by Wu Cheng-En
When the trident came the cudgel parried,
When the cudgel struck the trident blocked.
One was supreme commander of the mountain,
The other was the Handsome Monkey King, Protector of the Law.
At first they fought in the dust,
But then they rose into mid-air.
The steel-tipped trident
Was bright-pointed and deadly sharp;
The As-You-Will cudgel
Was black and banded with gold.
Whoever was run through would go to the Underworld;
If either was hit he would surely meet King Yama.
All depended on a fast hand and a quick eye;
Strength and vigor were essential.
Each was mindless of life or death,
Who would survive, and who would be killed?
After some thirty rounds of combat between the old fiend and the Great Sage the issue was still not settled. As Monkey wanted to win glory he used an “extra body” trick: plucking a hair out, he chewed it into little bits, blew them all out, and shouted, “Change!” They turned into well over a hundred Monkeys, all dressed like him and wielding iron cudgels. They surrounded the monster in mid-air, and in his fright he countered with a trick of his own. He turned his head sharply to the Southeast opened his mouth three times, and blew. A yellow hurricane suddenly arose. It was really terrible.
As it howled and moaned all was changed;
Without sign or shadow the yellow dust whirled,
Whistling through forests, toppling mountains, and uprooting trees,
Picking up dust to blot out the tumbling ridge.
The Yellow River's waters were all in turmoil,
While the Yangtse's waves were blown backwards.
The Polar palace was rocked in the sky,
The Senluo Palace in the Underworld was all but blown down.
Heaven was filled with the shouting of Arhats,
The Eight Great Vajrapanis were all yelling wildly.
Manjusri's black-coated lion fled,
Samantabhadra's white elephant was nowhere to be found.
The True Martial Emperor's tortoise and snake were missing,
Zi Tong's mule was blown away by its saddle-cloth.
Travelling merchants called on Heaven,
Boatmen made vows to the gods as they sought safety.
Lives were washed away in the torrent,
Fortune or death was decided by the waters.
The cave palace on the magic mountain was murky dark,
And Penglai, island of joy, was wrapped in gloom.
Lao Zi could hardly manage to look after his furnace,
The Star of Longevity put away his fan of dragon's beard grass.
The Queen Mother, on her way to a Peach Banquet,
Had the pendants at her waist blown in a tangle.
Erlang could not find his city of Guanzhou;
Nezha could scarcely draw his sword from its scabbard.
Heavenly King Li lost sight of the pagoda in his hand,
Lu Ban the carpenter dropped his gold-tipped awl.
Three stories of the pagoda at Thunder Monastery fell,
And the stone bridge at Zhaozhou collapsed.
The red wheel of the sun sent out no light,
And all the stars in the sky were dimmed.
The birds of the Southern hills were carried to the North,
The waters of the East lake flowed to the West.
Husband was parted from wife,
Mother snatched from child.
The dragon king searched the seas for his yakshas,
The thunder god hunted everywhere for his lightning.
The Ten Kings of hell looked for the judge,
While the bull-headed demons searched for the horse-faced.
This hurricane overturned Potaraka Island,
Rolling up all of Guanyin's scriptures.
The white lotus went flying beyond the seas,
And the twelve courts of the Bodhisattva were all blown down.
Pan Gu, who had seen all winds since creation,
Had never seen one as fine as this,
Howl, howl-
As mountains and seas trembled,
Heaven and Earth were all but blasted asunder.
The hurricane that the monster had summoned up made all the little Monkeys that the Great Sage had produced from his hair whirl round in mid-air like so many spinning-wheels, and, far from being able to use their cudgels, they could not even control their own bodies. At this critical moment Monkey shook his hair and put it back on his body, then advanced to give battle with his iron cudgel held high. The monster blew another yellow hurricane at him, and it was so strong that Monkey had to shut his fiery eyes with their golden pupils tight. Opening them was out of the question. Unable to use his iron cudgel, he had to flee from the scene of battle, at which the monster put his wind away and went back to his cave.
