A warrior from before the Buddha, not to be matched with the Wind-God of Xun;

⚠ 巽二風神 — the wind god. 巽 is one of the eight three-line figures of the Book of Changes, the one that stands for wind, and the god named for it is a real character in this novel: he turns up in Chapter 45, where Monkey has to stop him blowing during the rain-making contest, and gets addressed by name. actually met, and finding the professional wanting. The four occurrences of that name in the novel are split between that chapter and this line.

an immortal's vent howling in anger, far outdoing the puffing of a young girl.

⚠ 怒號 — to howl in fury. The second character is háo, the crying-out reading, and not the hào of a name or a signal. It occurs twice in the novel and the ordinary chain of readings gets it wrong at both. 仙竅 — an immortal's orifice. The wind is coming out of somebody, which is a good deal less dignified than the line before it, and deliberately so. The comparison to a girl blowing is the poem's way of establishing scale by starting at the bottom.

At this blast the fish and the dragons all lost their holes, and the rivers and seas ran their waves backwards.

⚠ 逆波濤 — drove the waves against their own direction. Water running backwards is the poem's first real claim, and it is the standard Chinese image for the natural order being pushed out of shape. The verse works downward and outward from here: sea, then birds, then trees, then flowers, then the air itself.

The dark ape with fruit in his hands could hardly come forward to offer it; the yellow crane turned back from the clouds to look for its old nest.

⚠ 玄猿捧果 — a dark ape holding out fruit. That is the same picture the Thunderclap set-piece used two thousand characters ago, of an immortal ape in a peach grove; and it is Monkey's own biography turned into scenery for the second time in one chapter. ⚠ Both halves of the line are about a creature failing to complete an errand. The ape cannot deliver the fruit, the crane cannot get home. The wind is being described entirely through interrupted business.

The cinnabar phoenix could not make its clear note come out well; the brocade pheasant's crowing came out a harsh noise.

⚠ 錦雞喔運 — the pheasant's crowing note. That first character occurs ONCE in the whole novel, here, and is the sound of a bird calling; the second is doing duty for the character that means a musical note, which the edition writes with the wrong left-hand part. ⚠ Set the line against the phoenixes of the great Thunderclap set-piece, where one cry of theirs was an omen for the world. Two thousand characters later the same birds cannot sing in tune. The wind has got into the scenery of paradise itself. 丹鳳 — the cinnabar phoenix, which also appeared in the long, unrhymed set-piece on the abbey at the very start of the chapter.

Green pine boughs snapped; the utpala flowers blew loose.

⚠ 優缽 transcribes the Sanskrit for the blue lotus, and it occurs twice in the novel — once in the great description of Thunderclap and once here, being torn off its stem. The verse has been picking up items from the earlier set-piece and damaging them one by one. That is the whole method of this poem and nothing announces it.

Kingfisher bamboo went over pole after pole; the golden lotuses shook bloom by bloom.

⚠ 竿竿 and 朵朵 — pole after pole, bloom by bloom. The doubled measure word again, which this chapter has used for houses, doors, years and pairs of birds, and here uses for destruction. ⚠ 倒 here is dǎo, to go over — the toppling reading, not the dào of on the contrary that this chapter uses four times elsewhere. Both are in these pages.

The bell's voice was carried three thousand lǐ away; the cadence of the chanting flew light over ten thousand ravines.

⚠ And here the poem turns. For six lines the wind has been wrecking things; now it is carrying the temple bell and the sound of the chanting further than they could otherwise go. ⚠ 經韻 — the chanted cadence of the scriptures, the rise and fall of a hall full of monks reciting. The two characters occur once in the whole novel, here. A wind sent to steal scripture is described spreading the sound of it across ten thousand ravines. Nothing in the verse points at that and it is the best thing in the poem.

Below the cliffs the rare flowers had their beauty spoiled; beside the road the jasper grasses were laid flat, bright shoots and all.

⚠ 路傍 — beside the road. páng, the position word, where the ordinary chain of readings gives the bàng of leaning against something — and gets it wrong at all fifty-four of this phrase's sites in thirty chapters. ⚠ 瑤草 again. Jasper grasses were the first thing the pilgrims noticed when the western country began to look different, in the opening block of this chapter, and they were growing under the cliffs of Thunderclap two thousand characters ago. Third appearance, and this time flattened.

The painted luan could hardly work its wings; the white deer took cover under the cliff.

The last of the damage, and it is the smallest: a bird that cannot fly properly and a deer that has gone to hide. ⚠ The luán was one of the pair of birds that came two by two in the Thunderclap set-piece, and the white deer stood in the garden of the Jade-Truth Abbey. Both have been in this chapter before, both undisturbed.

Vast and sweeping, a strange fragrance flooded all space and time; clear and clean, the breath of the wind went right through to the clouds.

⚠ The poem ends on fragrance and clean air, which is not where eleven lines of wreckage were heading. The last couplet takes it all back. ⚠ 異香 — a strange sweetness. Hold that phrase: it is exactly what Tripitaka smells forty characters from now, and exactly why he does not get out of the way. The poem has told him it is fine and it is about to cost him the scriptures. 宇宙 — roof and eaves, past and future: everywhere in space and everywhere in time. Third and last time in this chapter.