Then the queen came up close, seized Tripitaka in one grip, and called out in a pretty, coaxing voice, 「My dear imperial brother, be pleased to mount the dragon carriage and come up with me to the hall of the golden bells, and let us be matched as husband and wife.」

一把 takes the mechanical *yì* before the third-tone 把 — the same phrase and the same grip Tripitaka used on Pilgrim at the start of the plan passage, now used on Tripitaka. 御弟哥哥 stacks the official title on an intimate address, and the queen coins it here and keeps it for the rest of the chapter.

The elder trembled so that he could not keep his feet, and was like a man drunk, like a man witless.

戰兢兢 is a mimetic reduplication and keeps its defaults; 不 is *bú* before the fourth-tone 住. 似醉如痴 inverts 如醉方醒，似夢初覺 from the plan passage — there Tripitaka woke out of a daze, here he goes back into one.

Pilgrim, at his side, instructed him: 「Master, there is no need for so much modesty. Be pleased to mount the palanquin with our teacher-mother.

教 is *jiào*. 師娘 — teacher-mother, the wife of one's master — is Pilgrim's own coinage for the queen, and delivering it deadpan in front of the whole court is the most audacious line he speaks in the chapter.

Have the passport countersigned quickly, and let us be off to fetch the scriptures.」

倒換 takes 倒 as *dǎo*; 去罷 takes 罷 as the sentence-final particle *ba*, not the verb *bà* of 茶罷. Position decides, as always with this graph.

The elder dared not answer; he gave Pilgrim two rubs with his hand, and could not stop the tears from falling.

落 is *luò* — pypinyin gives *là* here, as it did at 墜落 in the plan passage. 把行者抹了兩抹 is a small private signal, hand to sleeve, made where the court cannot see it; the novel does not say what it means and neither does Pilgrim.

「Master, do not distress yourself,」 said Pilgrim. 「Such wealth and rank as this — and you will not enjoy it? What are you waiting for?」

還 is *hái*; 哩 is *li* by GLOBAL_PY. Pilgrim is still performing for the audience, and the line is cruel if taken straight and kind if taken as cover. Tripitaka, weeping, has to take it one way in public and the other in private.

Tripitaka had no help for it and could only comply. He wiped his eyes, forced his face into a cheerful set, stepped forward, and with the sovereign lady —

沒 is *méi*; 只得 takes 得 as *dé*; 強整 takes 強 as *qiáng*. **The sentence does not end here.** 與女主 is a coverb phrase — 'together with the sovereign lady' — and its verb is the first line of the verse that follows, 同攜素手，共坐龍車. The `：` is the editor's mark introducing the verse, not a break in the syntax; the English therefore ends on a dash rather than a stop. This is why the passage is not split at the tag (flag E2).

took hands, pale hand in pale hand, and shared the dragon carriage.

素手 — plain or white hands — is a poeticism for a woman's hands, applied here to both parties. The line completes the prose sentence above and is at the same time the opening four-and-four couplet of the verse, which is precisely the irregularity the kickoff brief flagged in this block.

The sovereign lady, all gladness, desired to be joined as man and wife; the elder, all dread, thought only of worshipping Buddha.

喜孜孜 and 憂惶惶 are matched mimetic reduplications and keep their defaults; 佛 is *fó*. The antithesis that governs the whole piece is stated here for the first time and will be restated four more ways before the verse ends.

The one would have the bridal chamber, the flowering candles, the mated ducks; the other would have the Spirit Mountain of the Western Region, and the sight of the World-Honoured One.

洞房花燭 is the fixed four-graph phrase for a wedding night; 鴛侶 are mandarin ducks as a figure for a married pair. 靈山 is Vulture Peak and 世尊 renders *bhagavat*, the World-Honoured One. Two complete and incompatible futures are set in exactly parallel syntax.

The woman emperor in true feeling; the holy monk in false.

女帝真情，聖僧假意 is the couplet the passage is named for. Four graphs against four, and the piece will now expand each half in turn — a small structural figure, statement then gloss, of the kind the novel's set verses use to organise an antithesis.

The woman emperor in true feeling, hoping for concord and to grow old together;

指望和諧同到老 is what she actually wants, and the verse says so without irony. The novel is careful, here as everywhere in this chapter, not to make her ridiculous.

the holy monk in false, hiding his feeling away close and nourishing his primal spirit.

牢藏 takes 藏 as *cáng*, to store or conceal — the first occurrence in this chapter of 藏 on any reading but the *zàng* of 三藏, and pypinyin defaults correctly to *cáng* only because the collocation is unambiguous. 養元神 answers 喪元陽 from the plan passage: what he refused to lose there he is keeping here.

The one, glad at the sight of a man's body, could hardly wait to lay their heads together in broad day and be husband and wife;

恨不得 takes 得 as *dé*, the modal in a fixed idiom of impatient wishing. 伉儷 is the formal literary word for a married couple, and setting it against 白晝並頭 — heads together in daylight — is a deliberate collision of registers.

the other, afraid to meet a woman's beauty, thought only of slipping the net that instant and going up to Thunderclap.

思量 takes 量 as *liáng*. 脫網 is the chapter's own word for the plan — 假親脫網 — so the verse is quoting the scheme back at the reader. 雷音 is Thunderclap Monastery, the pilgrimage's destination.

The two came together and mounted the palanquin as one — who would have guessed the Tang monk had a mind apart?

各有心 — each has his own mind — closes the verse on the fact that makes the whole tableau false. 和會同登輦 describes what an onlooker sees; the second line supplies what only the reader and three disciples know.