When Pig saw the great yellow hurricane blow up and cast Heaven and Earth into darkness, he held on to the horse and kept a grip on the carrying pole while he crouched in the hollow on the mountain side, not daring to open his eyes or raise his head as he invoked the Buddha and made all sorts of vows to him. He did not know whether Monkey had won or lost, or whether their master was still alive. As he worried about all this the wind died down and the sky became clear again. He raised his head to look towards the entrance of the cave, but he could neither see any weapons nor hear any gongs or drums. The idiot did not want to get any nearer to those gates, and there was nobody else to look after the horse and the baggage, so he was stuck there, not knowing what to do, and feeling miserable. His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Monkey shouting to the West of him. Pig half rose to his feet to welcome him and said, “That was quite a wind, elder brother. Where've you been?”
“That was terrible,” said Monkey, “Never in my life have I known such a hurricane. That old fiend came out to fight me with a steel trident, and after we'd been at it for thirty rounds I used my extra body trick to surround him. This made him so worried that he deliberately summoned up the wind. It was really vicious-it blew so hard I couldn't stand my ground, so I had to put my tricks away and clear out. What a wind, what a wind! I can call up wind or rain, but I've never produced anything as vicious as his.”
“Can that evil monster fight well?” Pig asked.
“He's not bad at all,” Monkey replied, “and he has a very neat way with this trident. We were evenly matched, apart from that foul wind, which makes him unbeatable.”
“Then how are we going to rescue our master?” Pig asked.
“His rescue will have to wait,” Monkey replied. “I wonder if there's an oculist near here to treat my eyes.”
“What's happened to them?” Pig asked.
“When that monster blew his wind at me,” said Monkey, “it made my eyes very sore, and they keep on watering.”
“We're halfway up a mountain, and night's falling,” said Pig. “Never mind about an oculist, there's nowhere for us to shelter for the night.”
“There's no problem about shelter,” Monkey replied. “I don't think that evil spirit will dare to do our master any harm, so let's find the main path and look for a house to stay in tonight. We can come back here at first light to subdue that fiend.”
“Very well, very well,” Pig replied.
Leading the horse and carrying the baggage, they came out of the hollow and went along the path. The dusk was gradually deepening when they heard dogs barking under a hill to the South of the path. They stopped to look and saw a farmhouse with a lamp shining brightly in its window. The pair of them stopped bothering to look for the path and cut straight through the grass to the gate. They saw
Dark magic fungus,
Greeny white rocks.
The magic fungus was dark among the many herbs,
The white rocks were green with moss.
Some tiny fireflies made dots of light
Against the dense ranks of the forest trees.
Heavy was the fragrance of the orchid,
And the tender bamboo had been newly cut.
A pure spring flowed along a winding bed,
An ancient cypress hung over a cliff.
No travelers came to this remote spot,
And only wild flowers bloomed before the gate.
As they did not want to march straight in, the two of them shouted, “Open up, open up.”
An old man came out at the head of several farm hands carrying forks, rakes and brooms. “Who are you,” he asked, “who are you?”
“We are the disciples of the holy priest of the Great Tang in the East,” replied Monkey with a bow. “We were crossing these mountains on our way to the West to visit the Buddha and ask for the scriptures when the Great King of the Yellow Wind snatched our master away. We haven't been able to rescue him yet, but as it is getting dark we have come to beg for a night's lodging in your mansion, and we hope very much that you will help us.”
The old man returned his bow and said, “I'm sorry I didn't welcome you properly. This is a place where we see a lot of clouds but very few people, and when I heard you shouting at the gate I feared it might be fox-spirits, tigers, bandits from the mountains, or something of the sort. I am afraid that I have stupidly offended you: I did not realize it would be two reverend gentlemen. Please come in.” Taking the horse and the luggage with them they went inside, tethered the animal, put down the carrying pole, bowed to the old man, and sat down. A servant came in with tea, and when they had drunk it some bowls of sesame meal were produced. After they had eaten, the old man had beds prepared for them and suggested that they went to bed. “We don't need to sleep yet,” Monkey replied, adding, “may I ask you, kind sir, if eye ointment is sold anywhere around here?”
