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

Put his hands together and fumed to the vice-premier.

My hat and armour were removed, and I was stripped of office,

Then marched to the place of execution.

Then, to my good fortune, the great Bare-foot Immortal

Stepped forward to ask for my reprieve.

Death was commuted; I was allowed to live

In exile on the East bank of the Flowing Sands River.

When well-fed I sleep in the river waters;

When hungry I burst through the waves in search of food.

If a woodcutter meets me his life is finished-

No fisherman sees me and survives.

In one way and another I've eaten many a man,

Cloaked as I am in an aura of death.

As you've dared to come to make trouble at my gates

My belly has something to look forward to today.

No matter if you're coarse and don't taste good,

When I've caught you I can cut you up for salted mince.”

Pig was extremely angry to hear this, and he replied, “You're completely blind, wretch. I can catch bubbles in my fingers, so how dare you say that I'm so coarse you'll cut me up for salted mince? So you take me to be a very well-cured side of ham! Don't be impudent-take a dose of this rake.” When the monster saw the rake coming at him he did a “phoenix nod” to avoid it. The two of them fought their way up to the surface of the water, where each of them trod on the waves as they struggled in a combat that was even fiercer than their previous one.

The Curtain-lifting General,

And Marshal Tian Peng;

Each gave a splendid show of magic powers.

The ogre-quelling staff wheels around the head,

The nine-pronged rake is swift in the hand.

As they leap on the waves, they shake hills and rivers,

Darkening the world as they push the waters aside,

As terrible as the Disaster Star striking banners and pendants,

As frightening as lifting the canopy off the Death Star.

One was the loyal defender of the Tang Priest,

The other, a criminal, was an ogre of the waters.

Where the rake struck it left nine scars;

When the staff smote, all the souls were scattered.

Cheerfully fighting for all they were worth,

They put all their hearts into the combat.

Although he is only a pilgrim fetching scriptures

His unrestrained anger bursts against the sky.

Such was the chaos that the fishes lost their scales,

While the soft shells of terrapins were crushed;

Red prawns and purple crabs all lost their lives,

And all the gods of the water palace prayed to heaven.

The only sound was the thunder of crashing waves;

Sun and moon were dark, to the horror of earth and sky.

They battled on for four hours, but the issue was still undecided. It was as if a brass pan was fighting an iron brush, or a jade chime was competing with a golden bell.

The Great Sage, who was standing beside the Tang Priest to guard him, watched the fight on the water with longing, unable to do anything. Then Pig feinted with his rake, pretended to be beaten, and made for the Eastern bank with the ogre rushing after him. When he had almost reached the bank, Monkey could hold himself back no longer. Abandoning his master, he sprang down to the river's edge with his cudgel in his hand and took a swing at the ogre's head. Not daring to face him, the monster went straight back into the river. “Protector of the Horses,” Pig shouted, “you impatient ape. You should have taken it a bit more slowly and waited till I'd drawn him up to high ground, and then cut him off from the river-bank. Then he wouldn't have been able to go back and we'd have caught him. But now he's gone back in, he'll never come out again.”

“Don't shout, idiot,” Monkey said with a smile, “don't shout. Let's go back and see our master.”

When Pig reached the top of the bank with Monkey, Sanzang bowed to him and said, “You've had a tough time, disciple.”

“I wouldn't say that,” Pig replied. “But if we'd captured that evil spirit and made him take you across the river, that would have been the perfect solution.”

“How did your battle with the evil spirit go?” Sanzang asked.

“He's as good as me,” Pig replied. “When I pretended to be beaten in the fight he chased me to the river's edge; but then he saw elder brother waving his cudgel, so he ran away.”

“So what are we going to do?” Sanzang asked.

“Relax, master,” said Monkey, “there's no need to worry. It's getting late, so you'd better sit on the bank while I go and beg some food. When you've eaten that you can go to sleep, and we can decide what to do tomorrow morning.”

“Good idea,” said Pig. “Be as quick as you can.”

Monkey leapt up on his cloud, went due North to a house where he begged some food, and came back to give it to his master. Seeing him come back so soon, Sanzang said to him, “Monkey, let's go to the house where you begged this food and ask them how to cross this river. That would be better than having to fight this ogre.”

“But that house is a long way away,” laughed Monkey. “It's about two thousand miles from here. What would be the point in asking them about this river? They wouldn't know anything about it.”

“You're telling tall stories again,” Pig said. “If it's two thousand miles away, how did you get there and back so fast?”

“You wouldn't know, of course,” Brother Monkey replied, “that my somersault cloud can cover thirty-six thousand miles with a single bound. To do a mere two-thousand-mile return journey takes only a couple of nods and a bow-there's nothing to it.”

“If it's so easy, brother,” said Pig, “you should carry the master on your back, take him across with just a couple of nods and a bow, and save us all the trouble of fighting the monster.”

“You can ride clouds, can't you?” said Monkey. “Why don't you carry the master across?”

“The master's mortal flesh and bones are heavier than Mount Tai,” said Pig, “So although I can ride clouds I could never lift him. Nothing but your somersault will do the trick.”

“My somersault is the same as cloud-riding.” Monkey said, “except that it takes you further. I'm no more able to carry him than you are. As the old saying goes, 'Mount Tai is as easy to move as a mustard seed, but a mortal cannot be dragged away from the earthly dust.' When that other poisonous monster of a fiend made a magic wind I could only move the master by dragging and tugging him along the ground. Of course. I can do tricks like that, and all those other ones like making myself invisible or shrinking land. But although our master cannot escape from the sea of suffering he wants to go to a foreign land, so he finds every inch of the way heavy going. All we can do is escort him and see that he comes to no harm. We can't undergo all that suffering on his behalf, nor can we fetch the scriptures for him. Even if we went ahead to see the Buddha, he wouldn't give the scriptures to you or me. After all, if we could get them that easily, we'd have nothing to do.” The idiot accepted everything Monkey said, then they ate some plain rice without any vegetables, after which the three of them went to sleep on the Eastern bank of the Flowing Sands River.

“Monkey,” said Sanzang the next morning, “what are we going to do about it today?”

“There's nothing for it but to send Pig back under the water,” Monkey replied. “You're making me go underwater because you want to stay dry, brother,” Pig protested. “I won't be impatient this time,” Monkey said. “I'll let you lure him out onto the bank and then I'll cut him off from the river. That way we'll be bound to catch him.”

Dear Pig rubbed his face, summoned up his energy, took his rake in both hands, went down to the river, and parted the waters as he went back to the monster's lair once more. The ogre, who had only just woken up, turned to see what was happening the moment he heard the waters being pushed apart. Observing that a rake-wielding Pig was upon him, he sprang to his feet to stop him, shouting, “Not so fast, not so fast. Take this.” Pig blocked the blow from the staff with his rake and said, “What do you mean by telling your ancestor to 'take this' from that mourner's staff of yours?”