by Wu Cheng-En
The love of his life was contemplation;
He never took a step from Buddha land.
He did not care for female charms,
Knowing only how to nourish his true nature.
The she-devil
Was full of life
And unbounded desire.
The venerable monk
Seemed almost dead,
His mind fixed on meditation.
One was soft jade and warm fragrance;
The other was dead ash and withered wood.
One spread open the bridal sheets,
Full of voluptuousness;
The other fastened his tunic more tightly,
His heart ever true.
One longed to press her breasts against him and entwine their limbs
In rapturous union;
The other wanted only to sit facing the wall
Like the monk Bodhidharma.
The she-devil took off her clothes,
Displaying her smooth skin and fragrant body;
The Tang Priest pulled his robes together,
Covering the roughness of his hide and flesh.
The she-devil said,
“There is room on my pillow and under my sheet:
Why not come to bed?”
The Tang Priest replied,
“My head is shaven and I wear monk's robes:
I may not join you.”
She said, “I would like to be Liu Cuicui in the story.”
He replied, “But I am not like the Monk of the Moonlight.”
The she-devil said, “I am more lovely than Xi Shi herself.”
“Long was the king of Yue buried on her account,” the monk replied.
“Do you remember the lines,” the she-devil asked,
“'I'm willing to die and be buried under flowers;
Even as a ghost shall I live and love?'”
To this the Tang Priest replied,
“My true masculinity is my great treasure;
I could not lightly give it to a bag of bones like you.”
The two of them kept up their battle of words till it was late in the night, and the Tang Priest's resolution was unmoved. The she-devil kept tugging at his clothes, refusing to let go of him, while the master kept up his resistance. The struggle went on till the middle of the night, when the she-devil finally lost her temper and called, “Bring rope, little ones.” Sadly she had her beloved man tied up like a dog and dragged outside to the portico. Then the silver lamps were blown out and everyone went to bed for the night.
Before they knew it the cocks had crowed three times. On the mountainside the Great Sage Monkey leaned forward and said, “This head of mine ached for a while, but now it doesn't hurt or feel numb. It's just a bit itchy.”
“If it's itchy then what about letting her jab it again for you?” said Pig with a grin.
“We've got to make her let him go,” said Monkey, spitting.
“'Let him go, let him go,'“ mocked Pig. “I bet our master spent last night having a go.”
“Stop arguing, you two,” said Friar Sand. “It's light now. We've got to capture that demon as quickly as we can.”
“Brother,” said Monkey, “you stay here and look after the horse. Don't move. Pig, come with me.”
The idiot braced himself, tightened the belt round his black cotton tunic and went with Monkey as each of them leapt up to the top of the car and arrived beneath the stone screen, weapon in hand. “You stand here,” said Monkey. “I'm afraid that the she-devil may have harmed the master during the night, so wait while I go in and find out. If he was seduced by her into losing his primal masculinity and ruining his virtue then we'll all split up. But if he kept his spirit firm and his dhyana heart was unmoved we'll have to hold out till we've killed the she-devil and rescued the master. Then we can head West.”
“Idiot!” said Pig. “As the saying goes, can a dried fish be a cat's pillow? Even if she didn't succeed she'll have had a good grab at him.”
“Stop talking such nonsense,” said Monkey. “I'm going to have a look.”
The splendid Great Sage took his leave of Pig and went round the rock screen. Then he shook himself, turned back into a bee, and flew inside, where he saw two serving girls sound asleep with their heads pillowed on their watch-keepers' clappers and gongs. When he reached the flower pavilion he found that the devils were still asleep, exhausted after being up half the night, and not aware that it was dawn. Monkey then flew on to the back of the cave, where he could half hear Sanzang's voice. He looked up to see the master with his hands and feet all roped together under the portico. Landing lightly on Sanzang's head he said, “Master.”
Recognizing his voice, Sanzang said, “Is that you, Wukong. Rescue me!”
“Did you have a good time last night?” Monkey asked.
