by Wu Cheng-En
The monster shot forward as a stream of sparks, with the Great Sage behind him on his coloured cloud. As he was racing along, Monkey saw a tall mountain appear in front of them. Here the monster put himself together again by reassembling the sparks, rushed into a cave, and came out with a nine-pronged rake in his hand to do battle.
“Wretch,” shouted Monkey, “where are you from? How do you know my name, you evil demon? What powers have you got? Tell me honestly, and I'll spare your life.”
“You don't know what I can do,” the monster replied. “Come a little nearer and stand still while I tell you:
I was born stupid,
An idler and a slacker.
I never nourished my nature or cultivated the truth,
But spent my time in primal ignorance.
Then I happened to meet a true Immortal,
Who sat down with me and chatted about the weather,
Advised me to reform and not to sink among mortals,
For taking life was a heinous sin.
One day, when my life came to an end,
It would be too late to regret the punishments in store.
His words moved me to seek reform,
And my heart longed for miraculous spells.
I was lucky enough to have him as my teacher;
He showed me the gates of Heaven and Earth.
He taught me the Nine Changes and the Great Return of Cinnabar,
As we worked by night and day with never a break.
It reached up to the Mud Ball Palace in my head,
And down to the Bubbling Spring in my feet.
The circulating magic liquid reached the Flowery Pool under my tongue,
And the Cinnabar Field in my abdomen was given extra warmth.
The Babe, lead, and the Girl, mercury, were married,
And combining together, they divided into sun and moon.
The Dragon and the Tiger were harmonized,
The Sacred Tortoise drank the Golden Crow's blood.
The Three Flowers gathered at the top and returned to the root.
The Five Essences faced the Origin and flowed in all directions.
When their work was done, I could fly,
And the Immortals of Heaven came in pairs to greet me.
Coloured clouds grew beneath my feet,
As I faced Heavenly Palace gates with a body light and strong.
The Jade Emperor gave a banquet for all the Immortals,
And all lined up according to their grades.
I was made Field Marshal in charge of the Milky Way,
Commanding all the sailors on that river in the sky.
When the Queen Mother gave a Peach Banquet,
She invited many guests to the Jade Pool.
As drunkenness clouded my mind that day,
I lurched and staggered around.
As I charged in drunken pride into the Cool Broad Palace
I was greeted by an exquisite immortal maiden.
At the sight of her beauty my soul was captivated,
And I could not repress my mortal passions of old.
Losing all sense of rank and dignity,
I seized the beauty and asked her to sleep with me.
Three times, four times she refused,
Dodging and trying to hide in her distress.
Great was the courage of my lust, and I roared like thunder,
All but shaking down the gates of heaven.
The Miraculous Inspecting Officer reported to the Jade Emperor,
And from that day I was doomed.
The Cool Broad Palace was closely surrounded.
I could neither advance nor retreat: escape was impossible.
Then I was arrested by the gods,
But as I was still drunk I was not scared.
I was marched to the Hall of Miraculous Mist to see the Jade Emperor,
And, after questioning, sentenced to death.
Luckily the Great White Planet
Stepped forward, bowed low, and interceded.
My sentence was commuted to two thousand strokes of the heavy rod,
Which tore my flesh and all but smashed my bones.
I was released alive and expelled from Heaven,
So I tried to make a living on the Mount of Blessing.
For my sins I was reborn from the wrong womb,
And now I am known as Iron-haired Pig.”
“So you are an earthly reincarnation of Marshal Tian Peng,” said Brother Monkey when he heard this. “No wonder you knew my name.”
“Ha,” the monster snorted angrily. “Your insane rebellion caused trouble for very many of us, Protector of the Horses. Have you come here to throw your weight around again? I'll teach you some manners. Take this!” Monkey was in no mood to spare him after this, and he struck at the monster's head with his cudgel. The pair of them fought a magnificent midnight battle on that mountainside:
Monkey's golden pupils flashed with lightning;
The monster's glaring eyes sparked silver.
One disgorged coloured mist,
The other breathed out red clouds.
The red clouds lit up the night;
The coloured mists illuminated the darkness.
A gold-banded cudgel,
A nine-toothed rake,
And two splendid heroes.
One a Great Sage down among the mortals,
The other a marshal banished from Heaven.
One had been stripped of his honors and become a monster,
The other had been saved when he took service with a priest.
When the rake attacked, it was like a dragon stretching its claws;
The cudgel blocked it as nimbly as a phoenix flying through flowers.
Pig said,
“In wrecking my marriage your crime is as great as parricide.”
Monkey replied,
“You deserve to be arrested for raping that young girl.”
Amid these exchanges
And wild shouts,
The cudgel and the rake crossed and clashed.
They fought each other till the day began to dawn,
And the monster's arms were tired right out.
They fought from the second watch of the night until the sky began to grow light in the East. The monster, no longer able to resist his enemy, broke away and fled, turning himself into a hurricane again. He went straight back to his cave, shut the gates behind him, and did not come out. Monkey saw a stone tablet outside the cave on which was inscribed CLOUD PATHWAY CAVE. The monster did not come out again and it was now broad daylight, so Monkey thought that as his master might be waiting for him he had better go back to see him. He could come back later to catch the monster. He gave his cloud a kick and was back in Old Gao Village in an instant.
