It turned out that the two leaves of the stone gate there had been reduced to ashes by the heat of the fire, and inside the gateway a few little imps were sweeping the ground and scooping up the cinders.

Deictic 那裡: 那 = nà; 石門: 石 = shí; 兩扇: 扇 = shàn, the leaf of a door; 化成: 化 = huà.

Suddenly seeing the whole company of sages arrive together, they were so alarmed that they dropped their brooms, flung down their ash-rakes, and ran inside to report again: "Sun Wukong has brought a great many celestial gods, and is outside the gate cursing us to battle!"

慌得: 得 = dé; 丟了: 了 = le; 領著: durative 著 = zhe; sentence-final 哩 = li. 罵戰 = "to curse an enemy out to fight," the formal challenge of vernacular battle narrative.

That Rhinoceros fiend heard the report with a start: with a grinding crunch his steel teeth ground and rang; with a rolling glare his ring-round eyes opened wide.

The two units are joined at the ；, which falls inside one sentence. Deictic 那兕怪: 那 = nà. 扢迸迸 and 滴溜溜 are mimetic triplets — one for the grinding of teeth, one for the roll of the eyes.

Levelling his long spear and taking the treasure with him, he came out at the gate and cursed him roundly: "You thieving ape, that raids a camp and sets fires!

挺著: durative 著 = zhe; 長槍: 長 = cháng; 帶了: 了 = le. 帶了寶貝 — he does not come out without it, which the narrative has been careful to establish twice over.

"How great are these powers of yours, that you dare hold me so cheap?"

藐視 = "to look on with contempt." The taunt is the cue the poem needs: Pilgrim is being asked, in as many words, what he can do.

Pilgrim, with a laughing face, cursed back: "Foul monster! You want to know what my powers are — come forward, then, and I will tell you and you shall hear:

笑臉兒: suffix 兒 = er. The verse tag 我說與你聽： closes the prose run and is hand-sliced from the first couplet, which the split_verse unit had fused to it.

From my birth I was born to such powers; / through the ten thousand miles of heaven and earth my name rang out.

The poem is thirty-five seven-syllable couplets on a single rhyme, the 陽 class, held from 揚 in this first couplet to 王 in the last. 乾坤: 乾 = qián, the trigram (not the gān of "dry"); 強 = qiáng.

In those days, quick of understanding, I cultivated the Way of the immortals; / in years gone by there was handed down to me the recipe against age.

當時: 當 = dāng, temporal. 不老方 = "the prescription for not growing old" — the alchemical formula of Chapter 2.

I set my will and went to bow at the Land of the Square Inch; / with reverent heart I sought audience in the country of the sage.

方寸地 and 聖人鄉 are the Mountain of Mind and Heart and the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars, where Subodhi taught him — 方寸 ("the square inch") is a standing figure for the heart. 參見: 參 = cān ("to attend upon").

I learned to perfection the measureless art of transformation; / through the vast void of the universe I raged at my pleasure.

無量法: 量 = liàng, the noun. 長空: 長 = cháng ("the long void"), not zhǎng.

Idle, before the mountain I laid the tigers low; / restless, within the seas I brought the dragons down.

將虎伏: 將 = jiāng, the disposal coverb. 把龍降: 降 = xiáng ("to subdue"), not the jiàng of "to send down" — the parallel with 伏 in the line above settles it, and xiáng keeps the rhyme.

In my ancestral seat on Flower Fruit Mountain I was styled a king; / in the Water Curtain Cave I made my hard strength felt.

稱王位: 稱 = chēng; 剛強: 強 = qiáng.

Time and again I had a mind to seize the borders of heaven; / more than once, in my ignorance, I made a snatch at the region above.

數次: 數 = shù, the indefinite numeral. 無知 is the poem's own word for it, and the whole autobiography turns on the admission.

By imperial gift I was named Great Sage Equal to Heaven; / by edict of investiture there was given me besides the style of Handsome Monkey King.

The order is history reversed for the rhyme: he took the title 美猴王 himself in Chapter 1, and 齊天大聖 was conceded by the Jade Emperor in Chapter 4. The poem makes both look like gifts of the throne.

Only because the Peach Banquet was set out / and no card came to invite me — and my nature is hard —

相邀: 相 = xiāng. 無簡 = "no written invitation"; the slight, not the peaches, is what the couplet puts first.

I broke in secret upon the Jasper Pool and stole the liquor of jade; / I walked unbidden in the treasure pavilion and drank the ruby wine.

瑤池 is the Queen Mother's Jasper Pool; 玉液 and 瓊漿 are the two standing names for the wine of immortality.

Dragon's liver and phoenix marrow I once stole and ate; / a hundred savours of rare viands I tasted by theft.

龍肝鳳髓 is a fixed phrase for food of impossible rarity; 珍饈 = "rare delicacies." The verbs are the point — 偷 and 竊, stolen and pilfered, in successive lines.

Peaches of a thousand years I took at my pleasure for use; / elixir pills of ten thousand years I let fill my belly.

千載: 載 = zǎi, the "year" reading (pypinyin gives the zài of "to carry" for both occurrences in this chapter). The two thefts that cost most: the peaches of the Queen Mother's orchard and Lord Lao's pills of gold cinnabar. The second is the one that matters in this chapter, since it is why the ox-servant fell asleep and the ring went missing.

Of the strange things of the Celestial Palace I took every kind; / of the rare treasures of the sacred halls I hid away every piece.

件件藏: 藏 = cáng ("to store away"), not the zàng of 三藏. 般般 and 件件 are distributive reduplications — "each and every sort," "every single one."