“I would have died first,” Sanzang replied through clenched teeth.
“Yesterday it looked to me that she was in love with you,” Monkey continued, “so why has she been torturing you like this?”
“She pestered me for half the night,” Sanzang replied, “but I never undid my clothes or even touched the bed. She only tied me up and left me here when she saw that I was not going to give in to her. Whatever happens you must rescue me so that I can go and fetch the scriptures.” By now their conversation had woken the she-devil up. Ferocious though she was she still could not bear to lose Sanzang.
As she woke up and sat up she heard him saying “fetch the scriptures,” rolled straight out of bed, and shrieked, “What do you want to go and fetch scriptures for instead of being my husband?”
This alarmed Monkey, who left the master, spread his wings, flew out, turned back into himself, and shouted for Pig. The idiot came round the stone screen and asked, “Well? Did it happen?”
“No,” laughed Monkey, “it didn't. She kept pawing him but he wouldn't go along with her, so she lost her temper and tied him up. Just when he was telling me what had happened the fiend woke up and I had to rush out in a panic.”
“What did the master say?” Pig asked.
“He told me that he never undid his clothes,” Monkey replied, “and never even touched the bed.”
“That's wonderful,” said Pig. “He's a true monk. Let's go and save him.”
The idiot was too crude to bother with arguing: he lifted his rake and brought it down with all his might against the doors, smashing them to pieces. This gave the serving girls who were asleep with their heads pillowed on their watch-keepers' clappers and gongs such a fright that they ran to the inner doors shouting, “Open up! The two ugly men who came here last night have smashed the front doors down.”
The she-devil was just coming out of her bedroom when four or five serving girls came rushing in to report, “Madam, the two ugly men who were here yesterday have come back and smashed the front doors down.”
On hearing this the she-devil ordered, “Little ones, boil water at once for me to wash and comb my hair.” Then she told them, “Carry the emperor's brother roped up as he is and lock him up in the back room. I'm going out to fight them.”
Out went the splendid monster, brandishing her trident and shouting abusively, “Vicious ape! Dirty hog! Ignorant beast! How dare you come knocking down my doors!”
“Filthy whore,” Pig retaliated, “you tie our master up and then you have the nerve to talk tough like that. You tried to seduce our master into being your husband. Give him back now and we'll spare your life. If there's so much as a hint of a 'no' from you this rake of mine will smash your whole mountain down.”
The demon did not allow any more argument but summoned up her spirits and used the same magic as before to breathe out smoke and fire as she thrust at Pig with her steel trident. Swerving aside to avoid the blow, Pig struck back with his rake. When Monkey joined in to help him with his cudgel the she-devil used more magic to give herself endless pairs of hands with which to parry their weapons to left and to right. When they had fought four or five rounds the mystery
weapon jabbed Pig in the lip, making him flee for his life, dragging his rake behind him and pressing a hand to his mouth. Monkey, who was also rather scared of her, feinted with his cudgel and fled in defeat too. The she-devil went back into her cave in victory, telling her underlings to build up a temporary outer barrier with rocks.
Friar Sand heard piggish groans as he was pasturing the horse and looked up to see Pig coming towards him with his hand on his face and moaning. “What's up?” Friar Sand asked.
“It's terrible, terrible,” the idiot groaned, “the pain, the pain.”
He was still complaining when Monkey turned up too, saying with a grin, “Idiot! Yesterday you wished me a carbuncle on my forehead, and today you've got one on your lip.”
“I can't bear it,” groaned Pig, “it's agony, it's excruciating.”
Just as the three of them were at a loss as to what to do an old woman came by with a green bamboo basket carrying wild vegetables from the hills to the South. “Brother,” said Friar Sand to Monkey, “that woman's coming this way. I'll ask her who this evil spirit is and what weapon she has that causes such terrible wounds.”
“You stay here while I go and ask her,” Monkey said, and taking a quick look he saw that there was a halo of auspicious cloud directly above the old woman's head, and that fragrant mists were all around her.