Sanzang, meanwhile, had been talking all night with the elders about things ancient and modern, and had not slept a wink. Just as he was beginning to think that Brother Monkey would not come back, Monkey appeared in the courtyard, put away his iron club, straightened his clothes, and entered the main room.
“Master, I'm here,” he announced, giving the old men such a surprise that they all fell to their knees and thanked him for his efforts.
“You've been out all night, Monkey,” Sanzang said. “Where did you catch that evil spirit?”
“He's no common or garden ghost, master,” Monkey replied, “and he isn't an ordinary wild animal turned monster. He is Marshal Tian Peng, who was exiled to the mortal world. As he was placed in the wrong womb he has a face like a wild boar, but he's still kept his original divine nature. He says that he takes his name from his looks and is called Zhu Ganglie, Iron-haired Pig. I was going to kill him in the building at the back, but he turned into a hurricane and fled. When I struck at this wind, he changed into sparks, went straight back to his cave, came out with a nine-pronged rake, and fought me all night. He broke off the engagement in terror as the dawn broke and shut himself in his cave. I was going to smash down the gates and have
it out with him, but then it occurred to me that you might be worried after waiting for me so long, so I came back to put you in the picture first.”
After Monkey had made his report, Squire Gao came up and knelt before him saying, “Venerable sir, I'm afraid that although you've chased him away, he'll come back after you've gone; so this is no real solution. Please, I beg of you, catch him for me and exterminate him to prevent trouble later. I promise you that I shall not be remiss if you do this for me, and there will, of course, be rich rewards. I shall write a deed, witnessed by my relations and friends, giving you half of my property and my land. Please, please eradicate this evil weed and save the honour of the family.”
“You've got no sense of what's proper, old man,” replied Monkey with a grin. “He told me that although he may have put away a lot of your rice and tea, he's also done you a lot of good. You've piled up a lot of wealth in the past few years, all thanks to his efforts. He says he hasn't been eating your food in idleness, and wants to know why you're trying to have him exorcised. He maintains that he is a heavenly Immortal come down to earth who has been working for your family and has never harmed your daughter. I would say that he is a very fitting son-in-law for you, who does your family's name no harm. You really ought to keep him.”
“Venerable sir,” the old man replied, “he may never have done anything wicked, but it does our reputation no good to have a son-in-law like him. Whether he does anything or not, people say that the Gaos have asked a monster to marry into the family, and I simply can't bear to hear a thing like that.”
“Go and have it out with him, and then we'll see what to do,” said Sanzang.
“I'll try a trick on him this time,” Monkey replied. “I guarantee to bring him back this time for you to look at. But don't be angry with him.”
“Old Gao,” he continued, addressing the old man, “look after my master well. I'm off.”
By the time the words were out of his mouth, he had disappeared. He leapt up the mountain and smashed the gates of the cave to splinters with a single blow of his cudgel, shouting, “Come out and fight Monkey, you chaff-guzzling moron.” The monster, who had been snoring inside, heard the gates being smashed and the insulting “chaff-guzzling moron,” and went wild with fury.
Seizing his rake and summoning up his spirit, he rushed out and shrieked, “You shameless Protector of the Horses. What have I ever done to you to make you smash down my gates? You'd better take a look at the statute book: there's the death penalty for breaking and entering.”
“You fool,” laughed Monkey, “I've got a very good justification for smashing your gates-you abducted a girl by force, without matchmakers or witnesses, and without giving proper presents or observing the right ceremonies. You're a fine one to talk about who deserves to have his head cut off.”
“Stop talking such nonsense and see how this rake of mine strikes you,” the monster replied.
Blocking the blow with his cudgel, Monkey retorted, “Is that the rake you used when you were tilling the fields and growing vegetables for the Gaos as their hired hand? What's so wonderful about it that I should be afraid of you?”
“You don't realize that it's no ordinary weapon,” the monster replied. “You'd better listen while I tell you about it:
This was refined from divine ice-iron,
Polished till it gleamed dazzling white,
Hammered by Lord Lao Zi himself,
While Ying Huo fed the fire with coal-dust.
The Five Emperors of the Five Regions applied their minds to it,
The Six Dings and Six jias went to great efforts.
They made nine teeth of jade,
Cast a pair of golden rings to hang beneath them,
Decorated the body with the Six Bright Shiners and the Five planets,
Designed it in accordance with the Four Seasons and the Eight Divisions.
The length of top and bottom match Heaven and Earth.
Positive and Negative were to left and right, dividing the sun and moon.
The Six Divine Generals of the Oracular Lines are there, following the Heavenly Code;
The constellations of the Eight Trigrams are set out in order.
It was named the Supremely Precious Gold-imbued Rake,
And served to guard the gates of the Jade Emperor's palace.
As I had become a great Immortal,
I now enjoyed eternal life,
And was commissioned as Marshal Tian Peng,
With this rake to mark my imperial office.