“Do you have a chronic eye complaint, reverend sir?” the old man asked.
“I can tell you truthfully, sir,” Monkey replied, “that we religious men have never been ill before, and I've never had trouble with my eyes before.”
“Then why are you asking for ointment?” the old man asked.
“We were trying to rescue our master on the Yellow Wind Ridge today,” Monkey explained, “when that monster started blowing his wind at me, which made my eyes ache. They're streaming with tears now, which is why I want to find some eye ointment.”
“A fine story,” the old man commented. “How could you tell such lies, a reverend gentleman, and so young a one at that? The Great King of the Yellow Wind's hurricane is really terrible. It can't be compared with spring winds, autumn winds, pine and bamboo winds, or North, South, East and West winds.”
“It must be a brain-snatching wind,” interrupted Pig, “or a goat's ear wind, or a hemp wind, or a head-twisting wind.”
“No, no,” the old man said, “it's called a Divine Samadhi Wind.”
“What's it like?” Monkey asked.
“It can darken Heaven and Earth,
Make gods and devils gloomy,
Split rocks open and bring cliffs down,
And it doesn't stop till you're dead,”
the old man replied. “If you'd encountered that wind, you couldn't possibly have survived. Only a god or an Immortal would be able to survive such a wind.”
“Quite right,” Monkey replied, “quite right. Although we're not gods or Immortals ourselves, I regard them as my juniors, and this life of mine is extremely hard to snuff out-all the wind could do was to make my eyes very sore.”
“If what you say is true,” the old man said, “you must really be somebody. Although there is nowhere that sells eye ointment here, I sometimes suffer from watering eyes myself when I'm in the wind, and I once met an unusual person who gave me a prescription for 'Three Flower Nine Seed Ointment'. This cures all inflammations of the eye.”
Monkey bowed his head, chanted a respectful “na-a-aw,” and said, “Please put a little on my eyes for me to try.” The old man consented, went inside, and brought out a tiny agate bottle. Removing the stopper, he dipped a jade hairpin inside and put a tiny amount in Monkey's eyes, then told him not to open them. He could go to sleep without worrying, and in the morning he would be cured. When he had finished applying it he put the stopper back the bottle and gave it to a servant to put away inside. Pig opened their bundles, spread out their bedding, and told Monkey to go to bed.
Monkey groped about so wildly with his eyes shut that Pig laughed at him and said, “Would you like a blind man's stick, sir?”
“Chaff-guzzling moron,” Monkey retorted, “do you want to make a blind man of me?” The idiot chuckled himself quietly to sleep, but Monkey sat thinking on the bed until midnight before he dozed off.
At about five the next morning, just before the break of day, Brother Monkey rubbed his face, opened his eyes and said, “It certainly is good ointment-I can see far, and more clearly than ever.” He turned round to look behind him, and to his astonishment there was no house, windows, or doors; all that could be seen were some ancient locust trees and tall willows. The pair of them were sleeping on cushions of green sedge.
“What are you shouting for?” asked Pig as he woke up.
“Open your eyes and look,” replied Monkey. The idiot raised his head, and when he saw that there was nobody there, he leapt up in a panic with the words, “Where's our horse?”
“Over there, tied to a tree,” said Monkey.
“What about the luggage?”
“There, beside your head.”
“The wretches,” said Pig, “moving way in the middle of the night. Damn it, we must have been almost dead asleep. However did they dismantle the house without us hearing a thing?”
“Idiot,” said Monkey with a snigger, “don't go shouting all over the place. Can you see what that piece of paper on the tree over there is?” Pig went over, tore it down, and saw that there were four lines of verse on it:
“This farm was not inhabited by mortals;
The Revealers of the Truth produced the house by magic.
I gave you good medicine to cure your eyes:
Subdue demons with all your heart, and never hesitate.”
“So those tough gods came to play their tricks, although I haven't called the roll since they changed the dragon into a horse,” said Monkey.
“Don't show off, brother,” said Pig. “How could they possibly answer to your roll-call?”
“You don't realize,” Monkey replied, “that the Protectors of the Faith, the Six Dings, the Six Jias, the Revealers of the Truth of the Five Regions and the Four Duty Gods have all been ordered by the Bodhisattva to give secret protection to our master. They reported their names to me then, but as I've had you with me recently I haven't needed them again, which is why I haven't called the roll.”
“Brother,” Pig replied, “if they have been ordered to protect our master in secret, then of course they can't appear in their true forms. That was why they produced the magic farm. You mustn't be angry with them. Yesterday they gave you eye ointment and fed us-they did all they could. Don't be angry with them. Let's go and rescue the master instead.”
“How right you are,” said Monkey. “It's not far from here to the Yellow Wind Cave, so there's no need for you to move. You'd better stay in the wood and look after the horse and the luggage while I go to the cave to see what I can find out about where our master is before fighting the monster again.”
“Yes,” said Pig, “find out for sure whether he's alive or dead. If the master's dead, we'd better each go our own way, and if he's alive we'll do everything we can to save him.”
“Stop talking such nonsense,” replied Monkey. “I'm off.”
With a single jump he arrived at the entrance to the cave, where the gates were still locked as everyone was asleep. Monkey did not call on them to open the gates as he did not want to alarm the monsters. Instead he said a spell, made a magic movement with his hand, shook himself, and turned into a neat little mosquito. There are some lines about it that go
:
Its troublesome little body has a sharp bite,
Its faint buzz echoes like thunder.
Clever at getting through the curtains round the bed,
It particularly loves the summer's warm weather.
It fears only smoke and fly-swatters,
And loves the brilliance of the lamp.
Light and tiny, it flies straight in,
Entering the evil spirit's cave.
Seeing that the lowly demon on the gate was fast asleep and snoring, Monkey bit him on the face, at which the creature woke up and said, “My lord! What an enormous mosquito! It's raised a huge lump with a single bite.” Then he opened his eyes and announced, “It's light.” The two gates creaked open, and Monkey flew inside with a buzz to see the old demon giving orders that a very close watch was to be kept at all the gates, and all the weapons are to be assembled at such-and-such a spot.
“I'm afraid that yesterday's wind may not have killed Brother Monkey,” he was saying, “and I think he's bound to come back today. When he does, I'll finish him off.”
When he heard this, Monkey flew across to the back of the hall where he saw a door that was tightly closed. He slipped through the crack between the two leaves of the door and found himself in a large empty garden, on one side of which was the wind-settling stake with the Tang Priest tied to it. The tears were pouring down Sanzang's face as he wondered where Monkey and Pig were. Monkey stopped flying as he stung his shaven pate and called, “Master.”
“Monkey,” said Sanzang, recognizing his voice, “do you want to get me killed? Where are you calling me from?”
“I'm on your head, master. Don't be anxious or worried. We are sure to catch that evil spirit and save your life.”
“How long will it be till you catch that evil spirit, disciple?”
“Pig has already killed the tiger monster who captured you,” Monkey replied, “but that old fiend has a terrible way with a hurricane. All the same, I'm certain that I can catch him today, so don't worry and stop crying. I'm off now.”
With those words he buzzed away to the front hall, where he saw the old monster sitting on his throne and reviewing his captains. A junior evil spirit suddenly rushed in with a command flag in his hands and announced, “I had just gone out to patrol the mountain, Your Majesty, when I saw a monk with a long snout and big ears sitting in the woods. If I hadn't run as fast as I could, he'd have caught me. But I didn't see that hairy-faced monk.”