Recognizing who it was, Monkey called out, “Come and kowtow, brothers. This lady is the Bodhisattva.” This so surprised them that Pig kowtowed despite his pain, Friar Sand bowed low as he held the horse, and Monkey fell to his knees and called, “I submit to The Merciful and Compassionate Deliverer from Suffering, the Miraculously Responding Bodhisattva Guanyin.”
Seeing that they had recognized her, the Bodhisattva rose up into midair on her auspicious cloud and appeared in her true form as the carrier of the fish basket. Going up into the sky with her, Monkey kowtowed and reported, “Bodhisattva, please forgive your disciple for failing to come to meet you. Because we were so busy trying to save the master we did not realize that you had come to see us. We are now up against a monster we can't beat, and we beseech you, Bodhisattva, to help us.”
“She is indeed a very terrible monster,” the Bodhisattva replied. “Her trident is really the two claws she was born with, and what causes such agonizing wounds is a sting in her tail called 'horse-killer poison'. She was originally a scorpion spirit who used to listen to the Buddha preaching the scriptures on the Thunder Monastery. When the Tathagata Buddha saw her and mistakenly tried to push her away with his hand she used her tail to sting him on his left thumb. The Buddha in his pain told one of the vajrapanis to arrest her and she is now here. You will have to ask someone else for help as I too have to keep my distance from her.”
Monkey then bowed again and said, “I beg the Bodhisattva for further instructions. Please tell your disciple whom I should go to see to ask for help.”
“Go to the Palace of Light inside the Eastern Gate of Heaven and look for the Star Officer of the Pleiades. He will be able to subdue her.” Having spoken she turned into a beam of golden light and went straight back to the Southern Ocean.
The Great Sage Monkey then brought down his cloud and said to Pig and Friar Sand, “Don't worry, brothers. Our master has a star to save him.”
“Where?” Friar Sand asked.
“The Bodhisattva has just told me to ask the help of the Star Officer of the Pleiades,” Monkey said. “I'm off.”
“Brother,” groaned Pig, his hand still on his mouth, “please ask the star lord for some ointment to stop this pain.”
“You don't need any ointment,” laughed Monkey. “After a night's pain it'll get better, just as mine did last night.”
“Stop all that talk,” said Friar Sand, “and get there as fast as you can.”
The splendid Monkey set off at once on his somersault cloud and was outside the Eastern Gate of Heaven in an instant. The Heavenly King Virudhaka suddenly appeared to greet him courteously and ask, “Where are you going, Great Sage?”
“I want to go to the Palace of Light to see the Star Lord of the Pleiades because the Tang Priest I'm escorting to the West to fetch the scriptures is being pestered by a devil,” Monkey said. Then the four marshals Tao, Zhang, Xin and Deng appeared to ask Monkey where he was going.
“I'm looking for the Star Officer of the Pleiades to subdue a demon and rescue my master,” he said.
To this they answered, “The star officer has gone on an inspection to the Star-viewing Tower today at the Jade Emperor's command.”
“Is that true?” Monkey asked.
“We left the Dipper and Bull Palace with him,” Heavenly Lord Xin said, “and we would not dare lie about it.”
“He has been gone for a long time,” Heavenly Lord Tao said, “so he may be back by now. Great Sage, you would do best to go to the Palace of Light first, and if he is not back, go on to the Star-viewing Tower.”
This delighted the Great Sage, who took his leave of them and went to the gate of the Palace of Light. Finding that the star officer was indeed not there he was just about to leave when he noticed a column of soldiers outside. Behind them was the star lord returning in his court dress sewn with golden thread. This is how he looked:
The Five Peak pins in his hat gleamed gold;
The mountain and river tablet he held was of the finest jade.
The Seven Stars hung from his waist amid clouds and mist;
Bright were the rings of jade on his Eight-pole sash.
His pendants chimed with a rhythmical sound;
The wind rushing past made a noise like bells.
The Star Officer of the Pleiades came holding his kingfisher fan;
While clouds of heavenly incense filled the hall.
When the soldiers in the front ranks saw Monkey standing outside the Palace of Light they hurried back to report, “My lord, the Great Sage Sun is here.” The star officer put away his clouds and tidied his court dress, then when the attendants carrying his insignia of office stood aside to left and right he stepped forward to greet Monkey courteously and ask, “Why are you here, Great Sage?”
“I have come especially to pay my respects and beg you to rescue my master from disaster,” Brother Monkey replied.
“What disaster, and where?” the star officer asked.
“He is in the Pipa Cave on Deadly Foe Mountain in Western Liang,” Monkey replied.
“What evil monster is there in the cave that you should need to send for me?” asked the star officer.
“The Bodhisattva Guanyin appeared to us just now,” Monkey said, “and told us that she is a scorpion spirit. She specially mentioned you, sir, as the only person who would be able to control her. That is why I have come here to ask your help.”
“I would have preferred to submit a memorial to the Jade Emperor,” the star officer replied, “but as you have come here, Great Sage, and as I am much obliged to the Bodhisattva for recommending me I would not like to lose any more time. Excuse me if I don't offer you tea: let's go down to subdue the demon. I can report back to His Majesty on my return.”
At that the Great Sage went out with the star officer through the Eastern Gate of Heaven and straight back to Western Liang. Seeing Deadly Foe Mountain not far off, Monkey Pointed to it and said, “That's the mountain.” The star lord brought his cloud down and went with Monkey to the slope in front of the stone screen.
“Get up, brother,” said Friar Sand to Pig on seeing them. “Brother Monkey is back with the star officer.”
“Forgive me,” said the idiot, his hand still pressed over his mouth, “forgive me, but I'm too ill to pay you all the courtesies.”
“But you are one who cultivates his conduct,” the star lord said. “How can you be ill?”
“The she-devil jabbed me in the lip when I was fighting her,” Pig replied, and it still hurts.”
“Come here,” said the star lord, “and I'll cure it for you.”
Only then did the idiot put his hands down as he groane
d, “Please, please cure it for me. I'll pay you well when it's better.” The star lord then touched his lip and blew on it, at which the pain stopped. A delighted Pig went down on his knees and kowtowed to the star lord. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said.
“Will you touch my head too?” asked Monkey with a smile.
“Why?” the star lord asked. “You weren't jabbed with the poison.”
“I was yesterday,” said Monkey, “and it only stopped hurting after last night. It's still rather numb and itchy and may be bad again when the weather turns overcast, which is why I would like you to cure it.” The star officer then touched and blew on his head too, thus removing the remaining poison and stopping the numbness and itching.
“Brother,” said a wrathful Pig, “let's go and fight that vicious creature.”
“Yes, yes,” the star lord said, “you two call her out so that I can put her in her place.”
Monkey and Pig leapt up the slope and went round the stone screen once more. Yelling insults the idiot used his hands like picks and hit with his rake to clear a way through the wall of stones that had been built outside the mouth of the cave. Once through these outer defenses he struck again with his rake to smash the inner doors to sawdust, giving the little devils behind them such a shock that they ran inside to report, “Madam, those two hideous men have smashed the inner doors now.” The she-devil had just had the Tang Priest untied and sent for some vegetarian breakfast for him when she heard the inner doors being smashed. Leaping out of her flower pavilion she thrust at Pig with her trident. He parried with his rake while Monkey joined in the fight from the side. The she-devil went right up to them and was just going to use her vicious trick when the two of them, who now knew what she was about, turned and fled.
As soon as the two of them were round the rock Monkey shorted, “Where are you, star lord?” The star lord stood up at once on the mountainside in his original form as a giant rooster with twin combs. When he raised his head he was six or seven feet tall, and as soon as he crowed the monster reverted to her true appearance as a scorpion spirit the size of a pipa mandolin. When the star officer crowed again the monster's whole body crumbled in death. There is a poem as evidence that goes,