When I raise it, fire and light stream forth;
When I lower it, a snowy blizzard blows.
It terrifies the Heavenly Generals,
And makes the King of Hell too quake with fear.
There is no other weapon matching it on Earth,
Nor iron to rival it throughout the world.
It changes into anything I like,
And leaps about whenever I say the spell.
For many a year I've carried it around,
Keeping it with me every single day.
I will not put it down even to eat,
Nor do I when I sleep at night.
I took it with me to the Peach Banquet,
And carried it into the celestial court.
When I sinned my sin in drunken pride,
I used it to force compliance with my evil will.
When Heaven sent me down to the mortal dust,
I committed all kinds of wickedness down here.
I used to devour people in this cave,
Until I fell in love and married in Gao Village.
This rake has plunged beneath the sea to stir up dragons,
And climbed high mountains to smash up tigers' dens.
No other blade is worth a mention
Besides my rake, the sharpest weapon ever.
To win a fight with it requires no effort;
Of course it always brings me glory.
Even if you have an iron brain in a brazen head and a body of steel,
This rake will scatter your souls and send your spirit flying.”
Monkey put his cudgel away and replied, “Stop shooting your mouth off, you idiot. I'm now sticking my head out for you to hit. Let's see you scatter my souls and send my spirits flying.” The monster raised his rake and brought it down with all his might, but although flames leapt forth, it did not even scratch Monkey's scalp.
The monster's arms and legs turned to jelly with fright as he exclaimed, “What a head, what a head.”
“You wouldn't know,” Monkey replied. “When I was captured by the Little Sage for wrecking the Heavenly Palace, stealing the pills of immortality and the heavenly peaches, and filching the imperial wine, I was marched to a place outside the Dipper and Bull Palace, where all the gods of Heaven hacked at me with axes, hit me with maces, cut at me with swords, stabbed at me with daggers, tried to burn me with lightning, and pounded me with thunder; but none of it hurt me in the slightest. Then I was taken off by the Great High Lord Lao and put in the Eight Trigrams Furnace, where I was refined with divine fire, so that my eyes are now fiery, my pupils golden, my head brazen, and my shoulders of iron. If you don't believe me, try a few more blows to see whether you can hurt me or not.”
“I remember you, you baboon,” the monster replied. “When you made trouble in Heaven, you lived in the Water Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit in the land of Aolai in the Continent of Divine Victory. I haven't heard of you for a very long time. What brings you here, and why are you bullying me in front of my own gates? Surely my father-in-law didn't go all that way to ask you to come here?”
“No,” said Monkey, “he didn't. I have turned away from evil and been converted to good. I have given up Taoism and become a Buddhist. I am protecting the Patriarch Sanzang, the younger brother of the Great Tang Emperor, on his journey to the Western Heaven to visit the Buddha and ask for the scriptures. We happened to ask for a night's lodging when we came to Gao Village, and in the course
of our conversation Old Gao asked me to rescue his daughter and capture you, you chaff-guzzling moron.”
The monster dropped his rake to the ground, chanted a respectful “na-a-aw,” and said, “Where's this pilgrim? Please take me to meet him.”
“What do you want to see him for?” Monkey asked.
“Guanyin converted me and told me to obey the monastic rules and eat vegetarian food here till I could go with that pilgrim, the one who's going to the Western Heaven to worship the Buddha and ask for the scriptures. I'll be able to make up for my sins through this good deed, and win a good reward. I've been waiting for him for years, but there's been no news of him till now. If you're a disciple of his, why didn't you say something about fetching the scriptures before, instead of making this vicious attack on me in my own home?”
“This had better not be a trick to soften me up and make me let you get away,” said Monkey. “If you really want to protect the Tang Priest and you aren't trying to kid me, then you'd better make a vow to Heaven, and I'll take you to meet my master.” The monster fell to his knees with a thud, and kowtowed to the sky so often that he looked like a rice pestle.
“Amitabha Buddha,” he cried out, “if I'm not completely sincere, cut me up into ten thousand bits for breaking the laws of Heaven.”
After hearing him swear this oath, Monkey said, “Very well then, now light a brand and burn this place of yours out. If you do that, I'll take you.” The monster piled up some reeds and brambles, lit a brand, and set the Cloud Pathway Cave on fire; it burned as well as a brick kiln that has got out of control. “I've no second thoughts,” he said, “so please take me to see him.”
“Give me that rake of yours,” Monkey ordered, and the monster obediently handed it over. Monkey then plucked out a hair, blew on it with magic breath, and shouted, “Change!” It turned into three lengths of hempen rope, with which he bound the monster's hands behind his back; the monster docilely put his hands there and let Monkey tie him up. Then Monkey seized him by the ear and led him off with the words, “Quick march.”
“Take it easy,” the monster pleaded. “You're pulling so hard you're hurting my ear.”
“Can't be done,” Monkey replied. “Can't show you any favours. As the old saying has it, 'even a good pig must be handled roughly.' Wait until you've seen my master. If you really are sincere, you'll be released then.” The two of them went back through cloud and mist to Gao Village, and there is a poem to prove it: