, stood on the Wei River plain where dynasty after dynasty had set its seat; in the place-name 長 is read cháng, and 建都 ('to found a capital') takes 都 as dū.
Ever since the Zhou, the Qin, and the Han, its three districts had bloomed like brocade and its eight rivers wound about the walls — truly a land of storied splendor.
The 八水 ('eight rivers') are the streams that ringed Tang Chang'an; 花似錦, 'blossoms like brocade,' is conventional praise, with 似 read sì. Some editions read 三川 ('three rivers') for 三州.
At that time the Emperor Taizong of the great Tang had ascended the throne and changed the reign-style to Zhenguan. He had reigned thirteen years — the year being jǐsì — and all under Heaven was at peace, the eight quarters bringing tribute and the four seas owning themselves his subjects.
貞觀 (Zhenguan) was Taizong's reign-era (627–649). The text dates the action to its thirteenth year, 己巳; by the sexagenary cycle 貞觀十三年 (639) in fact falls in 己亥, the slip being one of the novel's many loose chronological markers.
The chapter that follows — the tale of Chen Guangrui and the birth of the future Tripitaka — does not belong to the earliest recension of the novel. The 1592 Shidetang 世德堂本, the base text for this edition, carries no such chapter here; its ninth chapter is 袁守誠妙算無私曲，老龍王拙計犯天條. The Guangrui story was added as a 附錄 (appendix) by the Qing editors 汪象旭 and 黃周星 in their Kangxi-era 《西遊證道書》, and from there passed into the popular 通行本 as Chapter 9. Anthony C. Yu prints it as Chapter 9 of his translation; Glen Dudbridge's The Hsi-yu chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel remains the standard treatment of the episode's textual history and its roots in the older 江流和尚 legend. This edition gives the 通行本 chapter in full while marking its secondary status.
The opening frames the action in the reign of Taizong (太宗, r. 626–649) and his Zhenguan era — the same historical horizon from which the pilgrimage will later set out. The praise of Chang'an is formulaic: the 'eight rivers' encircling the capital, the 'three districts' blossoming like brocade, an empire at peace receiving tribute from every quarter.