Wu Cheng-en - Journey to the West (vol. 1)

One day the Queen Mother arranged a banquet, opening many precious pavilions for a feast of peaches by the Jade Pool. She sent the Red Fairy, the Blue Fairy, the White Fairy, the Black Fairy, the Purple Fairy, the Yellow Fairy, and the Green Fairy to the Peach Orchard with their baskets to pick peaches for the feast. The seven fairies went straight to the orchard gates, the workmen of the orchard and the immortal superintendents of the two offices of the Equaling Heaven Residence were guarding the gate.

The fairies went up to them and said, “We have come on the orders of the Queen Mother to pick peaches for a feast.”

“Wait a moment please, Immortal Beauties,” said the local god. “Things are different this year. The Jade Emperor has appointed the Great Sage Equaling Heaven to be the guardian of this orchard, and we must ask him before we can open the orchard to you.”

“Where is the Great Sage?” the fairies asked, and the local god replied, “Inside the orchard. As he was feeling tired he is having a nap by himself in a summerhouse.”

“In that case, please find him without delay,” requested the fairies, and the local god took them into the orchard. But all they could find of him in the summerhouse were his hat and clothes. They had no idea where he could have gone, and looked everywhere without success. The Great Sage had in fact made himself only two inches long after eating some of the peaches for fun, and he was sleeping under a large leaf at the top of one of the big trees.

“We have come by decree, and we can't go back empty-handed, although the Great Sage is nowhere to be found,” said the fairies.

One of the immortal superintendents who was standing nearby replied, “As you Immortal Beauties have come by order of the Queen Mother, we must not delay you. Our Great Sage is always wandering off, so I expect that he has gone away to visit some of his friends. You had better pick the peaches; it will be all right if we inform him.”

The fairies did as he suggested and went into the orchard to pick peaches. First they filled two baskets from the trees in front, and then they picked three basketfuls from the trees in the middle; but when they came to the trees at the back, they saw that peaches and blossoms were few and far between. Only a few unripe fruits with furry stalks and green skins were left. All the ripe ones had been eaten up by the Monkey King. The seven fairies looked everywhere, but all they could see was a single red and white peach on a Southern branch. The Blue Fairy pulled the branch down, the Red Fairy picked the peach, and then they let the branch go again. This woke up the Great Sage, who had changed himself into this peach to take a nap on this branch.

He resumed his own form, took his gold-banded cudgel from his ear, shook it till it was as thick as a ricebowl, and shouted at them, “Where are you from, you thieving fiends?” The seven fairies fell on their knees in confusion.

“Please don't be angry with us, Great Sage. We're not fiends but seven fairies sent by Her Majesty the Queen Mother of the West to pick peaches of immortality and open the precious halls here for a Feast of Peaches. When we arrived here we saw the local god and other deities of the place, but we could not find you, Great Sage. We could not delay carrying out the Queen Mother's orders, so we went ahead and picked the peaches without waiting for you, Great Sage. We very much hope that you will forgive us.”

These words turned the Great Sage's bad mood into a good one, and he said, “Please rise, Fairy Beauties. Who is the Queen Mother inviting to this feast?”

“There are old rules about who attends: The Buddha of the Western Heaven, Bodhisattvas, holy monks, Arhats, the Guanyin of the South Pole, the Merciful and Sage Emperor of the East, the Venerable Immortals of the Ten Continents and the Three Islands, the Mystic Divinity of the North Pole, and the Great Yellow-horned Immortal of the Yellow Pole at the Centre. These make up the Five Venerable Ones of the Five Regions. There will also be the Star Lords of the Five Constellation; the Three Pure Ones, the Four Emperors and the Heavenly Immortal of the Great Monad from the Eight High Caves; the Jade Emperor, the immortals of the Nine Mounds, and the gods of the Seas and Mountains and the Ruler of the Nether World from the Eight Lower Caves; and the terrestrial deities. All the major and minor gods of all the halls and palaces will come to the Feast of Peaches.”

“Will I be invited?” asked the Great Sage with an ingratiating smile.

“Not as far as we've heard,” the fairies replied.

“I'm the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, so why shouldn't I be asked?” said the Great Sage.

“That was what happened before: we don't know about this time,” the fairies replied.

“You're right,” he said. “Just wait here while I go and find out whether I'm invited.”

Splendid Great Sage. Making a magic with his hands as he spoke the words of the spell, he said to the fairies, “Stay where you are! Stay where you are!” As this was an immobilizing spell, the seven fairies were left standing in a daze under the peach tree with their eyes wide open as the Great Sage leapt out of the orchard on a somersault cloud and headed for the Jade Pool. As he traveled he saw that

The sky shimmered with auspicious light

As clouds of many colours streamed across it.

The white stork's cry made the heavens shake;

A thousand leaves grew on the purple asphodel.

Amid it all an Immortal appeared,

Carrying himself with heaven-sent elegance,

As he danced on the rainbow, cloaked by the Milky Way,

With a talisman at his waist to ward off birth and death.

His name was Bare-Foot Immortal,

And he was going to the feast of longevity-giving peaches.

As the Bare-foot Immortal saw him, the Great Sage lowered his head and thought of a plan by which to trick the Immortal and get to the banquet himself.

“Where are you going, reverend sir?” he asked; and the Immortal replied, “I'm going to the Peach Banquet by the invitation of the Queen Mother.”

“There is something you do not know, venerable sir,” said the Great Sage. “As my somersault cloud is so fast, the Jade Emperor has sent me everywhere to tell all you gentlemen to go to the Hall of Universal Brightness for a ceremony before going on to the banquet.”

As the Immortal was an open and upright man, he took this lie for the truth, but wondered, “The thanksgiving ceremony is usually held by the Jade Pool, so why are we having the ceremony in the Hall of Universal Brightness before going to the Jade Pool for the banquet?” Nevertheless, he turned his propitious cloud around and went to the Hall of Universal Brightness.

As the Great Sage rode his cloud he said a spell, shook himself, took the form of the Bare-foot Immortal, and hurried to the Jade Pool. He reached the pavilion there a moment later, stopped his cloud, and went quietly inside. He saw

Fabulous perfumes coiling,

A confusion of auspicious clouds;

The jade tower set with color,

The precious pavilions scattering mists;

The phoenix soars till almost lost to view,

And jeweled flowers seem to rise and fall.

Above a nine-phoenix screen

A rainbow stool of the eight precious things,

A coloured golden table,

Green jade bowls with a thousand flowers.

On the table were dragon livers and marrow of phoenix bone,

Bears' paws and apes' lips-

A hundred different dishes, and all of them good;

Rare fruits and fine delicacies, every one unique.

Everything was neatly set out, but no Immortals had yet arrived. The Great Sage had not finished looking when he smelt wine; and as he whirled round he saw under a portico to the right several immortal officials in charge of brewing liquor with some workmen who stirred the lees, a number of novices who carried water and some boys who looked after the fires. They were washing the vats and scrubbing the pots, having made jade liquor and a fragrant fermentation of the lees. The Great Sage could not stop himself from drooling, and he longed to drink some, but unfortunately all those people were there. So he performed a spell by pulling several hairs from his body, chewing them up, spitting them up, saying the magic words, and shouting “Change”; whereupon the hairs turned into sleep insects, which flew into the faces of all the liquor-makers. Watch them as their hands go limp, their heads droop, their eyes close, and they drop their symbols of office and all fall asleep. Whereupon the Great Sage grabbed the rare delicacies and exotic foods, then went under the portico and drank from the vats and pots until he was completely drunk.